Today was a really cool day. Today I ran into Agen…

August 7, 2004 by DoctaJay

Today was a really cool day. Today I ran into Agena Davenport, a just graduated Oakwood student who will be starting the University of Cincinnati med school this upcoming week!!! Tuesday is their orientation day, and Friday is their white coat ceremony. She was really happy to see me and the other Oakwood students here doing research because she didn’t know anyone in the area, and had basically just been chilling in her apartment all week with nothing to do. It’s so encouraging to see people from your school actually make it; it reminds you that there still is a chance. She took us to her apartment so we could see what a medical student lives like. It was a really nice apartment, a 2 bedroom for only $525 a month. She was telling us that she had gotten accepted to Loma Linda University and University of Cincinnati; and that even though Loma Linda was her same religion, she liked the atmosphere and felt that she fit in better at Cincinnati. Loma Linda was giving her a $7,500/year scholarship and at the time, Cincinnati was giving her nothing. So she was still on the fence trying to decide. She prayed over it, and decided to go to Cincinnati, and the next day after she decided, Cincinnati called her and told her that they were giving her a scholarship that paid HALF her tuition every year!!! The Lord will really let you know where He wants you to go, if you leave it in His hands. So anyway, that was really cool, and I hope I can pop into some of the orientation programs this upcoming week.

Tonight I saw ‘Collateral Damage’ with Jamie Fox and Tom Cruise. That was a really really good movie. I’d recommend everyone to see it.

Back to more premed stuff. I’m thinking of living off campus this upcoming year. My school has a policy where you are supposed to clear 70% of your 1st semester tuition before you can start. ISN’T THAT ABSOLETLY RIDICULOUS!!! Yeah, well it was fine last year because I had a bunch of money from family coming in, but this year is going to be a little tight. Looking for apartments over the internet is exciting but frustrating at the same time, because I can’t visit them until I get down there, and by that time there won’t be any vacancies. My school also has a policy where technically, you aren’t allowed to live off campus until you are 21 years old (there are ways to get around it though)!!!! Ugh, this is so annoying. I’m going to rant for a little bit. I came into Oakwood from high school with a 3.97 GPA, VP of senior class, 1170 SATs (not good), and ranked 10 in the class. They gave me a $7,500/year scholarship, the tuition is $19K a year. My parents aren’t rich, but they aren’t poor, so FAFSA gives me like nothing ( a $1,800 year work study, so I can’t use that to clear). I finished my freshman year ranked #1 in my biology class, made the Dean’s List, received the Freshman Biology Student of the Year award, had a 4.0 GPA, and I was a Senator in student government. What the hell?!!! They still aren’t giving me money. They already applied my scholarship and I still have $4,000 left to pay before I can financially clear. I was supposed to stay on campus this upcoming year to do a mentoring program in the freshman boy’s dorm, but I can’t afford to live on campus, regardless of my academic performance. I think the whole FAFSA program is really jacked up. The people who give the school their good name, get absolutely no money. I basically gave my whole research check to Oakwood, and I still need $4,000 to clear. Crap; its whatever though. So, that is why I’m trying to live off campus. By living off campus, that is $4,000 I won’t have to pay to Oakwood, and I’ll actually have $110 credit’Whhoooppeeeee!!! I’ll keep you guys posted on the whole apartment thing; it’s just another part of the premed life. Please keep the comments rolling in!!!

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Today was my poster day for my research program. I…

August 6, 2004 by DoctaJay

Today was my poster day for my research program. It was pretty cool actually. You basically stand in front of your poster until both of the judges that are supposed to see your poster see it. After that, other people come around and ask you questions about your poster or they ask you to take them through exactly what your research was about. I guess this one guy thought I was just a stupid summer student who made a poster but didn’t really know what my research was about; so he asked me a bunch of antagonistic questions including asking me to take him through the whole apoptosis pathway. Thank goodness that I had been drilled on the apoptosis pathway by my mentor, so I was able to tell him. I guess after that I earned his respect, so he smiled and walked away; some people are really interesting.

I know this is really early, but here is a list of medical schools that I think I’m going to apply to. Beside each one is a reason why I want to go there (It’ll be obvious that I miss Maryland). At first I only had ten on my list, but someone told me to put more, so here they are:

1. Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons– It’s only a four hour drive from home

2. Cornell University (Weill) – It’s only a four hour drive from home

3. Drexel University – It’s in Philly, that’s not too far from home

4. Emory University – Atlanta seems like a fun place; and I heard this school was pretty good

5. George Washington University – It’s really close to home

6. Georgetown University – It’s really close to home

7. Howard University – Well, first off I kind of feel obligated to it since it’s one of our black medschools. It also happens to be close to home, plus my mom went their for medschool (but for some reason she doesn’t want me to go there; is there something wrong with Howard?)

