I promised a lot of people that I would be good at giving updates while the the mysterious land of Middle America. Well, I have clearly failed, but I will try to make up for it.
Let's start with White Coat Ceremony. The White Coat Ceremony is more-or-less the beginning of: "This is real, people are going to listen to what you say about their health." It was a bit disconcerting to watch 125, average-looking 20-35 year-olds go into a room in their dress shirts and slacks and come out looking like doctors (or at least with a shorter version of the official white coat).
At White Coat Ceremony
I certainly would not want to bore you all of the gory details of first semester, so I'll just cover the big event in St. Louis, the Cardinal's World Series victory. A bunch of the kids in our class went to a nearby hotel and watched from the roof so we had a decent view and were right by the stadium to rush in at the end. To all of you in New York, I hope you had as much fun when the Giants won the Superbowl as we did after the World Series victory. The whole city was literally buzzing, which is unusual out here.
Some of us on the hotel roof
The Cardinals win the World Series
Anyways, the big picture: People at med school are fabulous. Clearly, we are all a little nerdy, but that was a given and we tend to bond over it anyways. I'm having a ton of fun here and have been quite busy. I'll give you a rundown of the three big things happening right now and hopefully will be better at updating later on:
1) I'm training for a marathon!
I have been training for the go! St. Louis marathon since early November. I'm fundraising for Team in Training in honor of Lindsay (fundraising website). Training has been pretty fantastic so far. My longest run so far has been 20 miles, and my body has been holding up pretty well, all things considered. The marathon has also been a really good reminder of one of the many reasons I came to medical school and also of the balance that I want to keep in my life as I get further into my career.
This is probably more on par with the balance part...Doing yoga with a classmate after a 14 mile run
On a winter run in Forest Park
2) So much research.
I've started working in a clinic for my summer project already. I'm working in the Neurofibromatosis Center here on two separate projects, one related to hypotonia and another related to outcomes tracking and new methods to interface with patients when they are not in clinic. It's been really great so far. My PI, Dr. Gutmann, is fabulous and super supportive and the Physical therapist I have been working with, Courtney, reminds me of the one and only Cate Shainker, so I have clearly taken a quick liking to her. She is little and blond, loves kids (who we play with all the time), and is all around wonderful. So, I think it will be a good summer.
I have one other academic project in the works. Since I like Ortho and want a bit more exposure to the specialty, I will be working on a chart review with two of the hand surgeons here in the Spring. We've only had one meeting so far, but both the attending and fellow on the review seem like they will be great.
3) Business-y stuff
I have been a big part of our Health care Economics and Policy Interest Group and ran a forum that hosted about 160 students and community members in a discussion about the potential impact of the ACA and public health reform. Our group works with the Former Dean of the Medical School who has since moved over to the Olin School of Business and we've gotten a lot of great cross disciplinary feedback, which is wonderful.
I certainly do not want to speak too soon, but I've also applied for a scholars program for a week symposium this summer. If I am fortunate enough to get a position in the program, I would go to Washington D.C. (home, sweet home) for a week to participate in the symposium, which exposes health professions students to influential public health professionals and prepares them to be leaders in addressing population health challenges at the national and community level. I literally copied that off of their summary, but it seems awesome: past speakers have included former Surgeon Generals, etc.
One project that may be even more exciting, to me at least, is that I have developed a relationship with the CEO at MedLion, a company that I learned about while at Bain, and will hopefully be helping him out for the next couple of years on a longitudinal research study of direct primary care providers. I don't want to jinx this one either, especially because it's so preliminary right now, but it should be awesome if it happens. If you haven't heard of MedLion, you should check them out. They provide primary care for $59/month + $10 copay/visit so that care is accessible to un- and under-insured populations. Not only that, but by eliminating insurance involvement, the physicians get paid more with a smaller patient base and more time spent per patient visit. Anyways, I'll stop blabbing, but I'm psyched.
4) Travel
Oh yeah, I'm also going to Portugal and Morocco for Spring break, but clearly that will be another update! :)
