My next little gadget.....

So I loved my Nook Color, but I wanted a camera and bluetooth on it (plus reliable wifi) in android. So to solve that problem I upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy Tab. It is the same size (slightly smaller case and lighter by 1-2 oz) but covers my needs as explained above. We'll see if it does the job like I think it will. More to come soon.

Professionalism. You would think it's a no brainer

So this last week we had a sit down meeting with our Vice Dean of Student Affairs (I think) and the 1st and 2nd year medical school classes. All in all this was 300+ students in attendance. Apparently there has been some scandalous activity going on unbeknownst to me. It ranges from racial slurs in study documents to dropping F-bombs in faculty reviews to graffiti on school property that only students had access to. I couldn't believe this stuff when I heard it. In fact some of it just made me laugh it was so ridiculous. I cannot believe that students preparing to be physicians are engaged in these kinds of activities. Then again is it that surprising? Most of these kids have never had a real job, are fresh out of college, live off mommy and daddy's riches and feel entitled to anything and everything. I know this is the case after hearing some of the demands the first year class made no less than 3 weeks after arriving. I guess  these idiots will end up hanging themselves out to dry sooner or later, but it really peeves me that they will also be representing the school that I chose to gain my medical education. Thanks a lot retards!!!

We as students are an important part of this whole educational machine and in a large way the only reason any of this exists. At the same time we need to realize that the position we have been GIVEN is a courtesy that can be rescinded and given to the next deserving individual. There are plenty of people waiting in the wings that would be happy to take our spot in the line. This isn't brain surgery.....yet.

Mandatory Class in Medical School. Like that is possible!

A hotly debated topic in our medical school right now is whether class attendance is mandatory or not. Like many medical schools, our classes are recorded for review at a later date if we so choose. Our professors have said many times that we should not substitute these videos for coming to class. There are a number of flaws to this argument in my opinion. Most lecturers are decent and cover their material well and then there are also those that are a colossal FAIL. They either have way too much info for their 50 min of infamy or they just don't cover/explain their material that well. I have had professors who gave a 50 min lecture with 140 slides. That's just slightly ridiculous when you consider the rule that a good presentation, according to former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, has only 10 slides, lasts no more than 20 minutes, and uses only 30 point font or greater. I don't think I have ever encountered a presentation along these lines. Maybe it is absurd to assume that a lecture could accomplish this. I would concede to an increase in the total number of slides to 20 and discussion/presentation to 40 minutes with 10 minutes of discussion. What??? That actually adds up to 50 minutes for a lecture? I'm sorry that you might actually learn something now. My bad. So instead of enduring a torturous 3 hours of lecture each morning, which typically ends up with me and many others surfing the internet instead of listening, I elect to stay home and prepare for STEP 1 or actually learn the information that is required for the test. After all, one of the points that is constantly made in medical school is that you become a lifetime learner and how better exemplified is this principle than when I learn everything on my own at my own pace?

I digress however from the real problem at hand. Our curriculum leaders for the current section were upset at the lack of attendance to their lectures this past week and went on a rant for 15 min this past week. We had just finished a test and a couple students had some questions about the test questions, especially regarding one lecture in particular. You might as well have thrown a hand grenade into the lecture hall given the rant that ensued by the professor. If you want students to actually show up and listen to the lectures given, here's what you need to do:

1. Don't record the lectures anymore.
2. Make attendance mandatory.
3. Be a better lecturer.
4. Involve the audience to a point that attendance is mandatory without making it such. I don't know many students that want a bad rep from their professors.
5. Quizzes at the end of every lecture via electronic means.

You don't have to do every one of these ideas, but pick one and try it at least. It is bound to be much more efficacious than simply complaining and threatening students with a harder course. Come on. We all know that there is little chance that this is actually going to happen. The curriculum is what it is and takes time to change. Sorry Class of 2014! 

Nook Color with Honeycomb....Eat that iPad!