8. Johns Hopkins University – Well its in my home state first off. Second it happens to be a really good school.

9. Loma Linda University– Well, I’m 7th day Adventist, and this is our only medical school, so I’m definitely applying here. The only thing is that its really far from Maryland.

10. Meharry Medical College – This is a historically black medical school whose mission is serving the poor. I also heard that last year the highest step 1 boards that year came from a Meharry student; so their academic record is good. Tennessee is a tad far from Maryland though.

11. Morehouse School of Medicine– It’s also a black school, that’s really the only reason I’m applying; I don’t know much about it though.

12. Mount Sinai School of Medicine– Well I have a whole lot of family in Brooklyn, and I’ve always loved NY; plus New York is only 4 hours away from home.

13. New York University– Same reasons as Mt. Sinai

14. Northwestern University (Feinberg)– To be honest I hadn’t heard of this school before I came to Cincinnati this summer. But it seems like everyone I talked to here said it was a good school, so I added it to my list. Plus the trauma surgeon I shadowed graduated from there, and happens to be in with the dean of admissions. So it would be stupid not to apply.

15. Penn State University College of Medicine– I’m not really sure why I’m applying here. It’s on the east coast and relatively close to Maryland, that’s really all.

16. SUNY–Brooklyn– It’s only four hours away from home. Plus I have family in Brooklyn.

17. University of Cincinnati – I did research here and made a lot of contacts; I have to apply here, plus I hear they have a good program here.

18. University of Maryland– IN STATE TUITION!!! Plus they are in the heart of the city of Baltimore, so the potential for outreach is really great.

19. University of Pittsburgh – It’s on the east coast, kind close to home.

20. University of Virginia – It’s close to home.

21. Yeshiva University (Albert Einstein) – It’s four hours from home, plus it’s a really good school; and I love NYC.

As you can tell, I don’t really care about the name of the school too much. If you are at the top of your class, you’ll get into whatever residency you want. So I have 21 schools listed; that’s $760 that I’ll be paying to AMCAS’ crap!!!


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I think that I’m going to stop visiting the Pre-Al…

August 5, 2004 by DoctaJay

I think that I’m going to stop visiting the Pre-Allopathic forum section of the Student Doctor site. I’m going to stop visiting the MCAT forum too. People are way to stressed out on those forums. It really doesn’t make any sense. In the MCAT forum, they ask questions about every little thing, and me who hasn’t taken the MCAT yet starts to get anxious because everyone else on the forum is anxious.

Another thing that pisses me off is all the talk of affirmative action on the pre-allopathic forum. Everytime I see one of those threads I just stay away. People get WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY too worked up about this. Yes, affirmative action is sometimes unfair to those it doesn’t apply to. Personally, I feel that I can get into whatever school I want to based on my hard earned credentials. But the sad truth of the matter is that just because of my race, there will be instances when my credentials won’t matter. Just a thought, why am I the only black diary writer on student doctor? I’m not at all accusing Dan and Brian about anything, but it is interesting. Everyone inside is slightly prejudice, AA is there to protect URMs against that. Yes, asians and whites, affirmative action many times slaps you in the face, I’m sorry. But it’s not going anywhere either. Instead of complaining about it, make yourself stand out by doing mission work, or by feeding the homeless every weekend. Something that proves that you’re more than just a brain, but you’re a future doctor that actually cares about human beings. I think the pre-allopathic forum would be a hell of a lot better if people stopped complaining about why did this person get in. Focus on why you didn’t get in, it’s not just because you are a overrepresented minority, but its because you are an overrepresented minority who didn’t have anything else to bring to the plate like ridiculous shadowing experience, or ridiculously good mission work, or ridiculously good musical talent, or ridiculously good artistic skills, etc. You just need something that is ridiculously good other than your MCAT scores and your GPAs, cause too many ORMs have those. I’m done ranting about that. I’m sure I’ll get a bunch of nasty comments from those that didn’t get in , but I guess that’s part of being a diary writer. So many people read these things that you’re bound to offend someone. If you want to know where I stand, I plan to get into wherever I’m going because of what I’ve achieved. But at some schools, AA is needed; its not going away, stop complaining.

I got my poster printed at Children’s Hospital today. It looks so (for lack of better words) pretty. It’s even prettier because I got it printed for free. I chuckled when I got it because it looks so professional that it looks that I actually accomplished something this summer researchwise. For those premeds out there, don’t be scared away from research because of my extremely negative attitude towards it. If you have the right personality, research will be heaven for you; but I don’t have it, and I hate it. My poster presentation is tomorrow at 12 noon, so pray for me; I might actually be asked some questions by the judges.

