Somehow running a 5K has become my workout of choice. Probably because I've signed up for so many that it's become a habit from training for them. It's also almost the perfect distance; not too short of a workout but not too long that you're drained. Plus, a crowded indoor track isn't the most conducive to working on short sprints.
Was supposed to play basketball, but that plan didn't work out (hah), so I thought I'd try to utilize the rec center while I was still there.
I probably haven't been on a decent run since med school started, so I was pleasantly surprised about how I was able to hit my average range in terms of time. I was even more enthused that I didn't have to stop and walk at any point, especially since there has been a dearth of sleep this week, including two hours last night from trying to finish an objective (I'm not going to get into if it was smart to do anything on such little rest right now, thank you).
This just makes me wonder if I had kept up working out consistently since graduating high school how good I could be or how fast my time could be. Honestly, probably not that much better (my PR is 24 min), but even now it's still a far cry from where my level once was at least, lacking stamina, barely able to run a mile, and always feeling like puking.
I'll leave y'all with that image for a Friday night.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Monday, January 20, 2014
Got to See My First Patients!
[I normally eschew using exclamation points, so when I actually do utilize them, you know there's something exciting going on (or that I've already used up my smiley allotment).]
I got to see patients. By myself. Without a physician. Not in a shadowing or standardized situation. I got to ask the questions. And I got to poke and prod them. And no, no one died.
I wanted to post this on Friday, since it happened on Friday, but a good friend from college came into town, and I hung out with her and her schoolmates. When it's someone from your freshman floor, with whom you talked a lot, and whom you have known for almost a decade (yes, we calculated...we both feel really old. We started comparing white hairs too), then of course you want to see her, even if there are other people around, as cool as they are. Plus, it allowed me to go bar-hopping: to a restaurant/bar, a piano bar, and then a club. (As an aside, clubs are sweaty, packed, loud, and full of drunk people banging into you. But then, I guess I wasn't expecting anything else.)
Yesterday, my internet was out for a majority of the day. At least Mediacom has decent customer service.
Anyway, I was assigned to a family care physician this block for my Ambulatory Care Experience, and my first session with him was Friday. He mentioned that usually students will just shadow him the first time, but the more gung-ho students may jump in and start seeing patients too, taking histories and performing physical exams. "Well, perfect," I thought, "what better way to jump right in and practice being confident? And let's see how much I remember from the first two blocks of Introduction to Patient Care."
Thank goodness for IPC. At least there seemed to be some semblance of me knowing what I was doing.
Honestly though, going through standardized patient exams, or even simulated practices, was more nerve-wracking than actually seeing patients...by myself...with no physician in the room to shadow. Perhaps it's because my attending said that this experience was designed to be low-pressure, and if there was a time to make mistakes, it would be then, when I could report back to him and he can catch anything that I missed. And it's definitely because I wasn't being graded, whether by a proctor or a fellow student. Regardless, it was less stress and more of a rush. I sincerely hope that feeling stays with me for a while. I don't want to get jaded too soon.
I do need to work on my differential diagnosing skills though. And knowing where equipment is before I go into a room. Thankfully my patients were patient with me (feel free to commence your groans).
I got to see patients. By myself. Without a physician. Not in a shadowing or standardized situation. I got to ask the questions. And I got to poke and prod them. And no, no one died.
I wanted to post this on Friday, since it happened on Friday, but a good friend from college came into town, and I hung out with her and her schoolmates. When it's someone from your freshman floor, with whom you talked a lot, and whom you have known for almost a decade (yes, we calculated...we both feel really old. We started comparing white hairs too), then of course you want to see her, even if there are other people around, as cool as they are. Plus, it allowed me to go bar-hopping: to a restaurant/bar, a piano bar, and then a club. (As an aside, clubs are sweaty, packed, loud, and full of drunk people banging into you. But then, I guess I wasn't expecting anything else.)
Yesterday, my internet was out for a majority of the day. At least Mediacom has decent customer service.
Anyway, I was assigned to a family care physician this block for my Ambulatory Care Experience, and my first session with him was Friday. He mentioned that usually students will just shadow him the first time, but the more gung-ho students may jump in and start seeing patients too, taking histories and performing physical exams. "Well, perfect," I thought, "what better way to jump right in and practice being confident? And let's see how much I remember from the first two blocks of Introduction to Patient Care."
Thank goodness for IPC. At least there seemed to be some semblance of me knowing what I was doing.
Honestly though, going through standardized patient exams, or even simulated practices, was more nerve-wracking than actually seeing patients...by myself...with no physician in the room to shadow. Perhaps it's because my attending said that this experience was designed to be low-pressure, and if there was a time to make mistakes, it would be then, when I could report back to him and he can catch anything that I missed. And it's definitely because I wasn't being graded, whether by a proctor or a fellow student. Regardless, it was less stress and more of a rush. I sincerely hope that feeling stays with me for a while. I don't want to get jaded too soon.
I do need to work on my differential diagnosing skills though. And knowing where equipment is before I go into a room. Thankfully my patients were patient with me (feel free to commence your groans).
Sunday, January 12, 2014
The Difficulty in Asking People for Help
I was soliciting donations at Wal-Mart this afternoon for a medical mission to Guatemala in March (please contact me if you'd like to support me/us:D). In the two hours I was there asking shoppers to buy items we needed and donate them to us when they came out, I got half a shopping cart filled, and I'm extremely thankful to those who were kind enough to help us out. The few people who stopped out of the goodness of their hearts were more than I could expect; as a way to temper any potential disappointment, I don't expect anything from anybody, and when someone exceeds that notion, I'm not surprised, but I am grateful that there are good people in this world.
