Oh the time, where has it gone?

I must apologize for my absence, I have truly faltered in my commitment to all 4 of the avid fans who so diligently follow my crazy cool blog. The time is flying and I don't know where it is going or where it has gone. Speaking of which, have you ever stopped to think about the enigmatic idea of "time" and how it regulates what we do and "when" we do it? At any rate, I feel that there just isn't enough time in a single day to do the things which I find to be of greatest importance. Often I find myself saying, "alright David you have an hour to play with Miles and Faye and let your wife know you love her, and then its off to the books again". I find it hard to accept the idea that I am restricted in my personal life and academic life because of the silly notion of time. If the sun never set and the moon never came up and we were not biologically forced to sleep, I would not have this dilemma.

Anyway, school is going well. In fact, I recently took a pathology exam that I felt had destroyed my career as a professional diagnostician, but lo and behold, I knocked it out of the park and managed to guess correctly 100% of the time. So in other words, I have yet to fail out of medical school and I am loving the program. In health care management today we talked about the disappointment we will face as physicians as lawsuits rise(with a poor outlook on tort reform), reimbursements fall and how tediously difficult it will be to start a practice. And despite it all, I am still very excited to 'get to it'. This semester we start practicing on standardized patients, watch out! They probably don't pay them enough. Cool beans and peace out.

Let us catch up

Well a lot has happened since the start of school. In fact, that is one of the reasons I have not updated this blog in such a long time. I most likely do not have time to do this update, and against my better judgment, I will do it anyway.
Anatomy has begun and it is time consuming to say the least. We have exams all the time and pop quizzes frequently. I have never had to read so much, 100 pages here, 100 pages there, and then had to apply it to all to clinical medicine. On top of Anatomy we have under our belts histology, embryology, medical ethics, health care management and PBL clinical cases. We are told that it is around 40 credit hours, yeah, 40. We like to call it the "fire hydrant in the face".
PBL, which stands for problem-based learning, is the "new wave" of medical school curricula. It is essentially a self-propelled and self-motivated system of learning where we discover learning objectives through specially designed clinical scenarios. But don't worry, we have facilitators that help us along the way. Essentially it is like "House" on Fox, but without an angry, old, disabled doc who knows everything. So far, we have been through 4 very interesting cases while studying anatomy as well.
Anyhoo, I need to get off to sleep because my brain tends to require a lot more it these days, go figure. On a side note, Alf is back on late night television, which I am pretty sure is a crime against humanity.

The Arrival....

Well, I am back to report on the changes that have occurred since the last post, and there are many my friend. First, I would like announce that I am an official Erie-ite of Pennsylvania, tomorrow we close on our first home and then it is time to get to work. We are planning on changing a few things in the house and are very excited to see the results of our crazy concoction. My wife won't be coming for another week so there is a lot to get done before she arrives, sand and refinish the floors, paint, tile the bathroom, clean, and buy lots of manly tools. Thankfully my kind parents have joined me in my 2000 mile road trip across this great nation we call the United States and my dad will be assisting me in fixin' up the house. Second, my beautiful wife is finally getting over the prego pukes and is feeling much better. We had an ultra sound done and there was only one fetus so we were thrilled to know that we would not be having double the trouble.
So my last post mentioned Osteopathy and that there exists a difference between the D.O. degree(Doctor of Osteopathy) and the M.D. degree (Medical Doctor), and as far as medical licensing is concerned in the United States they are as equal as can be. So when scope of practice is concerned there is no practice of medicine that a M.D. can do that a D.O. can't do, complete freedom to choose my specialty. The difference lies within the training that you receive during your four years of medical school. Osteopathy, which is taught to all D.O.'s, is an approach to healthcare that emphasizes the role of the musculoskeletal system in health and disease. In most countries osteopathy is a form of complementary medicine, emphasizing a holistic approach and the skilled use of a range of manual and physical treatment interventions in the prevention and treatment of disease. In practice, this most commonly relates to musculoskeletal problems such as back and neck pain. In an allopathic school you would not learn these techniques and this is what sets them apart. Now, Osteopathic Doctors still prescribe medications and use modern surgical techniques in treating disease, they just have a few additional weapons against disease in their arsenal.
Well it is 1 a.m. and I am sleeping at the Marriott so I 'd better get to sleep, I have a big day ahead of me and I need my shut eye. I really miss my wife and chiquito niño, it is tougher than I thouht to be without.

And it starts......now!

So, I thought since we are officially going to be packing up the house for our long journey to Pennsylvania, I believe it would be appropriate to start a journal of everything that is happening and let you know about the good, the bad, and the ugly.
First, I'd better let you know where we are headed, to the great state of Pennsylvania where Philadelphia was home to the first computer, Pittsburgh stationed the first baseball stadium, and more importantly, Pennsylvania is home to the Philly cheesesteak sandwich. Fortunately we are not headed to the big city, but to a more rural site in northwest territory, Erie county. The school is named after the Great Lake that resides at it's side, Lake Erie college of Osteopathic Medicine, LECOM for short(Lee-com). In a later post I will describe the difference between an allopathic medical school and an osteopathic medical school, which are both accredited to produce top notch physicians, with slight modifications to the curriculum. My personal reasoning for attending LECOM in particular is the cost of living and the cost of Tuition and fees, which comes in at around 28,000 a year total. This amount does not include the cost of living which will be around 25-30,000. It is a little depressing knowing how much debt we will be incurring, but I am sure, and others that have gone before me, reassure me that it will be worth the financial gamble.
Erie appears to be a great place to live, low crime rate, good L.D.S population, and it sits right on a beautiful lake. The downside is that it is so far from the Fam, 1,826 miles. It will be tough but they will survive, and it is only 4 years if we can somehow return to Utah for residency, but the odds are not lookin' good. Erie county is the same size geographically as Salt Lake City but with only a fifth of the population. We definitely got a killer deal on the house we will be occupying. There is no way you could find the same bargain here in Utah. Today we took a trip to Home Depot to look at swatches, well Cicely looked at swatches while I chased Miles around the store. We are very excited to start working on our new home. We plan to fix-er up real nice.
So the time is short and we have quite the checklist to manage before we leave, I will keep you posted as to what we have checked off. I don't know why I keep saying "you", I think Cicely will be the only person to read this. Anyway, it is a good way to document what we will be going through during Med school. Sorry if it is rather boring, if gets to boring try reading it in a British accent, that seems to always make things much more enjoyable. Just give it a try, you know I'm right.

He has done it! Say what?

I figured my wife, Cicely, could use come competition in this crazy mixed-up blogging world that we live in, so here I am. Don't worry sweety I am not trying to steal any thunder from down under, but we both know who the funny one is in the family, your dad, a.k.a the funniest man in the world, possibly the universe (just can't be proven yet). I humbly anticipate the creation of the Steve Suite Blogspot. So with much respect I announce to the world, "Let the great Blogging experiment begin"(Tobias Funke, 2006). More to come.