Step 1: Applying to Residencies

Holy cow, it's finally happening.

I'm 9 months away from being a DOCTOR.  Yes, one of those people that works in a hospital and wears a white coat and knows what they're doing.  Frightening?  A little.  Exciting?  Yes!

The first step in getting there is to get accepted to residency!  Well, I really guess the true first step is graduating from medical school.  I made all A's for my 3rd year (first time in my life!) and just have a few more rotations to go before I'm done with this step!  And the next part comes tomorrow:  Hitting the "submit" button on my residency application.

I've spent months researching residency programs, compiling my resume, and typing up what I hope to be the last personal statement I'll ever write.  Tomorrow I will be sending all that out (along with some hopes and prayers) to a little over 10 schools.  That means that the next three years of our lives will be spent in one of the following states:  Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virgina, and Rhode Island.  Whoa!

In October I'll find out which schools are interested enough in me to offer me an interview.  Say some prayers for us and I'll keep you posted on any updates!!

4 Years of Med School Means ...

I'm currently studying 10 hours a day for the second part of my boards (USMLE Step 2 CK).  In a moment of boredom/procrastination I realized this: somewhere in my brain lies the contents of all the books on the left.  Plus more books that I have sold/lost since med school started.  Now, 4 years and $100K later, all the important things I have learned from those books on the left can now fit into the books on the right.  A good thing or bad thing?  Not sure yet.

I'd rather be wrong

I think part of a good medical education requires that the student doctor become confident in himself or herself.  Physicians have to make some tough decisions from time to time, and if you weren't confident in your thinking then you'd really never do anyone any good.

I remember my first day of third year rotations.  I started out on neurology and had no idea what I was doing.  I was told to go see my first patient BY MYSELF!  I went, woke up that poor lady, and stayed in her room for about an hour asking her all kinds of crazy questions that may or may not have been relative.  I fumbled through a physical exam.  I'm sure she thought "good riddance" after I left!

After 1 quick year I have progressed from that fumbling bumbling med student who spends an hour on physical exam, to a fourth year who is left in the ER to admit patients alone with just a quick check-in by an upper level resident.  I can see about 2-3 new patients in an hour and am confident in my physical exam findings.  And my brain works a lot better too.  Present me a constellation of symptoms and I can get the right diagnosis most of the time.  And I have to admit, I like this new confidence.  It feels pretty good when you get things right.

But last night I admitted a patient that makes me think otherwise.  He's a charming Philippino guy who's young and has his whole life ahead of him.  He works hard on a marine vessel to support his wife and child back home.  He told me his story of what his life was like back home, how he lives on the boat now, and about this nagging nausea with a little low-grade belly pain he's been having.  He's also lost some weight.  But the real driving force for him to come into the hospital was being shocked a few days back when he turned yellow all of a sudden.  Eyes and all!

With my almost-physician brain, I immediately think of the medical term "painless jaundice" and how it's almost never a good sign.  More often than not it's a ticket to an untimely death.  I try to not show much concern on my face and proceed with his physical exam.  His belly is a bit tender, but I spend more time focusing on his neck.  Two large firm lymph nodes move around under my fingers.  I think the amount of time I spent on his neck made him nervous.  I had never felt enlarged lymph nodes that were so firm, and I wanted to make sure I felt right.  He nervously looked up at me and asked in broken English if those were bad.  I suddenly wished I could take a time machine back to 1st year of medical school and say "I don't know".  I'm sure my face said differently.

After finishing his exam and talking with my residents and attendings, a CT scan was taken which is so far presumed to be what I thought it was: cholangiocarcinoma.  This is a very nasty cancer that forms in the bile ducts of the liver.  Most people get it when theyre very old.  But he has a risk factor: being from Southeast Asia and exposed to certain kinds of parasites in his food that can cause this cancer.

This is one of those things it doesnt feel good to "get right".  Id rather be wrong.

When life hands you excess fruits ...

Make a streusel!

From the afore-blogged baby shower, I had a ton of fruit leftover.  Berries and plums which were soaked in a brown sugar and lime juice.  There was so much leftover that I didn't think we could eat it without going bad, but I also didn't think it would freeze too well.  I suddenly remembered I had a pie crust in the freezer ...

A berry pie with crumbly streusel topping came to mind!

So basically these are super easy.  

1. Put a pie crust in a dish.  I used a tart pan for prettiness.  

2. Dump in fruit.  I think it's always good to let the fruit sit in some sugar and citrus juice for a while.  The sugar draws out the juices and sweetens, obviously.  The citrus just kind of brightens the flavors and keeps any brownness from occuring.  You can add sugar to your personal taste.  I think I added about 2/3 cups, but probably could have used a bit more. I also mixed in a bit of cornstarch just to thicken it up a bit. 