I went to shadow a emergency medicine doctor last night. I couldn’t stay long because his shift is from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. I just couldn’t hang with those kind of hours. But from what I saw while I was there, I was impressed. The first cool thing about ER docs is that, if you work at a level 1 trauma center, you get to where a flight suit and go up in the helicopter. Its so cool!!! They look like fighter pilots, but they are ER docs. Another cool thing about them is that they see so many different patients during the course of a day, so you are presented with many different medical puzzles to figure out. The only thing I noticed that I didn’t like was the length of patient contact. You really only spend at the most about 15 minutes with each patient, then you send them home (after you’ve figured out whats wrong with them and helped them of course). But it really seemed like the trauma surgeons had more long lasting patient contact. That may be because their patients are usually really sick and have to stay in the hospital longer, but regardless, they still spend more time with their patients than ER docs do.

I went today to talk to Dr. Davis, who is the only black surgeon in the UC hospital system, and who also happens to sit on the admissions committee. But he was called to the OR, and had to cancel our appointment. But I got to talk to another attending who was more than happy to write me a recommendation. A word of advice to the premeds; always, and I mean always form friendships with the big guys. And I don’t mean kiss up to them until they like you, but show a genuine interest in what they do, and they will write you a huge recommendation. The trauma surgeon I was shadowing graduated from Northwestern University, and happens to be real cool with the dean of admissions. Guess who’ll be writing me a special recommendation when I apply!!! The biggest piece of advice I have is NETWORKING; do it, love it, do it some more. It’ll get you places you never thought you’d be.

One of the girls who’s in my research program just got engaged!!! Now I know that guys usually don’t get excited about stuff like that, but I honestly can’t wait to get engaged. I’ve already been thinking of ways to propose (he he he). But I have a question for you girls out there, do you care whether the diamond is a .50 carat or a 1 carat? Does the size of the stone matter, or the beauty? Cause I’m pretty sure I’ll be broke when ring buying time comes around, and I don’t think I’ll be able to afford the size he got her (it was a 1 carat diamond, set on platinum).

One of the ER docs explained to me the condition they thought the 16 yr. old who got shot had. They thought that he might have developed a cardiac tamponade. Here’s what I recall him saying: For most structures in the body, you have 2 outer layers. A visceral layer which is around the organs and a parietal layer which is more so on the chest wall. The heart also has a visceral and parietal layer. In between those layers (in the heart) is a potential space, which is filled with just enough fluid to reduce friction. When, for some reason, too much fluid fills that space it increases the rigidity and pressure of the heart. When the heart is too rigid it can no longer relax in its normal cycle. During a normal cardiac cycle, the ventricles relax so that they can fill up with blood to pump out again. When, because of a cardiac tamponade, the heart can’t relax, the ventricles can’t fill up with as much blood as it normally does, therefore the efficiency of the systemic circulation is greatly decreased and the whole body isn’t perfused well. This is called a cardiac tamponade. When the 16 yr. old got shot, the bullet lodged itself either into or right beside his medistinum (the space surrounding his heart). This might have caused abnormal bleeding in his pericardial cavity, possibly increasing the fluid level in between his 2 layers, and causing a cardiac tamponade. They had to rush him to the OR to make sure this wasn’t the case.

That’s just a little info in case any of yall get shot in or near the heart and wonder what might be happening to you (just kidding). I’m tired of typing and think I might be developing carpal tunnel syndrome; I’ll bill you guys my medical costs (he he he).

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I’ve been neglecting to focus my entries towards p…

August 4, 2004 by DoctaJay

I’ve been neglecting to focus my entries towards premed students. So I’m going to give some advice to other premed students now.

Do research. Even though I don’t like it at all, they pay you a lot of money, and it helps you to unequivocally decide between medschool or gradschool. So, I’ve been doing research for the past 6 weeks at the University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine Cell and Molecular Biology lab. At the end of basically every research program you enter lies a poster presentation. For me, I not only have to do a poster presentation, but I also have to do a powerpoint presentation. Praise God that they agreed to print the poster off for free. You see, when you do a scientific poster presentation, you usually make it on this humongous powerpoint template, that when it is sent off, it is printed on a poster printer. The problem is that it usually costs about $100 to use a poster printer, so if you can, try to get your program to pay the printing costs for you. If you’re rich then you can pay the $100, but those aren’t your only options. You also have to option of just buying a normal poster board at Wal-mart and pasting papers on there. It definitely looks less professional, but it gets the job done; and in the end, you have more money in your pocket. Although most premed advisors would encourage you to do something simple the summer after your freshman year like shadowing or just working, I think its important to have this experience as early as possible. That way, you don’t have to waste your other summers, in something you won’t enjoy.

