the flicker of a smile

Tweets for Today

2008-09-06T02:01:28Z

Today's Twitter Update

15:39 No more Medicine! I'm off to the Spotted Pig!

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Tweets for Today

2008-09-05T02:02:43Z

Today's Twitter Update

16:44 Would somebody please make me care about the Shelf exam tomorrow?

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rhymester @ 2008-09-04T18:47:00

2008-09-04T23:33:45Z

So, I've been meaning to do this meme for a while. Being a foodie, I have a rule that I will eat absolutely anything once, but I do reserve the more traditionally weird things for places where I can reasonably expect almost anything to taste good.

I've bolded the ones I've eaten. That's 64/100. Not too bad.

1. Venison - one of my favorites
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart - I am from New York, after all
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - if elderflower counts
19. Steamed pork buns - this brings me back to college
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes - drool...
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras - ok, so I know it's not PC to love foie gras anymore, but yum yum yum
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas - a favorite snack food of mine
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi - I like sweet lassis, but not salty. They taste kind of like sweat.
34. Sauerkraut - on the aforementioned hot dogs of course
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu - always wanted to try it
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini - I'm a bad foodie, but I don't like olives, so dirty martinis are out
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads - not yet, but I hear they're delicious
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. - One and two star. Working on the three. (Per Se in November?)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Tweets for Today

2008-09-04T02:01:34Z

Today's Twitter Update

06:30 Two more days and one exam.

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Tweets for Today

2008-09-01T02:03:11Z

Today's Twitter Update

09:56 Three day weekend. I may actually get some work done.

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rhymester @ 2008-08-30T09:01:00

2008-08-30T13:04:37Z

My resident is the best resident ever. He gave me the day off today, so that I could have a three day weekend!

It's especially good, because I have some papers to write and the Shelf exam to study for, but the real question is this:

If I were to make cupcakes this Monday to bring to work Tuesday, what flavor should I make?
I've been thinking about trying my hand at making PB&J cupcakes, which are vanilla with peanut butter frosting and strawberry jam inside. Alternatively, I could try something like cookies and cream. Or staple flavors, like red velvet or chocolate or even plain old vanilla.

What do you think?

Tweets for Today

2008-08-19T02:09:51Z

Today's Twitter Update

06:25 Call yesterday: 6am to 9:30pm. Then paper writing until midnight for today's presentation. I am so tired.

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Tweets for Today

2008-08-07T02:07:50Z

Today's Twitter Update

05:38 Off to the wards. I hate leaving when it's still dark out.

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rhymester @ 2008-08-04T17:40:00

2008-08-04T21:43:07Z

Got out a little early from work today, so I managed to get in a full 40 minutes on the Elliptical. Yay! My knee really won't let me jog like I did first year, but at least it's something. Besides, 40 minutes on the Elliptical isn't so bad when you have a 43 minute episode of Bones on your iPod to watch.
:)

Tweets for Today

2008-08-02T02:13:00Z

Today's Twitter Update

09:36 Switch weekend! Three whole days off!

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chief complaint: syncope

2008-07-29T00:59:58Z

Today was a hell of a day.

I had the weekend off (both days!) so I was totally rested going into this morning's call day. Well, not totally rested. I didn't sleep well last night, for some reason. But I was about as rested as I ever am when that alarm goes off at 5am.

Got to work at 6am, saw a patient, wrote a note, got some stuff done, and then it was time for 7am morning Chief's teaching rounds. One of my fellow med students was giving the patient presentation, and he was doing a fine job, when all of a sudden, I felt totally nauseous. I was wondering if I should excuse myself, when suddenly my head began to spin. "Wait," I thought, "I've read about this. This is what it's supposed to feel like when you're about to..."

The next thing I remember, I was coming to on the floor, with the Chief of Medicine cradling my head, my third year resident taking my pulse, and the rest of my colleagues hovering around me. All of them. Hovering. Also, my lip was bleeding from where I bit into it when I passed out.

Great.

Now, normally when something like this happens (and it happens to medical students pretty often actually), it's because the student is hypoglycemic, tired, and has been standing for too long. Usually, one is given a glass of orange juice, sits in a corner for a bit, and then gets back to work after a bit of a rest. I? I was sent to the ER for a full work up. They put me on a stretcher, brought me to the ER, where I was registered as a patient, given an EKG, had blood and urine taken, and was thoroughly examined by the head of the Emergency Department.

On the plus side, I got to finally read my own EKG.

I wouldn't be posting this so glibly if I weren't absolutely fine, which I am. No abnormal test results, no crazy hypoglycemia, and I'm not pregnant (um, yay?), so I'm totally fine and was able to get back to work by the time they let me out of the ER at 9:30 or so. Told to eat more breakfast and if I think I've been standing too long, then sit. My lip is a little cut up, and my teeth actually hurt quite a lot. I must have bitten down really hard. But other than that, totally fine.

So I'm fine, but still utterly and completely embarrassed.

My productivity was pretty much crap for the rest of the day, and everyone was really nice to me and told me to go home early, so I ended up leaving at 5 and not really sticking around for my call. I plan to sleep a lot tonight and try to get back on schedule tomorrow.

Hell of a day.

rhymester @ 2008-07-27T15:54:00

2008-07-27T20:06:14Z

I never mean to stay away for so long, and then when I finally think about posting there's always too much to say in one post. Ah well.

