4 Day Weekend

Well had everything worked out as I had planned this weekend, I would currently be in Victoria right now :(

I had tickets to fly home with Jetsco, but if you haven't heard already, Jetsco has gone bankrupt. I will eventually get my money back I think, because I paid with Visa. Phew!! So I guess I'll be hanging out in Edmonton all weekend. Thats ok because I have some shopping to do, including looking for some new glasses and possibly a new palm pilot. However it is close to the end of the school year, and I could last the summer without a palm, so maybe I should wait until the next school year to buy a next generation palm (and thus have a better palm than all of my friends...).

Oh well I will get lots of studying done I suppose. And maybe watch some movies as well. I miss Carla tons and tons. Hopefully when she vists me in Vancouver we can have just as many fun adventures as we did last summer!!

Med Show (Saturday)

The final night of performances was amazing. Not only were the skits smoother (with all the extra practice) but also there were lots of extra lines thrown in ad-lib style. Lots of people were yelling from the crowds and usually the actors on stage were able to respond quick and witty. Like the host Ron Burgundy yelling out "Who said that? Was that you, Doorman? You're fired!!! Clear your desk, because you're fired."

After the show there was a staff party at the Armory (dance club), which we totally packed in with upwards of 200 med students. I had an excellent time, dancing the night away. Including having my shirt ripped off and having med girls attack me (I may or may not post pictures of this....). Hehehehe. The Armory has two separate dance floors, with the hiphop/dance music downstairs, and more 80's/90's music upstairs.

I am already looking forward to next year's med show, and have started planning!!

Med Show (Friday)

The second night of Med Show was also a success. Except that it was a really tough crowd this night. I think it might have been the difference in the ticket prices. Thursday night was $5, while Friday was night was $10 advance or $30 at the door. Maybe our show isn't "$10 funny", but its "$5 funny" -- because on Thursday night the crowd was rolling around laughing at ANYTHING, while Friday night some of our jokes got absolutely no response (which is very scary when you are on stage).

After intermission the crowd definitely loosened up (and all the med students got drunk), because the 3rd and 4th years got tons of laughs (and random drunken phrases yelled at them). So it was still a success.

Here are the lyrics to one of the 4th years' songs. I must give a disclaimer to the nursing students that occasionally read my blog: This song is hurtful to nurses/women. The song previous to this one made fun of med students (i.e. killing patients, prescribing wrong drugs, dropping babies, etc.), while this one makes fun of nurses (who apparently give 3rd/4th year meds a really hard time when they're on the wards). Still I think the lyrics are brilliant, please enjoy and remember that I love nurses (especially one in particular).


Nurses' Song

Nurses we are overjoyed
To meet you face to face
You've been getting quite a name
All around the place
Being bitches
Screwing up the meds
Now we understand you're whores
But at least you give good head

So you are a nurse
You're a wonderful nurse
Prove to me that you're the best
Let me look upon your breasts
If that you will do
Then my hats off to you
Come on show me those boobs

Nurses you just won't believe
The shit you've stirred up here
Your incompetence is all
So very fucking clear
Oh telling Doctors
What they ought to try
When in fact your management
Would make our patients die

So you are a nurse You're a competent nurse
Show me all that you were taught
Go fill up my coffeepot
And then go beserk
When I ask you to work
Come on show me those boobs

Nurses like to bitch and moan
They often go on strike
They somehow think their job is more
Than just the village bike
Oh... if you really
Want to get respect
Come right here
And tell me why
The vitals aren't done yet [Yells: It's basically your entire job!!!]

So you are a nurse
Yes a superstar nurse
Prove that you're as good as me
Do this Neurosurgery
Or maybe instead
You should just change the bed
Come on show me those boobs

Med Show (Thursday)

Last night was the first performance of Med Show (a comedy show put on by all the Med students at UofA as a fund raiser for grad). This show consists of a series of short skits, much like Saturday Night Live. The first show was definately a hit. It was absolutely hillarious. I think the first years and the fourth years had the best material, but it was non-stop laughs for over 3 hours. Here's the script from our first skit:


Random Boner Prevention Device

Buddy: (walking towards Main while looking at and touching sweatpants) These Med sweatpants are great! The material is so soft against my skin.