I was up till like 2 a.m. this morning working on my poster in order to send it to the printer this morning. It took forever, but its done and I can sleep soundly’.not really. I still have a bloody powerpoint presentation to do. I can’t wait until I can go back home, even though I’ll only be home for like 2 days. This program ends on the Friday, the 13th, then I fly that same day to Maryland. I stay in Maryland till late Sunday, and then we drive down to Huntsville, AL because registration is Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday school starts. Part of me feels like I’ve had almost no summer at all, because I haven’t been home, and another part of me just praises God because I gotten a chance to get all this valuable experience. I’ll also be happy when this program is over because I’ll get a chance to see my girlfriend. She’s been doing research too all this time in Pasadena, California. I haven’t seen her for 8 weeks, but I guess they say that distance makes the heart grow fonder. You know something I noticed? How come so many premed students about to graduate are usually engaged or married already. I mean, honestly in my mind I plan to be engaged before I graduate college, but is this a recurring trend. My girlfriend also plans to go to medschool, so she can’t be after my future earnings. But for those relationships that involve a premed and non-premed, do you guys sometimes think that they are formed for the wrong reasons. Do you think that maybe the non-premed partner is more interested in marrying a doctor than the actually person? I don’t know, it’s just something I’ve always wondered.

Today was the last day of trauma rotations for the surgeon I’ve been shadowing. I actually felt kind of sad, he was like a big brother to me. He goes on vacation for 2 weeks, and then goes back on his general surgery rotation at Christ Hospital. The other guy on the trauma team is an emergency medicine doctor, so I might get a chance to see what an ER doc does compared to a trauma surgeon. I’ll keep yall posted on those possibilities. As soon as I finish writing this entry I’mma head to the hospital to see if the ER doc is there, so I can shadow him.

I had a presentation yesterday about the mission work I did in Africa this past summer. It went pretty well, hopefully they will donate to the cause. The advice I gave them, is some advice yall should probably hear too. Get out and do mission work. I am almost 100% sure that I will get into medical school. Not because I think I will do well on the MCAT, or not because of my GPA, but because I have shown (through my mission work) that I truly have a passion for helping others. I truly believe that if it is clear to the addcoms that you truly have a passion for helping people, and its evident through more than you just volunteering in the hospital, then they will let you in. Please don’t lie to yourself and say that you will do mission work once you become a doctor. You’ll almost assuredly have no time to do it then, and if you didn’t instill the passion when you were young, what makes you think you’re going to do it now, when you have a nice house, kids, and a really good salary. Do it while you’re still young, I promise that it will change your life.

I think I’ve babbled enough. If you want to learn more about my mission group, just click HERE.

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I have to admit that the Lord has really blessed m…

August 3, 2004 by DoctaJay

I have to admit that the Lord has really blessed me this summer. The experience that I?m getting at the University of Cincinnati is incredible. I?m not only doing research, but I?m also doing some ridiculous shadowing. Let me tell you guys about my past couple of days.

Saturday I went to the movies to see the Denzel Washington movie, The Manchurian Candidate. It was a really good movie, but I was totally confused by the ending. I woke up early Sunday morning because I had to Nissl stain a whole batch of brain sections to get data for my presentation. I finished around 2 p.m. and decided to go into the hospital to shadow. The trauma team that was on call Saturday night got completely swamped by a bunch of trauma consults and trauma stats, so the trauma team I was shadowing had to see all the patients on the floor and the SICU that other team never got to. They had started their rounds at 6 a.m. and had just finished at about 2 p.m. when I came in. That is some serious rounding. Time really flew by and before I knew it, it was 7 p.m. and that?s when the fun began.