3. In another bowl, mix a stick of butter, about 1 cup of old fashioned rolled oats, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/2 cup sugar.  Throw in a pinch of salt for good measure.  Then the fun - mix it up with your hands and crumble it on top.  In hindsight, a bit of nutmeg might have been delish mixed in with the crust.

4. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbly and the crumbled top is brown.

Whoa.

 5. Top with ice cream, or homemade whipped cream (I had the latter on hand)

"Shouldn't babies take baths, not showers?"

Spoken so true by our friend Adam.  His wife and I along with 5 other ladies hosted a baby shower for our wonderful friend Lauren this weekend.  She and her husband Gray are due to have a baby boy in September!  I had fun, as usual, making the food for the event.  Lauren got a lot of great stuff for baby, and we got to surprise her with a super cool bench made by her favorite artist, Brian Andreas.  The bench has this hand-stamped on it:   For a long time there were only your footprints & laughter in our dreams & even from such small things, we knew we could not wait to love you forever.  Sweet, huh?  The bench looks something like this:

Here are some pictures from the event!

The spread

Fruit salad in a waffle cone with mint and homemade whipped cream!

Chicken salad, courtesy of Ina Garten, in wonton cups

Wish I could take credit for these beauties!

Grands-to-be

Gray would have it no other way than to have his boy dressed in Under Armor

There's a funny (but long) story behind this mobile

Eyes closed, waiting for the bench reveal

Hooray!  She liked it!

Hostesses

Happy 1st Anniversary (7/31/11)

We were made for God.

Only in being in some respect like Him has any earthly Beloved excited our love.  

When we see the face of God, we shall know that we have always known it.  He has been a party to all our earthly experiences of innocent love. 

All that was true love in them was far more His than ours.  Ours only because His.

CS Lewis

What do biscuits, off-roading, and B-list celebrities have in common?

Our anniversary trip!

Stuart and I will celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary on July 31st!  It's crazy that a year has already passed!  We decided to celebrate a weekend early because I likely am going to have to work this weekend, and one of Stuart's friends is having his bachelor party this weekend.  So Stuart surprised me with a trip to Natchez, MS one week early!

Stuart pinned the white pin in our "next adventure", Natchez, MS!

You may think Natchez is a strange anniversary destination, but we highly recommend it!  It's a sleepy Southern town on the banks of the Mississippi River and is full of charm.  It's been home to the ancestors of the Creek and Cherokee Indians, French colonists, and even Union soldiers.  Of course now the main population consists of southern ladies and gentlemen who like to show off their Antebellum roots.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and were introduced to our home away from home - the Twin Oaks Bed and Breakfast.  

Humidity + camera = foggy lens

This beautiful home is owned by a cute little couple, the wife of which is semi-famous.  Her name is Regina Charboneau, and she has been featured in many magazines and has been on television for her Southern cooking.  She's also famous for starting a Southern-themed bar in San Fran called Biscuits and Blues.  Unfortunately, Regina had a family emergency right before we came and wasn't home for us to meet and greet.  Fortunately, there is a Biscuits and Blues conveniently in downtown Natchez, so we headed on over there for dinner!

We munched on some complimentary biscuits to start, and let me tell you - they were some of the best I've ever had!  Crispy edges and super soft on the inside ... coated with a brush of butter and served with apricot butter!  Can't get much better than that!  And for the entree, Stuart had their famous fried catfish po-boy, and I couldn't resist something called Eggplant Orleans.  It was basically fried eggplant with both a red and white sauce, with grilled shrimp and fried oysters to boot!  Whoa!

Delicious biscuits

Yum!

To work off some of our caloric intake, we decided to walk around downtown after dinner.  Well it didn't take too long before we ran smack into the Mississippi River.  We walked along the banks for a while, both people watching and barge watching.

Please ignore new haircut with the wind-blown effect!

The next morning, we headed across the street to another Antebellum home for our complimentary breakfast.  We piled our plates high because we were planning a hike in a local nature preserve that morning!

After breakfast, I wanted to walk across the street to check out what was behind this mysterious fence I saw from the road the day before.  It turned out to be this really cool cemetery (those are three words you don't often use together).  Anyway, the graves there were from circa 1850.  I'm not sure why, but I think old cemeteries are really neat.  Of course, not for long.!  We got a bit creeped out and then headed out on the road to St Catherine's Wildlife Preserve.

Well, we attempted to head out at least.  I was under the mistaken assumption that a Wildlife Preserve was much like a national park.  You know, with a little office and cutesy maps and nice bathrooms.  Well, I was wrong.  We took the Prius on quite the adventure, driving through miles of dirt and gravel roads to try and find this place.  Eventually, after crossing a few wooden one lane bridges, we saw a quite primitive hand-carved sign saying "lake" one way and "something else that I can't remember" the other way.  We decided seeing a lake would be fun, and took a roger.

Who knew hybrids could off-road?!