So I said I would check in and let everyone know how and why I am using the Nook Color and not the iPad1 or 2. While there are some advantages to having an iPad (i.e. cameras, more apps, syncing with iTunes and therefore my iPhone) there are still plenty of reasons why I refuse to go the way of the iPad. Probably the biggest and most important for me right now is the price. Half a grand for something that is bound to be semi-obsolete in a year thanks to the way Apple does business. No thanks. I don't have that kind of cheddar to be flushing on a regular basis. Kudos to those who do, and please see my contribute icon to the left where you can send me some through PayPal.
So let's look at the Nook Color and the features it has. First, if you look around enough you can find one for under $200 as I did. This little tablet has a 7" screen with a 1024x600 ratio. The stock Nook Color has B&N proprietary software running on top of an Android 2.1 platform and is the first thing I changed about my NC. I am by no means a tech genius, but I manage to get around and understand a portion of what is discussed in forums. At least up to the point that you start talking in code. So I looked around on XDA for some info on how to root my NC and found a plethora of threads discussing the matter. You have to download a couple of programs (winimage and winzip) in order to use the files and perform the needed tasks, but all said programs were free so no argument from me. It did take a while for me to figure out exactly what I needed to do as the instructions were a little foreign to me, but after several breaks and coming back to the problem they were easily overcome.
So after rooting the NC it was then running Froyo and the B&N software, but I noticed it was too slow and it was super annoying to keep seeing B&N stuff popping up now and then. I quickly decided that had to go and started researching the Honeycomb install.

Nook Color running Honeycomb. Compared to my dad's iPad this seems to run just as fast with loading web pages and does well with running multiple programs at once.

This was after all the reason I went with this tablet. I knew there was a build out there and that it was working pretty good. Again back to XDA for more downloads and in 2 hours (most of which was spent by my computer unzipping and writing/mounting files) I had a tablet running a version of Android meant for a tablet. Let me just say it is awesome.
I quickly set up my exchange account, my gmail account, downloaded some of my favorite medical apps and transferred all my pdf textbooks to my 16GB uSD card. Which by the way is another great feature. I can swap out cards whenever I want and keep video, music, or whatever on each of them. I am not doing this right now, but the possibility is there. For now everything fits easily on the uSD card.
I downloaded a program for PDFs that allows me to highlight and anotate them so it is almost as good as having a paper copy. Several obvious pluses to this are that I no longer pack a library around with me and can access them anywhere without an internet connection. STEP 1 here I come.
I have my First Aid on here and I can access my USMLERx subscription when I have a WiFi connection. My next step in this process is to jailbreak my iPhone and start using its unlimited data package to access WiFi when I am in the hospital. Oh the possibilities.

So here's my list of why you should buy the NC instead of an iPad:

• Price: $250 vs $499
• Size/weight: NC: 8.1"x5"x0.48" and 15.8oz vs. iPad: 9.5"x7.31"x0.34" and 21.3oz.
• Battery life: 8hrs vs. 10hrs
• OS: android open source Honeycomb vs. closed iOS
• Apps: There are enough Android apps to keep you happy and to handle anything you need to do. A significant number of them are free too.
• Memory: The use of a microSD card up to 32GB in size makes this hands down more economical. I can swap them out easily without any problems. Currently I use 1 16GB card and a smaller 8GB card. Your apps are stored on the card, so be aware of they may not work if you swap cards. I use mine just for music and video.
• Flash: While my NC doesn't currently support it, it will. Flash Player 10.2 was released for the Motorola Xoom with Honeycomb. The AOSP (open source code for Honeycomb) is soon to be released and I am sure a version of Flash will be ready shortly thereafter. Hulu anyone? Apple has shot down the idea of ever using flash on their mobile products which underscores how moronic they are when it is the standard in the industry right now. I'm fine with saying it sucks and that you need something better, but don't not use it until there is an acceptable replacement in use. DORKS!