But it is difficult to get people to donate to causes. Back in St. Louis, I would help my temple fundraise when there were any huge natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Sichuan Earthquake, and Typhoon Morakot. I used to think that it was more of a Chinese thing, since we would frequent Chinese businesses, that people would pass us by, deliberately ignore us, say "no" with or without a "thank you" (wait, what exactly are you thanking me for? For asking you and letting you say no to me?), especially because a common Chinese stereotype is that we can be stingy. I remember one instance in which I was fundraising in front of a Chinese grocery store; one guy completely ignored me and went in, and he was struggling with his groceries when he was coming out. I helped him with the groceries and the door, and he kept going on without so much as a "thank you". Eh. You shrug it off and feel sorry for him that he's so dour.
Today though, I realized that the difficulty in getting people to contribute to causes spans cultures. As a disclaimer, I'm not berating them at all. It's within their right to walk past and refuse to help. It's just a reminder how hard it is to stand outside practically begging for assistance. It'll make me think the next time I'm walking and I come across another volunteer soliciting donations for one's cause.
That difficulty caused me to be slow in terms of asking people. There were times when I just let some folks slide by since it looked like they didn't want to be bothered. It took me a while to warm up, but once I got into a groove, I got people to start taking flyers, and donations started streaming in. Being bold is challenging; New Year's resolutions are not supposed to be easy. This is also the same when asking for help under fear of rejection. But I promised myself not to miss any more chances, and so here we go. I unknowingly broke a condition that our group had agreed to when soliciting, but oh well. No harm, no foul.
I've always been slow in asking people for something. I'm constantly afraid that I'd be annoying. My PI always had to constantly tell me to come find her when I got stuck on something instead of pounding my brain against a brick wall. I believe this comes from my perhaps misguided pride and independence and wanting to figure things out by myself, as well as avoiding the potential of being bothersome. On the other hand, when I would ask a question to the founder of a certain K-Pop website for which I was writing, she would tell me to go figure it out on my own. There's nothing wrong with that, but then, I think I would trust a PhD with whom I've had almost a decade-long working relationship than a college student for whom running a K-Pop fansite basically fell into her lap (I shall say that I do admire what she's built in the website; I wouldn't have been able to do that).
So in summary (in what has turned out to be almost a stream-of-consciousness post), there are multiple folds in the difficulty of asking for help: personal characteristics, timing, and the willingness of others. But once again, it's definitely heartwarming when people are eager to do so.
And Mom, I wrote this in half-an-hour during my designated break time. So no, I'm not wasting time. You can continue to sleep easily now.
But it is difficult to get people to donate to causes. Back in St. Louis, I would help my temple fundraise when there were any huge natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Sichuan Earthquake, and Typhoon Morakot. I used to think that it was more of a Chinese thing, since we would frequent Chinese businesses, that people would pass us by, deliberately ignore us, say "no" with or without a "thank you" (wait, what exactly are you thanking me for? For asking you and letting you say no to me?), especially because a common Chinese stereotype is that we can be stingy. I remember one instance in which I was fundraising in front of a Chinese grocery store; one guy completely ignored me and went in, and he was struggling with his groceries when he was coming out. I helped him with the groceries and the door, and he kept going on without so much as a "thank you". Eh. You shrug it off and feel sorry for him that he's so dour.
Today though, I realized that the difficulty in getting people to contribute to causes spans cultures. As a disclaimer, I'm not berating them at all. It's within their right to walk past and refuse to help. It's just a reminder how hard it is to stand outside practically begging for assistance. It'll make me think the next time I'm walking and I come across another volunteer soliciting donations for one's cause.
That difficulty caused me to be slow in terms of asking people. There were times when I just let some folks slide by since it looked like they didn't want to be bothered. It took me a while to warm up, but once I got into a groove, I got people to start taking flyers, and donations started streaming in. Being bold is challenging; New Year's resolutions are not supposed to be easy. This is also the same when asking for help under fear of rejection. But I promised myself not to miss any more chances, and so here we go. I unknowingly broke a condition that our group had agreed to when soliciting, but oh well. No harm, no foul.
I've always been slow in asking people for something. I'm constantly afraid that I'd be annoying. My PI always had to constantly tell me to come find her when I got stuck on something instead of pounding my brain against a brick wall. I believe this comes from my perhaps misguided pride and independence and wanting to figure things out by myself, as well as avoiding the potential of being bothersome. On the other hand, when I would ask a question to the founder of a certain K-Pop website for which I was writing, she would tell me to go figure it out on my own. There's nothing wrong with that, but then, I think I would trust a PhD with whom I've had almost a decade-long working relationship than a college student for whom running a K-Pop fansite basically fell into her lap (I shall say that I do admire what she's built in the website; I wouldn't have been able to do that).
So in summary (in what has turned out to be almost a stream-of-consciousness post), there are multiple folds in the difficulty of asking for help: personal characteristics, timing, and the willingness of others. But once again, it's definitely heartwarming when people are eager to do so.
And Mom, I wrote this in half-an-hour during my designated break time. So no, I'm not wasting time. You can continue to sleep easily now.
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