an academic medicine weblog
Someone had asked in one of the recent comments about the painful graduate school to medical school transition that all mudphudders go through upon finishing the PhD, so I thought I’d write about that.
First of all, I actually felt like the first two years of medical school had sapped intelligence from me so graduate school [...]
Feels like a long time since I’ve written something. It’s been a busy weekend. I have 3 manuscripts on my desk, two of which need urgent attention for upcoming journal submission deadlines. I had a friend’s grant application to read through. And, of yes, I’m studying for my medical licensing exam, USMLE Step II CK.
To [...]
So I just took a board exam towards medical licensure called the “USMLE Step II, CS” (US medical licensing exam Step 2, clinical skills). The USMLE consists of 3 steps, each of which is taken at different points of medical training. Step 2 is traditionally taken at the end of medical school. Up until 4 [...]
Sorry for the lull in blogging activity. Now that the match is over, I’ve mostly been studying for Step II of the USMLE but I’ve also been trying to figure out what to do before the clock strikes midnight on July 1 and I turn into a pumpkin. Dr. Pumpkin, MD, PhD.
My list thus far [...]
The match is over and I know where I’ll be for the next chunk of my life. I lucked out because I’m going to my top choice for residency. But still, I can’t help but feel like I’ll miss having the residency match process to always complain about. Sort of like having a 25 pound tumor cut [...]
It’s almost over. The search for a residency program. We’ve talked about the pains of traveling for residency interviews, of getting stuck in snow storms, of getting our luggage lost, of crashing planes and of the flaws in the process. And now it’s almost over. But not over yet.
This past Monday medical students found out whether we matched [...]
I report yet another awesome post by one of our favorite bloggers, Dr. Shock. WriteOnIt is a web-based program that let’s you create fake pictures, captions and magazine covers on their pre-set templates. Put your picture on a billboard in Times Square or on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Or make add a caption to [...]
In case anyone could use it, Invitrogen is offering a promo until March 20th, 2009 where they will give you a $20 VISA gift card if you buy $450 worth of supplies from them online. Our lab used to regularly drop tons of money with Invitrogen, so I figure that someone out there could use this.
[...]
The review of systems (ROS): the clinical catch all that covers everything and nothing at the same time. For the non-medical readership, the “review of systems” is the part of the history that your doctor (or whoever taking the history) takes from you (or any other patient) where he asks about a bunch of seemingly random [...]
I have now updated and reorganized the entirety of my medical mnemonics pages to make it considerably easier to read and even print.
Check out the newest medical mnemonics in the categories of:
cardiology
endocrinology
gastroenterology
hematology/oncology
nephrology
pharmacology/toxicology
psychiatry
radiology
rheumatology
surgery
I ran across this free virtual anatomy software courtesy of our friend Dr. Shock: the “Visible Human Server” and thought I’d pass it on. When I’m trying to study anatomy, I always find that a 3-dimensional approach is most helpful with an emphasis on looking at cross-sectional anatomy, which is the view physicians often run across [...]
Join me tomorrow night at 9pm on the Dr. Anonymous radioshow when I will be discussing amongst other things, “match day”. For the non-medical readers, match day is when I find out where I will be going to residency (post-medical school training in my specialty).
So this whole process has been a crock of shit. Incredibly [...]
So yesterday President Obama lifted the restrictions on governmental funding for stem cell research imposed by President Bush back in 2001. We’re all very excited about this and I’m sure we’ve all read about this already, but I will add my two cents anyway.
In the case you are not too familiar with President Bush’s stem cell [...]
So one of the bread and butter techniques in science is PCR. And while it can be oh so easy, there are a surprising number of subtleties to each of those steps we take for granted. That is, until our PCR doesn’t work and we’re left wondering why. The worst is when your PCR has [...]
Do you hate memorizing all of those equations for calculating creatinine clearance, total body free water deficit, or even conversions between the different steroids doses? Well check out this website:
www.medcalc.com
or another related website
www.mdcalc.com
These are easy to remember urls and easy to use on the spot on the wards when you will actually need them. General categories of [...]
Hi everyone–I just wanted to put a plug out there…I’ll be on the Dr. Anonymous blog talk radio show this Thursday, March 12 to talk about Match Day 2009. If you’re free, tune in and listen to us talk about the bane of my existence for the last eight months.
I’m done with medical school. Enough said.
Give me my doctorates–BIATCH!!!!
So I officially got screwed out of a publication today. Many months ago I was approached by some people–friends and colleagues–about doing some work for a paper, which I eventually did over the winter holidays during my down time. A couple of weeks ago they told me that someone else who works with one of [...]
Here’s an image below showing serial MRI slices through the brain of patient I saw today who was admitted to our hospital for several months of headache and recent onset weakness:
Each one of those little white dots (numbering over 20-30 in total) is a suspected brain metastasis (try clicking on the image to blow it [...]
So I learned how to tie basic surgical knots from YouTube. I tried to get my intern and residents to teach me when I was on my first surgical rotation but the intern was just way too tired (she really tried though) and the residents were too busy. So I ended up finding a video [...]