The first real trauma patient we received came in really messed up. Here?s the background story: A car had run a red light in some intersection in Cincinnati. The car that ran the red light ended up hitting a suburban really hard. The suburban spun out towards the street curb. On the street curb stood a man who had actually been in the ER the night before complaining of chest problems. It all happened so fast really. The suburban spun out, and the man on the curb just happened to be leaning on a light pole. Well, the suburban lodged itself into that same light pole, and the man was pinned in between. When the patient arrived in the ER his legs were really really really JACKED UP. The humerus in his right arm was completely snapped, and tibia was sticking out his shin in his left leg (that was his good leg). His right legged looked like a scene out of ?Saving Private Ryan?. I could clearly see his 80% tibia and fibula through the open wound on his shin. He had serious loss of soft tissue in his thigh, and his calf was completely gone. When the orthopods (orthopedic doctors) came down to evaluate his injury, they knew they could save his left leg, but they weren?t sure at all about his right leg. His right leg x-ray looked like someone thrown graffiti in front of the camera, but that was sadly his shattered femur. The doctors at UC are really cool. The chief orthopod resident let me scrub in on the surgery (scrubbing in for a surgery is a crazy experience, its like putting on body armor). One cool thing about orthopedic surgeries are the tools. They have power saws and drills, and all sorts of cool stuff. Also when you are in an orthopedic surgery, you always have to wear a lead apron because they often take x-rays of what they are working on mid surgery. When we got into his right leg we realized that his leg had to be amputated. His tibia and fibula were COMPETELY snapped in half; his patella was cracked in half; the distal condyles ( please correct me if I use the wrong terminology) on his femur were opening like french doors; his plateau surface formed by the tibia and fibula was completely gone; and to top it all off, he had severe diabetes, so the circulation to his legs was already pretty bad. We amputated his right leg, and my job was to clean what was left of his leg, and to make sure all the glass from the suburban was out of the tissue. They put an external fixture on his left leg to set his fractures. We were in and out of there in under 2 hours. It was cool to find out that orthopedic surgeries tend to be shorter than other surgeries. I have the pictures of the guy?s leg before the surgery, and you can view them below:

[Show as slideshow]

The next serious trauma that came in was a stab wound to the neck. Jesus must have been looking after this girl because it didn?t get any of her jugular veins or arteries. They kept her over night to evaluate her injury though.

There was a slight calm, and we went up to the floor to pull a chest tube out of that 16 yr. old I had mentioned in my previous post, that had gotten shot and the bullet lodged itself right beside his mediastinum. We put the chest tube in to drain any blood that might have leaked out, and to make sure that he didn’t have a pneumothorax (basically in a pneumothorax there’s too much pressure outside the lung due to fluid or a hole, so the lung collapses). I got a chance to pull that out, and he kid turned out alright. I just pray that he learns from this expeience, because God saved his life for a reason.

The last serious trauma we received came in early this morning. The whole event was something like an ER episode (which is very rare). Apparently this guy had gotten shot somewhere in the streets of Cincinnati (he was a black guy around 26 yrs. old). Whoever his buddies were at the scene, took him and drove off in their car. I guess the cops had just arrived on the scene and they proceeded to chase this car. Well his buddies realized their friend was in bad shape, so they drove to the hospital, with the police still hot on their tails. They pulled into the ER driveway and rolled slow enough to push their wounded friend out the car. They tried to peel out and leave but there were too many cop cars around. It seemed like every cop in Cincinnati was their, and they all had their guns drawn. Some of the nurses who were chilling outside took the guy thrown out the car and threw him on a crash cart, rushing him inside. A nurse was already on top of the guy, pumping his chest while the cart was still rolling inside. When he got into the ER, he had absolutely no vitals. We saw that he was shot once in the leg and once right under his right 6th or 7th rib. They performed a thoracotomy (yes, I have now seen 2 thoracotomies in my life) to evaluate his internal injuries. His right lung was just massacred by the bullet; we saw that the bullet had actually lodged itself in his spine. After sewing up his lung, and bagging him for 17 mins., they called his death. He had lost way too much blood. I got to suture his chest closed before they sent him to the coroner, but after all of this was over I was just thinking. What in the hell is happening to all of our black youth. How could someone bring themselves to take a life. I really wish that they could come into the ER and see this guys open chest and see what death truly looks like. This was someone?s son, grandson, brother, cousin who had just been killed. There will be a whole family in mourning for years because of this murder. Its just senseless killing, and now I can understand why ER docs become so desensitized; they have to in order to not to get depressed about how evil this world is. Yeah, I didn?t have my camera on me, so I couldn?t get any pictures of it.

I ended up sleeping in one of the residents rooms. I went into the lab today and basically chilled. What a life.

No Comments / Posted in Doctor Shadowing

My my my, what a day I’ve had. Its actually 2:30 i…

July 29, 2004 by DoctaJay

My my my, what a day I’ve had. Its actually 2:30 in the morning on Friday, but because I love yall, I’m going to post my journal.

Research went pretty well today. I took my brain sections out of the cyroprotectant and put them into a well plate filled with PBS. I have to rinse it and change the fluid every hour for 5 hours. So that took up some time. Meanwhile I was also putting together my powerpoint and my poster presentation for the 13th.

