Song for the Salmon

Vancouver Island

I don't much like to dissect poetry, but here is a poem that we were presented with on our last day of orientation. I hope that all of you who are embarking (or traversing already) the great journey of post-undergraduate life find some comfort and inspiration here.

Song For the Salmon
By David Whyte

For too many nights now I have not written of the sea,
Nor the rivers, nor the shifting currents
We find between the islands.

For too many night now I have not imagined the salmon
Threading the dark streams of reflected stars,
Nor have I dreamt of his longing
Nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn.

I have not given myself to the depth to which he goes,
To the cargoes of crystal water, cold with salt,
Nor the enormous plains of ocean swaying beneath the moon.

I have not felt the lifted arms of the ocean
Opening its white hands on the seashore,
Nor the salted wind, whole and healthy
Filling the chest with living air.

I have not heard those waves
Fallen out of heaven onto earth,
Nor the tumult of sound and the satisfaction
Of a thousand miles of ocean
Giving up its strength on the sand.

But now I have spoken of that great sea,
The ocean of longing shifts through me,
The blessed inner star of navigation
Moves in the dark sky above
And I am ready like the young salmon
To leave his river, blessed with hunger
For a great journey on the drawing tide.

What is an RSS feed?

One of the best ways I have found to stay up-to-date with news and website, and blogs is through the use of RSS feeds. Feeds work like an email inbox that becomes filled with news items from websites to which you subscribe. Websites where this feature is available are denoted by the orange icon pictured either on the site itself or in the address bar of your internet browser. Subscribing can be as easy as clicking on the orange icon.

In order to receive these updates, you do need to use a program that checks and displays the feeds. It can be built into your browser (Firefox and Safari) or you can use Google Reader (which is my preference). The best thing about RSS feeds is that you no longer need to continually check websites and blogs for updates, and you can easily share interesting articles like I have in the "Scut List" in the right sidebar.

Some of my favorite RSS feeds:

• Facebook:
  http://www.new.facebook.com/help.php?page=23
  
• NY Times (various sections like Health, Science):
  http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/index.html
  
• Apple Movie Trailers:
  http://www.apple.com/trailers/
• The Lancet (A British Medical and Public Health Journal, requires free registration):
  http://www.thelancet.com/rss

Curious to learn more? Wikipedia is always a good place to continue, and don't forget to subscribe to my own blog :)

Happy Reading!

Get a LIFE!

Crane Beach, Ipswich, MA

Yes, I realize the irony of telling you blog readers to get a life, but I am actually referring to the social lives of medical students (another oxymoron you might think). In these first two weeks of class, we are being "introduced to the profession." This translates into CPR training, computer simulation, and small group discussions about various issues such as professionalism and cross-cultural communication. It also means that besides a daily journal, we have very little work. Instead, the second years have planned a whole schedule of social "life" events which allow us to get to know our classmates and Boston, and to provide happy memories of free time when we finally hit the books.

These life events have included trips to restaurants and bars in various parts of Boston, a bowling debacle in Fenway (a debacle because I managed to score just half the points of everyone else there), and a pop symphony orchestra on the banks of the Charles. It all brings back fond memories of freshmen year where we traveled around in hordes of forty or more people and having to reintroduce onself as "Michael, from Columbus... in Ohio" to every other person. Note: yes, I know I am from Dublin, but really I'm just happy enough if someone doesn't require the "in Ohio."

Tasty New England Food

The highlight of our adventures so far has been last Saturday's expedition to Ipswich, on the North Shore outside of Boston. We took a one hour train ride out of the city, and the forty of us piled into an Ipswich tourist bus that looped between the train station, a berry farm, Woodmans' seafood restaurant, and Crane Beach (all the essentials). Although I enjoyed picking blackberries while being assailed by mosquitoes and swimming the chilly Atlantic Ocean, the best part was the food. There was warm apple cider and donuts, blackberries and blueberries off the vine at the berry farm, watermelon ice at the beach, and finally, meaty clam strips with onion rings and fries at Woodman's. We really could not have asked for a better summer day in New England.

Footnotes: I've added two features to this blog's sidebar: the Scut List and Bloggers in Arms. Take a look.

A real scut list is commonly used by medical students and interns as a checklist on the ward while working with patients. Here, it is a compilation of interesting articles that I share through my RSS feed (which I will explain in my next entry).

Bloggers in Arms is a directory of some blogs from my friends and is listed by who updated most recently. If you have a blog that's not listed, please let me know!