Main: Yeah, they’re sweet but I still don’t feel comfortable wearing sweatpants in public. Aren’t YOU worried about getting an RB?

Buddy: RB?

Main: You know, RB, Random Boners: the one’s that pop out of nowhere. And this soft material isn’t gonna hold anything down. So embarrassing.

Buddy: Oh Yeah, they always happen at the worst times.

(main and buddy do pondering motions)

[lights off us]

[lights on 1^st boner scene on Stage R]

Sister: Hey, grandma’s coming over for supper

Brother: Yay! (gets boner, accompanied by slide whistle)

[lights off]

[lights on 2^nd boner scene on Stage R]

Babysitter Requester: Can you babysit my daughter tonight? She’s five.

Babysitter Boner: I would love to. (gets boner, accompanied by slide whistle)

[lights off]

[lights on 3^rd boner scene on Stage R]

Lifeguard: (blows whistle) Everybody out of the pool!

Pool Boner Guy: (looks down at boner) Oh shit. (hangs head and walks out Stage R) [lights off]

[lights back on Main and Buddy]

Buddy: Oh god! I totally forgot.

[salesman walks in Stage L]

Salesman: Sorry to interrupt but I think I have a solution.

Main: What are you talking about?

Salesman: It’s a Random Boner Management Device. It’s good for RB’s, Random boners AND HGIB’s, Hot Girl Induced Boners.

Main and Buddy: Yeah, HELLO!! (high five eachother)

Buddy: So how does it work?

Salesman: Well, how about I just demonstrate it on one of you guys.

Main: (looks at Buddy and then to Salesman) Sure.

Salesman: First, your penis goes into the penis holder. (sales man puts on penis holder but does not remove hands from Main’s pants). The string that is attached to the penis holder runs up the back, like this (runs string up Main’s back). It then attaches to the cap. (clips string to cap). When you start to have a boner, the string will become taut. This is the signal for you to use you neck muscles to keep your little buddy down.

Main: That makes sense.

Salesman: OK. Let’s test it out. GIRLS! Phase 1.

[2 Hot girls walk on Stage R]

GIRLS: Hello big boy (waves to Main)

Salesman: So, is it working so far?

Main: (head slightly tilted back) Yes, but my neck is getting a little bit sore.

Salesman: Yes, it will do that. Alright. GIRLS! Phase 2.

[First part of song “Satisfaction” turns on]

(2 hot Girls strip)

[Music off]

Salesman: What about now?

Main: (head tilted back a lot) This is great! I don’t think I have a boner! Now no one will stare at me like I’m a freak.

Salesman: Ok, then. Final test. GIRLS! Phase 3.

[Lights off Main, Buddy and Salesman]

[Rest of girls enter stage R, Lights on Girls, Main part of song “Satisfaction” Starts]

(Girls perform choreographed dance routine)

[Girls pull Main into spotlight]

(Girls dance around Main)

[Music simultaneously, GIRLS walk off stage R]

(Main on ground with neck flexed back)

Buddy: Oh my god, I think it broke his neck.

Salesman: Yeah, but no boner (points at mains groin area)

[Scene out]

Cardio Exam

Well I just had my cardiology final exam on Friday, and I think it went pretty well. Most of the questions were fair, and I got all of the hard questions right (because my friends and I study by quizzing each other with the hardest possible questions on the most obscure minutae we can read about). The best part of the test however, was that this test had more technical errors than any other test I've ever written. It was literally a "gong show". There were upwards of 30 corrections the profs had to make during the exam, and that involved interrupting us about 40 times. Lets see if I can remember exactly went wrong:

