It's not just a girl thing

(Yes, another med school story...sorry my blog has been so uni-dimensional lately.)

Today was a much anticipated day in gross anatomy...hemisection of our cadavers. We cut Carl in half (right above the iliac crests), then we cut his lower half longitudinally. So now Carl is 3 sections: a torso, right leg, and left leg. At first I was quite upset that we had to cut poor Carl up into pieces, but after seeing all the cool stuff in his pelvis, I now have accepted it and moved on.

Carl has been a great cadaver for us...perfect heart, huge muscles, great internal organs...just the total package. One of the cadavers right next to us has been a source of much amusement throughout the semester. The guys find it hilarious, the girls are disturbed by it. He was embalmed with an erection, and no matter how hard they try to get it to lay down, it won't. They have covered it with a rag thus far, creating a tent over his pelvic region. Well today, as they were cutting his lower limb/pelvis in half, they were to cut straight down the middle of the penis, that way we could see the urethra, corpora cavernosa, corpus spongiosum, etc. Well much to their surprise, they found two longitudinal white plastic tubes in his penis. That's right guys: penile implants. Needless to say, he stole the show for the day in lab.

One of our professors said that while that was amusing, it was not as shocking as what they found in a cadaver a few years back. While a group was dissecting the scrotum, they found an odd object in the testicles. They went to get a professor to ask what it was, thinking it could be a tumor, but when Dr. Brueckner came to the table to exam it, they quickly realized that it was not cancerous. As she was feeling it to try to decipher the origin of this oddity, she squeezed it and the penis went straight up into an erect position. He had a pump up erection device, just like the Reeboks of the early 90's.

Apparently girls aren't the only ones getting implants these days. But to the guys - there are alternatives. Viagra anyone?

Comic Relief

One of the professors who helps out with our gross anatomy lab is your quintessential older surgeon...full of jokes, almost always laughing, and loves to grill us like we're interns, asking absolutely irrelevant questions that no first year medical student would be able to answer. Nonetheless, he is a favorite amongst most of the M1's due to his eccentric personality. One of the dissection tables is composed of all males, so he always hangs out around them so he can get away with saying lewd jokes. (At least he has enough tact to not do it in front of the ladies.) Luckily, one of my good friends is at that table of all guys, so he passes on the funny stories my way whenever they aren't too over-the-top.

"Boys, I've got a joke for you. What's the similarity between a brick and a fat white woman?"

"They both get laid by Mexicans."


UK College of Medicine - quality education, serious medicine. More stories to come later, I'm sure.

Ignorance is Bliss

I got more action today than I have in my entire life. Today in class we dissected the penis. I was quite hesitant to actively partake in the dissection, allowing my partners to be hands on while I stood from a distance, soaking it all in. Of course we had the obligatory jokester in the group, making perverted comment one after another throughout the entire lab. I, on the other hand, was the most quiet I had been all semester. Not only because it's a foreign object to me, but because I knew I was in a room of people who's average age is probably 25, and realistically, I am probably the most ignorant about this subject than anyone else in the room.

At the end of lab, one of my friends, Mary, walked up to me and asked me if I could explain to her the difference between a circumcised vs uncircumcised penis anatomically. I thought about it, then I realized that I couldn't. I know how to explain it to someone, but I don't think I could identify it on an actual human. Unashamed, Mary asks the next closest person, Reggie, if he could explain it. He cracks up, then realized quickly that both Mary and I were serious. He could not believe it, started making a scene, attracting more attention to us. Luckily, Mary quickly ended his parade by saying "Hey, I'm not embarrassed by this fact. I truly just want you to show me because as a physician, I am going to need to know the difference." Reggie then got the picture and tried to show us, but did a poor job because Mary and I left still trying to visualize the uncircumcised. Some other guys overheard us and told us just to google it. Yeah, don't know about that. I'll probably just stick to Netters.

I am greatly looking forward to the day that as a physician, I can look at both female and male genitalia and not feel awkward. I have a feeling it's going to be a long road. I probably shouldn't go into gynecology or urology.

One Year Anniversary

This morning in church, as I was sitting down after the praise & worship, the guy in front of me put his arm around his wife's shoulder. No big deal, you're thinking, except for the fact that as he did so, I saw the huge, shining, beautiful Aggie ring on his right ring finger. My face immediately lit up. Ashley, sitting next to me, saw me staring at his ring and she was quick in making the connection (which I was quite impressed, seeing as she knows very little about Texas A&M). She leaned over and whispered to me that I should pound him, right then and there, with my Aggie ring. I withstood the temptation and decided to wait until after the service to say anything. I noticed the wife also had an Aggie ring on, which brought an insurmountable amount of joy to my morning. Aggie marriages, a gift from God.

"Do I see some Aggie rings?" I leaned over and said to them once the service was over.

Confused, but kindly, they respond "why yes you do."

"Well I'm Elisabeth Jones, Class of '07. So nice to meet you."

We stood there and talked for a bit. They were both Class of '89. The wife is from Bardstown, which is how they ended back up here in Kentucky. The husband is a pediatrician at UK, and I had actually seen his car parked at the hospital many times, proudly displaying the Association of Former Students bumper sticker. I didn't admit this to him, but I also love his other bumper sticker, "I used to be cool." But I should have, because I would have let him know that he still is cool. Wearing his Aggie ring every day, in a community that knows nothing about what it means and stands for, is cool in my book.

"I'll see you on the rounds! Good luck until then!", he says to me as we walk out of church.

God bless Aggie rings.


Picture: The day I got my Aggie ring. Exactly one year ago from today. Happy anniversary to me!