I went to the Trauma Conference at the hospital today and Rocky, a 4th year was presenting a case. Basically this guy came in to the ER after being in an unrestrained head on collision. He had no obvious external wounds, but the impact of the accident practically split his liver in half. So that is the subject that occupied the whole meeting. The attendings were basically picking all the resident’s minds about how they would have gone about treating this patient. His blood pressure was normal and he wasn’t tachycardic, so they decided to let him wait it out. Their reasoning was that even though he bleed about 500 cc into this abdomen, he wasn’t bleeding out anymore. So therefore he had formed a clot, and they knew that if they operated on him at this point he would bleed out way too much. So they are going to try to let his body heal the liver as much as it can, and then they are going to close up the rest.

So yeah, that was a pretty cool conference. I came back to the lab and finished up some more work on my presentation. Around 5 p.m. when I was planning to leave, my trauma pager went off and it said GSW Trauma Stat, ETA 5 min. This means that there is a gun shot wound, it requires immediate attention, and their estimated time of arrival is 5 minutes. Since I know how badly GSW’s to the chest can be, I ran over to the hospital to see what was going on. What really pissed me off was that the patients of 16 years old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is this world coming to. On examination of his chest x-ray, we observed that the bullet was lodged either in his mediastinum or right outside of it. If it was lodged in his mediastinum, then that could definitely threaten his life. They took him up to the OR to explore and see exactly what they were working with. He could have possibly have had cardiac tamponade (look it up on google). So they had to cut him open so they could make sure the bullet didn’t puncture his heart at all.

After that some interesting stab wounds came in. This one guy who got stabbed was supposedly trying to protect himself from being stabbed. So basically his thumb was almost cut completely off. The most interesting case today was basically a GSW inferior to the brachial plexus. The bullet fragmented and completely tore up his lung. After about 2 hours he was finally stable, but he was very close for about an hour. I’m way too tired to write any more. Peace!!! P.S.- Kerry had a great speech tonight, don’t you think?

No Comments / Posted in Doctor Shadowing, Research

Today, as it relates to research, was actually a v…

July 28, 2004 by DoctaJay

Today, as it relates to research, was actually a very good day. That is quite a statement seeing as how yesterday I wanted to find the nearest beaker, break it and jam one of the shards into my jugular vein (yeah it was that bad).

Today I actually sat down with my mentor, Dr. Zhang. I told her about my complete lack of data and I asked her for some guidance in putting my project together. Well she didn’t devour my innards as I expected (everyone is scared to talk to her), she actually smiled and walked through everything I need to do. When I left her office I felt revitalized and ready to do research. Basically she told me that I can’t conclude that my data is faulty from only looking at 1/8 of the mouse hippocampus sections. She said to mount ¼ of them and go from there. So I was on a mission, and it was so fun that I actually didn’t even want to take lunch; but shadowing took the best of me. Yesterday, I was invited to observe a laparoscopic surgery that they were performing today. It was really cool. Basically this white guy had been stabbed in the abdomen about a year ago. His injuries were fixed, but as with many abdominal injuries, scare tissue and adhesion had grown. His bowels were stuck to his abdominal wall because of the adhesion, and it had caused him to get a humongous hernia. So they went in first to detach his bowels from his abdominal wall, and then they proceeded to put a mesh in to patch his hernia. They have so many little cool tools that they use to operate. For awhile I was set on doing emergency medicine (just because I like the show ER), but after shadowing the trauma surgeon, I’m leaning towards surgery. The only thing I might have to overcome in surgery is the bloody standing time. A laparoscopic surgery is considered to be a quick operation, and it took about 5 hours; and the surgeons were standing the whole time. I had to get a chair to rest my legs for awhile.

Life is good, research in the day, laparoscopic surgery at lunch, research in the afternoon.