Well, after a bit of what my high school classmates would have called "mudding", we saw several strange rusted structures right off the road.  Stuart recognized these as old-school oil and/or natural gas tanks.  I thought it odd to house environmental threats near wildlife, but nevertheless we pressed on.  A few hundred feet later, we rounded a turn to encounter totally water-covered road.  The reverse was switched on and we headed back down where we just came from.

Um, sketchy

Several minutes later we re-encountered that sign, and just for the heck of it, went the other way.  Well what do you know but a bit later we saw a new friendlier sign welcoming us to the wildlife preserve!  I don't know where in the heck we had been before, but we were relieved to have found what we were looking for!  Sort of ...

Once we were actually in the preserve, we couldn't find a place to park!  Of course there was no trail map to be had either.  Bordering on frustration and desperation, we pulled over at the first place where we could see a trail from the road.  Legal?  Probably not.  Did it work?  Yep!

Where in the heck are we?

OOOHHH!  Poor thing  =(

The wait and frustration was worth it!  The trail was beautiful!  We saw tons of birds and even a deer on our hour-long walk.  Humans were a rare species on the trail - we only saw one quiet family.  It was so nice to spend some quiet time in God's creation together!

After we had been soaked through with sweat, we decided to call it a day and head out for some lunch.  And what's better after a good work out than BBQ?!  I drove and Stuart GPS'ed us to a place called Pig Out Inn.  On the way, while Stuart was diligently planning our route, I almost killed us by swerving off the highway into the parking lot of THIS great structure:

Yes friends, this is a giant replica of a Southern Mammy!!!  You don't see great architecture like this every day!!  Unfortunately, this famed seller of homemade pies and cakes was closed for summer vacation.  At least I got a picture  =)  And now Stuart and I are inspired to take a trip hunting weird roadside attractions!

Our last event was possibly the best of the weekend.  When Stuart and I were in Napa a few months ago, we got to experience what's called a "tasting dinner".  This is basically where the chef of a restaurant gets to show off and create several tiny courses for the patron to enjoy.  While we were researching our Natchez trip, we saw a restaurant called 1818 that does this very dinner.  And, might I say, at about a quarter the price of a California restaurant!  So of course we couldn't pass that up!

We got dressed for dinner and arrived a few minutes early.  We were escorted into the formal dining room of a Southern plantation.  The table was set with fine vintage china and candles were lit all around the room.  The table was set for 8, and I immediately thought we were going to have a loud non-romantic dinner instead of a quiet night for ourselves.  I think we were both a little bummed, but sat down to view the menu for the night with high hopes!

A few minutes later, in walks the rest of the dinner party.  A mid-forties couple sat across from us.  The wife was blond and gorgeous and the husband had on a white linen suit and one of those messed up wavy hair-dos that takes hours to perfect.  We made some small talk and then eventually found out they were Mississippians who now lived in Los Angeles.  Well, that doesn't happen a lot, so we inquired as to what they did in LA.  Their response?  "Oh, we're in the film business.  We direct, write and produce movies".

WHAT?!

Images flashed into my mind of this nice little originally Southern couple struggling to make it big in LA  Until they explained how they were just finishing up directing "Marley and Me 2: The Puppy Years".

WHAT?!

What are the odds that we just so happened to sit across from this couple at dinner in the sleepy town of Natchez, MS?  Over our third course of sashimi-grade swordfish and glass of Chardonnay, we also found out they produced Flicka, as well as several other family-friendly movies.  At random times throughout the night, we also discovered that the wife, Janeen, was a Solid Gold dancer and starred in several Prince and Elton John music videos.  And, oh by the way, the husband Michael was a big star in The Young and the Restless for a decade or so.

Around course 4 (roasted duck breast with Pinot Noir), Michael learned about Stuart's job at Chevron.  He commented on the recent construction of an oil derrick at the Beverly Hills high school football field.  Stuart and I made the joke to ourselves about the old-school Saved by the Bell episode where a big oil company wants to make a similar structure at their high school.  The Damian's asked what we were talking about and then Michael said, "Saved by the Bell ... oh yeah - I sang the theme song for that.  I almost forgot".

WHAT?!

Then of course they digressed to how they just loved Dennis Haskings (Mr Belding) and were so happy when this dear friend of theirs got the role after years and years of unsuccessful casting.

Anyway, to say the least, it was quite the memorable dinner!  We didn't get to know the other couples at the table too well because we were so excited by the Damian's!  It was pretty neat to hear their stories, and it was also pretty awesome to meet a Hollywood couple who has stayed married for 13 years and believes in the institution of the family!

Dinner ended with the chef coming out to discuss the meal with us.  It was such a wonderful evening!

What a great trip!  Too bad we had to end our nature excursions and celebrity experiences to come back to work!  I'll leave you with some media clips of our new friends (haha) ...

The Damian's ... maybe that's Marley?

The only "couple-y" picture I got of the weekend.