Dance it out

Typically when I am sick of studying, or I am just having a bad day, I resort to Facebook to be my escape. But since I quit that cold turkey this past weekend in efforts of maximizing my time for memorizing anatomical principles and facts, that has not been an option for me this week. Sadly, I must admit that this has been extremely difficult. Twice I clicked on my Facebook favorites icon to just get a sneak peak, but due to my conscience, I quickly exed out of mozilla firefox so that I did not have to admit to you, my loyal readers, that I was that weak.


So here I am, sitting at my desk, taking an old exam to get a feel of how far I am along with this studying process, and I continue to make stupid mistake after stupid mistake on the questions. Frustrated, I decide that I deserve a Facebook break. That's right. I haven't been on it for 5 days and I just want a measly 5 minute break to check to see what life is like on the other side.
But alas, I withstood the temptation and decided to follow in the footsteps of Meredith Grey. Whenever she has a really bad day, she goes home, turns the music on really loud, and just dances, freeing her mind of the stresses and worries. So that's what I did. I turned on my current favorite song as loud as possible (without disturbing the neighbors), gladly got out of my desk chair, and jumped around like a silly person for 5 minutes, singing into my fake microphone as best I could. I can promise you it wasn't a pretty sight, but It got the job done.


On a side note, if I had still been at A&M, I could have taken a different approach to escaping the madness. I would have just gone to practice, my teammates would have seen me out of it, and Kati Jo would have yelled, "Ags, Let's hug it out! Hug it out, ladies!" Immediately, everyone would start hugging everyone, with KJ of course going to G first and squeezing him until the whole debacle was over. Oh, those were the good ole days.

Dedication (?)

To whom it may concern,

I will be MIA from Facebook this week. If you write me a message or wall post, you will not be getting a response back until Friday afternoon at 4pm, when I am done with my anatomy midterm. This post is not to deter you in any way from writing something funny/encouraging to me, just a warning that there will be a delayed response on my end. Let it be known that any sort of contact through the blogosphere, email (ejones1484@gmail.com), or texting is always welcome.

Thanks for your time,
Management

Life Lessons

You know, it's funny. Life that is.



If you go through a rough patch, you tend to think that your current situation is so much worse than anyone else's. You automatically write off anyone else's worries or complaints with their job, or school, or personal life. "Well they don't have to study 24/7 and watch their social life go down the drain" or "they don't know what it's like to study 40 hours for a quiz and get a 40% on it" and you pridefully chuckle inside when you hear them say it's been a hard adjustment for them with their new job, because you just know deep down inside that your place in life is so much worse than their's.


I sit at a desk/library/coffee house almost all day long, studying muscle attachments and innervations, cell biology and histology, or embryology. I sit there and rack my brains, trying to find some way to fit one more piece of information up there. I become disillusioned when I turn the page to find another long list of things I have to memorize before Thursday. I then glance at the clock and see that almost half of my day is gone and I haven't really gotten anything accomplished yet. Then one of two things sets in: panic that I am never going to be able to pass this test, thus I will fail out of medical school and disappoint all the people that are expecting me to become a doctor, or I find a way to muster up a little pride and say that I am not going to be one of the people who fails. I am smarter than that! I can do it!


Either way, I am the center of this. All day, every day, I am thinking about myself. I haven't quite figured out if my selfishness has risen to a new level in the past 5 weeks since starting school, or if it is just now being revealed because I am being challenged more than I ever have. Either way, it must be said, I am selfish. No doubt about it.


Life is so much harder when it's all about you. When you can step back and see the big picture, a lot of your mountain-sized worries seem to become hills. When you can put your pride to the side and fully surrender to God and trust that He is in charge, there is a sense of freedom that comes with it. I don't have to worry about what kind of doctor I will become, or even more relevant to now, how well I will do on this upcoming examination. As long as I am a good steward of what he has given me and try my hardest, He will take care of the rest. And his plan is so much greater than anything I could ever dream up.


I was asked at my bible study tonight what my motivation in life is? Why I wake up in the morning and go to class? What my dreams are? My gut reaction to every single one of those questions was me, me, me. Sadly, my instinct wasn't to say "to serve God" or "get to know Him better". And I know those are sunday school answers that have been drilled in our heads since we learned John 3:16, but I guess right now I am now seeing the beauty in an answer like that. My life would have much greater purpose if I did truly wake up in the morning and look forward to finding out more about my Lord and falling more in love with Him, instead of just focusing on how I am going to survive medical school. Because frankly, that's depressing.


As most of you can tell by now, medical school hasn't been what I envisioned. I never thought it would be a cake walk, but I thought that if I put the time in and worked hard, I would do fine. That hasn't been the case. My grades are struggling and my attitude is right there with it. I am not liking the person that I am becoming.


Now my eyes have been opened to my faults and I am working day by day to improve my outlook on life. And more importantly, to find purpose in what I do. I am starting to see God more and more in my studies. When studying about human development, learning that a baby's heart is pumping at just 4 weeks old! When the baby is just centimeters long in a mother's womb it has a heart that is actually beating! Understanding all these embryonic foldings and cell differentiations and miracles that have to go into each and every one of us being normal is breath-taking. We can not be the product of random chance. There must be a God. And He must have a vision and plan for our lives.

Trust.

That's what it's all about. Give up your problems and worries, because this thing we call 'life' is just not about you.

$50 Economics Lesson

My brother sent this to me and I found it worthy of sharing.

I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl, and she said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?'


She replied, 'I'd give houses to all the homeless people.'


'Wow...what a worthy goal.' I told her, 'You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house.'


She thought that over for a few seconds while her Mom glared at me, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, 'Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?'


And I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party!'


Her folks still aren't talking to me.