I was reading the Washington Post today, and they had an interesting article on John Edwards. I found out that before Edwards decided to run for Senate, he was a MALPRACTICE lawyer. Now I don’t know about you guys, but I loathe malpractice lawyers. Now granted, there are bad doctors out there, and when they make horrible mistakes, the families deserve compensation, but too many lawyers are cashing in big time on these families tragedies. I read an article that there are more million dollar law partnerships now than ever. And this is because of the million dollar malpractice cases. Now I never did like Kerry or Edwards; I’m a Howard Dean guy. But they do seem to have a lot of good things going for them. This might sound weird, but even though I can’t imagine putting a malpractice lawyer in office, BUSH needs to go. He doesn’t need to go because I’m a democrat and he’s a republican. He doesn’t need to go because he’s stupid. He needs to go because he sent our soldiers into a war on the basis of a lie. War is a very important thing, and we should not go into it without very very very tangible evidence of a threat to America. Do you guys know that we had about a 5 TRILLION dollar surplus when Clinton left, and now we have a 400 BILLION dollar deficit that won’t be going anywhere in the near future. When Clinton left, Social Security had a chance, now its completely shot, and we (all my future doctors out there) will be paying for that. Now I don’t refute that fact that when Clinton left, the economy was already taking a slight turn for the worst. But when Clinton came into office, look how he got the economy from George Bush senior. It was in shambles, and he left us with a 5 TRILLION dollar surplus. Now to all my republicans, I understand that you must stand behind Bush, because he protects your interests. But when I vote, I plant to protect my countries’ interests. I’d rather put a malpractice lawyer into the VP spot than have Bush stay. Do you guys know that Bush PROMISED that they would not spend above budget for this war. The budget was 65 BILLION dollars; they NEED MORE now. Bush just signed for another 25 BILLION dollars to go towards this war. How long will we stay there? How long until Haliburton makes enough money to buy Iraq. Now I don’t doubt that Saddam was a bad guy; but if a nation as a whole doesn’t want liberation, who are we to force it on them. Michael Moore had a good analogy. He said that if the French decided that America needed freedom from the Brits, before we started our own revolution, before we had our George Washington, before we wanted to be free; how different would the war have been. If people don’t make the decision themselves to be free, they will never truly be free. OK, I’m done venting; I know many won’t agree with my opinions; but please post your comments, I love political debates.

On a lighter subject, I got a new digital camera today!!! It’s a Canon PowerShot A75; got it on EBAY for $202. The new pictures of me on this site were taken on it. And I want to say thanks to Dan Imler for putting them up so fast! Tomorrow I’m going to get a lot of research work done, but at lunch I’m also going to a Trauma Conference at the hospital. Every Thursday they have a trauma conference where one of the residents presents an interesting case to the attendings. The attendings fire off questions at the residents about their patient, and the resident answers as coolly as possible. The whole thing is actually pretty cool (plus they have free food; so you know I’ll be there!!!). I want to write more, but I don’t want to miss the Democratic National Convention. Please post comments, I love replying to them!!!

No Comments / Posted in Pre-Med, Research

I am convinced that research is an instrument of t…

July 27, 2004 by DoctaJay

I am convinced that research is an instrument of the devil. Ok, not really, but let me give you a little background info.

I’ve pretty much known all my life that research wasn’t for me. I just don’t have the attention span and patience to deal with it. But when my school said that the NIH gave them a grant and they need some students to do research for $4,000, I didn’t complain. Yes it might sound bad, but $4,000 is the most I’ve gotten in any summer. So I’m here at the University of Cincinnati, working at the prestigious Vontz Center. Basically we are researching the apoptotic genes, BIM, DFF-45, and EndoG. All these genes play integral roles in the process of apoptosis. We are knocking these genes out of mice, inducing seizures in them by injecting them with kanic acid, perfusing their brains, slicing their brains in a cryostat, and then Nissel staining them to look for lesions (indicating apoptosis or cell death). All this is pretty cool, the problem is that I guess I had some fantasy that when you do research, everything was supposed to work out. Apparently that is not the case. We can’t find any lesions in the mice brains, even in the control group. So basically, I have absolutely no data, and my presentation is in 2 ½ weeks.

So with this in mind; I was sitting in my lab today, looking out the window at the University Hospital. Drool practically dribbled down my mouth as I thought about shadowing the trauma surgeon again. I’m supposed to be in the lab from 9 to 5. I basically did nothing from 9 to 11 except surf the internet, and write my first entry to PremedDiary.com. At 12 I had a lunch with Dr. Lieberman who heads the SRS (Summer Research Scholars) program I’m in. We had to present our introduction for our research project to him, so he could make sure that we were on track. After that long meeting was done, I went back to the lab, and surfed the internet some more. Another girl who is in the SURF program (another research program) asked me to cover her on Saturday. So I learned what I had to do (it was actually pretty cool; I had to change the media and count the # of mouse embryonic fibroblast cells). After my short training session, I tried to look at the little data I did have and salvage something. I got a headache from just looking at the mess and left the lab (I have a lot of freedom here as you can tell).

In my room I looked at myself in the mirror and felt fat. So I did a couple of sit ups and chilled for awhile. Then I figured that some shadowing would make me feel better so I walked to the ER, just to find out that it was the slowest night in history. So, now I’m in the medical school library, writing this bloody diary. I’m sorry if I sound cynical; I just had a depressing and long day. The trauma surgeon I’m shadowing loaned me a trauma pager, so that if I ever saw something I thought would be interesting, I could run over to the ER to see whats up. So I’m here, just waiting for something interesting to happen. Well, that’s my long and boring day. Post some really good comments or questions to cheer me up.

