Monday, July 21, 2008

La fin (french)...The end... El fin( spanish)...Li fini (creole)....

All good things must come to an end....

conclusion: SMDEP @ Duke was AMAZING.

OK now for the interesting stuff:

I didn't have the chance to write at all during the last week because I had a presentation to prepare. All of the students that were taking cell biology had to choose a disease that was caused by a genetic mutation to present in front of the class. After presenting in front of the class, the three best presentations were chosen to present in front of all of the students in the program and all of the faculty members. (nerve wrecking !!!!!!)

The twist: the information MUST be presented creatively. A typical power point presentation would not be accepted.


My groups presentation:
Subject: Tay Sachs disease
Method: We chose to make a video!!!! We started of by making a parody of : "That 70's show" In our parody Dana and Eric have a child that have Tay Sachs disease. When they notice some of the symptoms they decide to go see the doctor (that's where I come in).
The second part of the video was a parody of House M.D. ... and I was House ;)..... The video ends with House wondering what's wrong with the baby... We then start our power point presentation explaining what occurred in the video (symptoms of Tay Sachs disease, causes, ect)

We had a lot of fun filming the video. In the end we reached the finals but ended getting second place :(. I really enjoyed myself and that's what counts ;)


I also wanted to talk about some of the seminars that I found really helpful:

1) The Health professions Recruitment Seminar:
Representatives of various Medical Schools came to talk about how to be a competitive applicant to Med school(Approximately 19 different Medical Schools: Weill Cornell, John Hopkins, Stanford, Washington University in St Louis, etc)

2) Financial planning Workshop. We analyzed:
a) The debt that is incurred after Med School
b) How to pay for Med School
c)How much a physician earns
d) How to be responsible with our money ( managing credit cards, making a budget, etc)

I'm really enjoyed being at Duke during the summer. Anyone that can apply should apply.

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed the blogs.

Take care

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Good websites to find internships:

http://www.explorehealthcareers.org/en/index.aspx


http://www.aamc.org/students/start.htm (go to FOR STUDENTS, MORE RESOURCES)


http://www.aspiringdocs.org/site/c.luIUL9MUJtE/b.2011035/apps/lk/content3.aspx
I couldn't upload my schedule so might as well just write everything:

Most of our courses are 1 hour and fifteen minutes long

Monday:
8am: Math
9:30: Cell Biology
11:00: Organic Chemistry
12:15 - 2:00: Lunch
2:00 - 5:00: Cell Biology recitation
Tuesday:

8am: Writing in Medical Education
9:30: Cell Biology
11:00: Organic Chemistry
12:15 - 2:00: Lunch
2:00 - 5:00: Standardized Patient Module and Beta Interviews

Wednesday:
8am: Math
9:30: Cell Biology
11:00: Organic Chemistry
12:15 - 1:45: Ethics Health Care and Humanism
2:00 - 5:00: Peak Performance Organic
Health Care Disparities

Thursday:

8am: Writing in Medical Education
9:30: Cell Biology
11:00: Organic Chemistry
12:15 - 2:00: Lunch
2:00 - 5:00: Chemistry Recitation

Friday:
8am: Math
9:30: Cell Biology
11:00: Organic Chemistry
12:15 - 2:00: Lunch

2:00 - 5:00: Special Topics


On Thursdays I have Rotations from 7:00 to 11:00

On Tuesdays (or Wednesdays) we generally have a guest speaker from 5:00 to 7:00
Hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend!!!

Well in this post I will talk about what has really made a difference for me during these past weeks.

First of all the orientations are amazing. During my first orientation in Labor and Delivery I saw a cesarean section. Seeing a babies first breath and his first instances outside of the womb is incredible. If was so amazed by what I had seen, that I called my mom back in Haiti to tell her THANK YOU !!!

My second orientation was really sad. I met a man who not only had AIDS but who also had some sort of cancer. He had undergone chemotherapy but sadly the latter only worsen the situation. Because of the chemicals he was unable to breath by himself thus had to be plugged into a machine that sustained him. The tube delivering the air entered the body through his throat and the doctors had to give him a sedative to force him to sleep and reduce the pain.

Finally my most extraordinary experience was at the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). We arrived that night at seven pm. We began our rounds by observing a lumbar puncture: it lasted approximately one hour (the attending was teaching an intern, thus it took more time than a usual lumbar puncture). After observing the lumbar puncture, the attending brought us to a room where a baby (barely a day hold) was connected to various machines. He explained that this baby had a lung infection; because of this infection he was unable to bring oxygen to his blood (thus the rest of the body wasn't oxygenated either). This baby had a tube in his throat, and was receiving a drug to increase his blood pressure... If the blood flowed through his brain while deoxygenated he could get brain damage....

Finally, before leaving for the night I saw a baby that had jaundice. The doctor explained the two methods to take care of a such baby: we can either expose the baby to daylight (or artificial light) and render the heme soluble. Or we can do a blood transfusion, the blood of the baby is"taken out " of the system while the blood of the donor is given to the baby. If jaundice isn't taken care of a baby can sustain serious brain damage. The doctor's explanation reminded me of story my dad had told me a long time ago (he's a pediatrician and sometimes tells me these types of stories). I called him, asked about what had happened, and discovered that he was actually talking about me. When I was born I had jaundice, and I was also close to sustaining brain damage... At the time my dad had to rush from the hospital where my mom and I were to get blood from the red cross... Our hospital didn't store blood...

I feel blessed because I could have not been here today writing this blog...


Well that's all for now


Take care!!!!!!!!