Etc. from the Personal Side... Scrubs Season 4 just came out - I am officially not doing crap until I have completed viewing the entire season. New CDs this week and my grades: A New Found Glory - Coming Home (A); Sense Fail -Still Searching (A); AFI - Some emo title with Decmber in it (B) I hung out and jammed with the worship leader at the church I go to down here. He's like a suave Bob who gets to do nothing but worship all the time. And down here, they do a LOT of worship, not like the meassly 12-minutes at CHBC. It's a nearly even split with 25 minutes worship with excellent contemparary music and all the instruments and only 30-35 minutes of message + the closing 10 minutes of worship/prayer time at the alter. You can even HEAR the bass! ::gasp:: And the drummers get to actually play! ::gasp again:: They worship for everything...4 weekend services, disciplship community once a month for people in small groups, a special monthly Sunday evening college student worship, random seminars on topics such as prayer or sex and dating....worship is everywhere, and it is so amazingly awesome! Anyway, I'm in the process of being rotated in as a drummer for services and stuff. Pretty sweet to get to play in a band for the first time in 2+ years. Bob, if you read this, I want to live with you so I can put my drums in the basement and we can jam a couple times a week. Man...I'm remembering how much fun and how powerful it can be spiritually to worship by playing your heart out.... I again have to plug my church here which I am so incredibly thankful for. The small group ministry here is so vibrant. The guys in my small group are awesome. I love my small group. It's the type of accountability, James 5:16, pray-for-each-other atmosphere I have always desired to be a part of. And they just hang out and have a good time a lot too. Etc. from the School Side... So, we have standardized patients that get paid to let us practice physical exam skills on them. Usually, under the auspicies (if I spelled that correctly) of a case. We go into the exam room, take the History, do the physical exam, then go to a computer and order tests to diagnose the case. Let me tell you about some of the awkwardness of it... Doctors don't really do physical exams like they're supposed too. If we don't auscultate (sidenote: that word means "listen"; really, medical school is paying insane amounts of money to learn clever words so that you SOUND smart) heart sounds on skin, we don't get credit. Now, my mentor is a cardiologist and has never ONCE auscultated on skin. So, we have to drape the patients and have them wear hospital gowns. Most of the standardized patients and over middle-aged women (eg. late 50's). So...here I am, basically sticking my stethescope under the left boob of my grandmother to listen in the mitral area. Awkward factor...10. Wait, it gets een better... So today, we were told in a case wrap that the Doctoring committee was emphatic about us checking the femoral pulse on bare skin. If you aren't in the know (which I wasn't until about 6 weeks ago) the femoral pulse is palpated (felt - another fancy stupid jargon word) VERY near the groin. So, we were told that now we have to basically have grandma pull down her underwear so we can check the pulse. Awkward factor...683 I know we're supposed to be professional about it, but there's a flaw in that logic. Nothing is wrong with these people. If there was for real something wrong with them, and I knew I needed to verify that pulse, I would certainly do that without feeling awkward because both they and I would understand the necessity. This however is different...there is nothing wrong with them and I doubt the people in charge inform the old lady SPs someone the age of their grandson will be rooting around in their underwear. What makes it even worse, is that I can never actually find the pulse anyway!!! (Try it yourself...if you find it, you're already a better doctor than I will be) I can't wait until year two when pelvic and rectal exams are on the agenda...::shudders:: On an upside, I am apparently a very cheap person. They tell you how much the labs you ordered cost. The first case, I spent like $600 and got the diagnosis correct. The class average was like $1600. On the second case, I spent like $625 and got the diagnosis correct. The class average on that one was like $2000. So, if you want the best bang for your buck, come see me someday...unless it involves your pelvic/rectum. | 