As some of you know, I started my third year of med school about a month ago. Third year at my school is also called the Major Clinical Year (aka the MCY - doctors love abbreviations), and it is the time when we finally put on our white coats and get thrown into the hospital setting at long last. I've spent the first month, with another six weeks to go, rotating in Medicine. It's really been pretty incredible. I've followed several patients over the course of their hospital stays, many of them from their very first history and physical to their discharge papers. Some of the time I'm just following an intern around, some of the time I'm bored to tears because no one has any work for me to do, some of the time I'm actually making relevant clinical decisions, and once or twice, something I've done has actually made a difference. I've had my intern tell me, "you know this patient better than anyone; what you you think we should do?" and when I decided what we should do, we did it. I drew my first arterial blood gas (got it on the first stick - that patient officially loves me now, since my intern took three tries to do it the day before). I've learned a lot about hospital politics too, and how frightening that can be.

I'd like to post stories about life in the hospital, and how my patients affect me, and I'm deciding how to go about doing that in a completely HIPPA compliant way and in way that I feel is the most appropriate. I haven't decided what that way is yet, but I'm thinking about it.

The thing I've learned for sure? I am going to love being a doctor.

ETA: oh, almost forgot to mention. I passed the Boards! Huzzah!

Tweets for Today

2008-07-13T02:04:17Z

Today's Twitter Update

16:22 On call since this morning and I haven't been paged once. And to think I was worried about weekend call being really hectic.

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Tweets for Today

2008-06-21T02:07:40Z

Today's Twitter Update

19:18 Back from Alaska! And I no longer smell like fish.

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Best Day Ever!

2008-06-11T11:34:02Z

Yesterday? Best. Day. Ever.

First I had a day of relaxation and beauty with my sisters. Mani/pedis and haircuts at a salon downtown called Devachan, which specializes in cutting and styling curly hair. Why had I never been there before! It is easily the best haircut I have ever gotten. My hair is all short (but not too short) and fun and bouncy! My nails are bright, shiny blue! I decided I needed to do something just a little different and funky before I start work at the hospital. I imagine they frown on blue fingernails there. I hope the haircut awesomeness persists after I take a shower this morning. Crossing my (blue) fingers :)

So that was awesome in itself. Sister time, salon, lunch, Sephora; man, I was totally beautified. It was nice to, as Martin put so sweetly, "get rid of all that exam study funk." Yes.

But then! Then Martin and I, who are serious foodies, went to dinner at wd~50! It's the restaurant of molecular gastronomist Wylie Dufresne (you may know him from guest judging on Top Chef). Anyway, I am a massively huge fan of molecular gastronomy, so this was a real treat. Twelve courses, plus wine pairing, and it was all absolutely heavenly. I love food so much! I'll post the menu and a meal description later, because I want to break it down a little and it would make this post way too long.

And the best part? Well, the Beard awards were Sunday, and I happened to know that Mr Dufresne was nominated for Best Chef New York. David Chang won, but I can't see myself getting into Momofuku anytime soon. I asked our (fantastic) waiter to please congratulate the chef on his well-deserved nomination. And do you know what he said? "Tell him yourself! How about a kitchen tour after your meal?"

EEEEEEEEEEE!

So, after the meal, we headed back to the kitchen, and our waiter gave us the rundown on what happens where. We met the pastry chef, who apparently was recently stolen from Alinea (Grant Achatz' restaurant in Chicago, at which I am officially *dying* to eat). And Wylie Dufresne was right there running the appetizer station! He took a minute to come over and say hello, and I managed to avoid gushing like a foodie fangirl while I shook his hand and thanked him for our meal.

EEEEEEEEEEE!

Best. Day. Ever.

Tweets for Today

2008-06-11T02:08:11Z

Today's Twitter Update

08:54 @certraline Wooo! Also, I want to call you either today or tomorrow. When is the best time to do so?

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Tweets for Today

2008-06-10T02:08:53Z

Today's Twitter Update

17:06 DONE! Take that USMLE!

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rhymester @ 2008-06-09T17:08:00

2008-06-09T21:08:48Z

DONE!

So done!

All done!

This most horrible and stressful month is over at last.

And you know what? I think it went ok.

:)

rhymester @ 2008-06-08T12:48:00

2008-06-08T16:52:00Z

It's over 90 degrees in NYC today, and going up to 97 tomorrow. Today I refuse to leave the apartment. At least the test tomorrow will be air conditioned.

Today is my day off. No more studying for me. If I know it, I know it at this point, and if I don't nothing will really change that, so.

Tomorrow night is going to be so sweet.

Tweets for Today

2008-06-07T02:08:58Z

Today's Twitter Update

18:40 This is so close to being over.

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Tweets for Today

2008-06-06T02:13:05Z

Today's Twitter Update

10:47 Microbiology review. Didn't I just learn this stuff a couple weeks ago? Where did it go?

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Tweets for Today

2008-05-26T02:07:06Z

Today's Twitter Update

09:51 Biochem, Microbiology, Embryology, Endocrine, Neurology.
Check.

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rhymester @ 2008-05-19T21:01:00

2008-05-20T01:02:24Z

Study Update:

Biochemistry
Microbiology
Endocrinology
Reproduction

Check.

Review of the totally forgettable details of microbiology? Working on it.

Tweets for Today

2008-05-10T02:11:08Z

Today's Twitter Update

08:32 And now the official Boards study schedule has begun. I'll see you all in a month.

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rhymester @ 2008-05-09T08:27:00

2008-05-09T12:31:58Z

Second year has come and gone, and I'm about to sit down and begin my four weeks of frantic Boards review.

I've got an incredibly tight schedule that starts at 8:30 every morning and goes until 10pm each night, with time off for lunch, dinner, and exercise. It's not going to be fun, but it must be done if I have any hope of passing this crazy thing.

I'm taking them June 9th, and I don't imagine I'll be posting much until then because a) that would be procrastinating, and I can't afford to do that, and b) I won't have anything to post about except for Boards, which would be boring.

Wish me luck!