No Comments / Posted in Research

My First Post

July 26, 2004 by DoctaJay

THESE BLOGS ARE AN ARCHIVE FROM MY FIRST BLOG ON THE ORIGINAL SDN BLOGS, SO IF THINGS SOUND A LITTLE OFF, IT IS BECAUSE I’M REFERING TO PEOPLE AND EVENTS IN THOSE PREVIOUS BLOGS.

Hey Wassup Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, I have to say that I’m very excited to be writing on this diary. I promised you a full bio of myself, so here it is: I was born and raised in Maryland. I’m 18 yrs. old, and I’ll be starting my sophomore year in college this fall. My father is from Jamaica and moved to Brooklyn, NY when he was nine. My mom was born in Brooklyn. My mom is a pediatrician; she went to Howard University for med school (I was in her belly when she got her diploma; see, I’m already a doctor!!!). My dad is a social worker, he takes sexually abused kids out of their homes. All my life I’ve been fascinated by computers. I built my first computer before I went to high school; and started teaching myself how to program in C during high school. I had absolutely no thoughts about medicine, because my mom was a doctor, and I wanted to be unique. After a little summer pre-med program where they had us taking medical school classes and examining cadavers, I knew that medicine is what I wanted to do. I focused and finished high school with a 3.97 GPA (although I did pretty bad on my SATs, an 1170, not sure why). I threw away all my applications to CMU, UMD, BU, etc., and started looking at places with good biology programs. Well, my high school only had 400 kids in it, so I liked small environments. So I went to Oakwood College; a small private school in Huntsville, AL with 1800 students.

Me and my girlfriend met senior year of high school, and both came to Oakwood college as biology majors (I’m still with her, she might be the one!!!). It was a good year. I ended up with a 4.0 GPA and received the Freshman Biology Student of the Year award. During my freshman year, I got into a lot of stuff. I sang in a gospel quintet group called Gimme 5 (yeah, you know you like it);I was a senator in my student government; I was in 2 gospel choirs; I was part of a medical missionary group called the National Association for the Prevention of Starvation (NAPS) (you’ll hear more about them later); I was in the Pre-Alumni Association; I was in the Student National Medical Association (SNMA); I was in the science club; and I was taking 18 hours. By the time I got to second semester I dropped everything except for SNMA, NAPS, and Gimme 5. Sometimes you have to know how much you can handle.

I’m a Seventh-day Adventist, and proud of it. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m always open for religious debate.

I went to Zambia, Africa this summer with a missionary group called the National Association for the Prevention of Starvation (NAPS). This group was started by our biology chair after he realized that he was putting out too many premeds who didn’t care about service. Well, this program has changed that all. We’ve been all over the world including Jamaica, Costa Rica, Haiti, Guyana, Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Madagascar. While there we feed hungry children and evangelize. We work locally too. Every Saturday, we go out to the local projects and put on children’s programs, and give Bible studies. If you want to see videos from all the places we’ve been, just to go our website; HERE

I’m currently at the University of Cincinnati doing research in the Neuroscience lab. MY GOD IS IT BORING!!!!!! I mean the actual subject is pretty interesting, but it’s just way too tedious, and the instant gratification factor is way too low. But I’m not complaining too much because they are paying me $4000. I’ve gotten a lot of shadowing experience while I’ve been here. I hooked up with a trauma surgeon at the University Hospital. He’s so cool, and has allowed me to get a lot of experience. This 25 yr. old guy came in with a gun shot to his back. He lost his BP on the table and they had to crack his chest (called a thoracotomy) to relieve pressure off his heart and to keep blood flowing to his brain. The surgeons gave me the pictures of the thoracotomy, and you guys can view them on my below:

[Show as slideshow]

I only ask that you DON’T save or share them. I just want you guys to get the same experience I had in the ER. I’ve also gotten to anestisize a gun shot wound on this 17yr. old and I’ve touched a girl’s skull through her gaping forehead laceration.

My research ends on the 13th and I start school on the 18th. My upcoming semester is looking pretty rough. Here it is:

Microbiology

Microbiology Lab

Organic Chemistry

Organic Chemistry Lab

Physics

Physics Lab

Software Tools

Public Speaking

Pray for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m very much a democrat, and very much into politics (HOWARD DEAN FOREVER!!!). So I’m always up for a political debate I love computers and gadgets, so any comments about that are welcome too.

I really don’t have much to write. I’m at the lab right now (I’m supposed to be doing work, but my whole lab is Chinese and I can never understand a word they are saying, but its whatever). They are really cool, but there is just a language barrier. Stay tuned for more entries. I was just warming up. I love all comments and opinions, so don’t hesitate to write!!!

1 Comment / Posted in Pre-Med

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