The White Coat

Tuesday was our white coat ceremony where we were "christened" as medical students. It was not a fancy affair. We split off into our small advising groups called societies, and we did a short introduction as we were fitted one-by-one with a brand new short white coat. Oddly, we began with the last names starting with "L," and I was one of the last to get my coat. It was a couple sizes to big, but perhaps that symbolizes how much I need to grow to become a physician? (Kidding, I exchanged for one that fit better the next day.)

The Bring-it group- we look good, don't we?

It was as if, presto- I was a newly-minted physician-in-training. Directly after, we reassembled as a class (200 medical and dental students together) and piled into a hospital auditorium to listen to two physicians present our "first" patients. One patient a very young girl with her parents who had a huge surgery to repair a birth defect, and the other was an elderly lady who had suffered many chronic diseases and furthermore was the caretaker for her ailing husband. They and the physicians discussed about the hardships of surviving and living with these diseases and the importance of the patient-physician relationship. Both had had some nasty situations involving doctors, and it drove home the point that having the technical skills in medicine simply aren't enough. The human connection is just as essential.

But when can there be too much of the touchy-feely stuff? Is it OK to cry with a patient when delivering bad news? The elderly lady and her physician made an important delineation: showing feelings is acceptable as long it never becomes the patient who is taking care of the physician.

Another sad truth is that often physicians never really understand the patient-physician relationship until they experience the other side of the coin either being patients themselves or close loved ones.

Obviously, there is an abundance of knowledge skills that we as new medical students need to learn to become good physicians, and here's to start of that terrifying/awesome journey.

To continue the memoir theme, another novel that is exceptionally pertinent is White Coat by Ellen Rothman. The subtitle happens to be "Becoming a Harvard Doctor," and it was one of three books that made me reconsider the field of medicine during my freshmen year at Ohio State. Funny how things work out like that.

A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods is a memoir written by one of my favorite writers Bill Bryson which follows the author as he attempts to thru-hike the entire Appalachian Trail with his friend. They are both middle-aged in poor shape, and they have no idea what a daunting task they had undertaken. Hilarious misadventures ensue, but I bring up this book because it roughly resembles our four day pre-orientation backpacking trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Named FEAT (First-year Educational Adventure Trip), I was with a group of eight (out of 50 total) first-year medical and dental students and two second-years who were our leaders. We had a choice of picking one of four difficulty levels: relaxing, moderate, challenging, or "bring it". While we had all chosen moderate and challenging, unbeknown to us, our route was accidentally swapped with the bring it group! I am happy to say we all survived, but like Bill Bryson, we had no idea what the challenge we had signed up for.

The first two days included a 3000 ft climb over 2.5 miles and a 2nd day of 10.5 miles along a ridge that ranged from 2500 ft to 5200 ft and back again and again. The terrain was rough, and more than once we were forced to scramble up and down on all fours. However, we were amply rewarded by beautiful vistas from Mts. Liberty, Little Haystack, Lincoln, Lafayette, and Garfield (yes, each of those had a climb up and a climb down).

Most of the group on Mt. Liberty (Day 1)


Descending Mt. Garfield (Day 2)

Our second two days were considerably easier with an 8 mile hike on a gradual downhill capped off with a river fording to get to our final campsite. We spent an hour looking for the side trail that was supposed to lead straight to our campsite, and we realized the only way to reach it was to go almost waist deep through a strong current about 30 yards across. We all managed to get through it without getting our packs wet, and we even avoided rain the whole trip except for a brief shower the last night. When we reached the ranger station the next day, we found out that the trail we had discovered was actually discontinued because of the river crossing. Oops.

One of our much smaller creek crossing (Day 3)


The aftermath of the big river crossing (Day 3)

Although we all had our gripes with the difficulty of the trip, it was a fantastic opportunity to get to know some of the other students before starting classes. As one of the gals said, "After getting through that, I have no doubt we will all complete medical (and dental) school." Ditto.

View the whole album here (or on Facebook):

FEAT Backpacking

Hello, World

As an undergrad, I made a point to keep a journal every time I traveled abroad. This summer I was able to reread them as I was packing for school. It was fascinating how what I wrote shaped my memories from each experience and how much I had already forgotten.

So as I embark on my 4+ years in Boston, I hope to write more about studying at Harvard Medical School and life on the East Coast. Here and there, I'll write about current events or other miscellany things when the last thing I want to think about is medical school. Feel free to let me know if there's anything you'd like me to write about.

Cheers!