1. Some people were missing pages 3 and 4.
2. Questions 82-89 had the right answers written right beside the questions. We were told to put "A" for our answer to all of these questions, yet later you will see that we never got to questions 82-89 on the answer booklet.
3. The graph question printed out wrong, with the labels not lining up with the graph at all.
3. Questions 42-90 had 8 options for multiple choice (A through H), yet the answer sheets only had 5 options (A through E) per question. Because of this problem one of the profs ran to go get some proper ScanTron sheets and we were told we would be given an extra hour to transfer our answers to the new answer sheet. One student put up her hand and said, "What if my flight leaves at 11:30" (which should have been half an hour after the test ended). Meanwhile the other prof decided that we should just forget the ScanTron and fill in the answers in the question booklet. But then a different prof changed that decision to having us skip from question 41 to question 201 on the ScanTron (which had 15 letter responses). So now question 42 became question 201, and question 93 became question 252, etc.
4. Some minor typos - like "subclavian vein" instead of "subcardinal vein".
6. Late in the test writing period, one of the profs suddenly announced we only had 20 minutes left, while people started to freak out. He told us that the original hour we were promised was only if we had to transfer answer sheets, but as this was no longer the case the test ends at 11:00am. So people started to yell. We were given the full extra hour.


As you can see this was a disaster. Somebody will probably be fired. I thought it was a fair exam that tested our skills of recalling cardiology medicine while in a highly stressful dynamic situation (hehehe). Oh and by the way I know that the numbering of my example errors is all messed up, and that is a joke.... laugh....

Med Formal 2005

Insert MedFormal post here (to be completed when I receive some good pictures).

I have no time to add pictures, I am far too busy.

Clinical Skillz, auscultation skillz, diagnostic skillz....

The cardiology course I'm currently taking introduces med students to Clinical Skills for the first time, which I have found very exciting. These are the things doctors do at the bedside during a physical exam. So specifically to cardiology this includes observing for the jugular venous pressure (something I had never heard of before this class), taking blood pressure, taking pulses, and what I find particularly fun: listening with the stethoscope. I think my musical skillz directly help my stethoscope skillz. When listening to a murmur its important to grade the intensity of the sound, the pitch, where on the chest its loudest, where it radiates to, where in the cardiac cycle the sound starts and where it ends, whether its regular, regularly irregular, irregularly irregular, etc. The hundreds of hours I've spent listening to piano solos over and over again has enabled me to hear a sound and be able to basically take a "picture" of it in my mind.

These clinical skills classes are fun because they show you how the "book-learnin" I'm doing actually helps in the real world -- as opposed to helping for nothing other than test scores.

Reading break at last

This is Carla, Alissa, and myself (with my "pedophile-face") at the back of the UpStairs Cabaret dance club on Bastion Square in Victoria. With my buddy Mark taking the picture. We had an excellent night of dancing at that club, and as usual we got the party started by being the only 3 people on the dancefloor for about half an hour. As the bar slowly filled people gather around to gawk at us and probably make fun of my dancing skillz (or lack thereof), but eventually a couple of pub-crawls arrived and filled the place up. I felt the DJ played an excellent set that was right up my alley (except for the obligatory hip-hop section).

I had an excellent visit home to Victoria for reading break this past week. I spent the entire week laying low -- spending most of my time either with Carla or asleep. It was very nice to finally get an entire week off, instead of rushing home for 2 days and rushing back. It was nice being able to just hang out and relax with Carla, instead of rushing around doing things like we normally do (as my time back home is usually limited).

Ben visits!!

This is my 65 year old brother Ben. He flew over to visit me in Edmonton during the end of his UVic reading break, and we flew back to Vic together on the next Sunday. It was fun to show him around my place and this campus. Its kinda cool because everything is bigger in Edmonton than in Victoria. The buildings are tall, the roads are super wide, and the hospital itself is gigantic.

Hanging out with Ben here was much different than at home. Usually I don't really see Ben at home, as he goes out often, and while home kinda sticks to himself. But here in Edmonton he was forced to hang out with me. I also showed him my new squash and foosball skills I've developed since September.

At Ben's request we spent Saturday evening at the West Ed waterpark (having not been there together since 1996) and bombed as many waterslides as we could in 2 hours. I think with the extra mass I've developed since I was 13, and also the "watersliding skillz" I've learned as a lifeguard, I am able to slide significantly faster. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Ben and I both had scratches on our backs for days afterwards. But it was tons of fun.

Its kinda sad because I used to imagine that one day Ben and I would be roommates after we moved out from home, but I don't think this will ever be the case with both of us locked into a seemingly endless education program.