There you have it. In the end you have to decide what works best for you and meets your needs. I don't do a lot of gaming or video watching on mine so that is not as important for me. I want something that works for me and handles my day to day stuff while letting me customize it as I see fit. 

Tag, You're on TV

Today I had a chance to be on a local news station commenting on the shortage of physicians in Texas and how that influenced my decision to attend medical school. Amazingly, I really wasn't nervous about the whole thing, but I wish I could go back and redo it again. It never fails that as you are walking away from some sort of encounter, whether a patient or reporter, you always come up with stuff you wish you would have said. I didn't stumble on my words or my thought processes, but I didn't get a chance to really hit the topic of graduate medical education. It was a good lesson in how a good interviewee can take the question given and shape it into the answer they want to give.

I'm not sure if they will even use my comments or not, but I'm glad I did it. I put my name out there and let them know I'm interested in doing this sort of thing so we will see where it goes from here since I will be here for the next two years. If it does go on the news I will try and post a copy of the video here via YouTube or something.

Here is a copy of the article that ran with it:

Recruiting Efforts to Draw Doctors to Rural Areas

Recent reports suggest Texas medical schools will need twice as many graduates over the next 14 years to care for a growing and aging population.

Posted: 10:17 PM Mar 8, 2011
Reporter: Stephanie Palmer

Recent reports suggest Texas medical schools will need twice as many graduates over the next 14 years to care for a growing and aging population. This year, nearly 100 medical students are expected to graduate from the Texas A&M Health Science Center, up about 30 percent from 2005. The state is asking all medical schools to increase their class size.

"There are 150 counties that are actually under served with physicians," said Nathan Bertoldo, a medical student. "Thirty-five don't even have physicians."
Bertoldo is from San Antonio. However, he is thinking about practicing medicine in a more rural community -- where the need is greater.

"I actually got my Master's degree in Rural Public Health to better address that situation, " said Bertoldo.

There's dual benefit for him to practice medicine in a less metropolitan area.

"Texas is a unique situation," said Bertoldo. "They have some loan payment programs. That helps us with our debt after medical school, specifically if we serve in those areas."

Texas A&M is recruiting more primary care doctors to practice in rural areas. There are scholarships for students from that type of community who want to return, following graduation.

Bertoldo is one of dozens of students, Texas A&M is working to bring into the pool of doctors. Still, only about half of the graduates become primary care physicians, while others go into specialties like, surgery or psychiatry.

The university says while class sizes are steadily increasing, it will take time for those students to work their way through the four-year program. So, it may be some time before there are enough doctors on hand to care for the Lone Star State.

Experts say the number of residencies in Texas also contribute to the shortage of doctors. There simply are not enough hospitals providing hands on training for the number of graduates. So, they leave to go to another state and too many times do not return to serve the needs in Texas.

I Wish You Didn't Choose to Be a Doctor

For the second and probably not the last time those were the words out of my four year-old's mouth. I had been at school all day and had just gotten home about 5 o'clock. He was ready to go out back and swing and I have a test tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. No matter what I did or said to convince him that this test was important and that I wanted to and would spend all day with him Friday and Saturday he just did not get it. I really do not blame him either. A lot of times I don't get it. Why am I pouring my blood and sweat into this seemingly meaningless acquisition of knowledge when my life is just passing me by. I am reminded of my uncle, a radiologist, giving me some advice prior to starting medical school that I shouldn't get so caught up in school that I miss the important things in life. I agree with that philosophy to a point for sure. When I get done with this whole ordeal of a process I hope I can say that I enjoyed a lot of it, I did not forget who I was or become someone I am not, and that I still know my family and they know me.

This is not to say that I won't miss soccer games or even birthdays, but I will find time for them and I will enjoy myself. I guess my grades are evidence of that to this point! I have not obsessed and worried over getting straight A's (even though I set out with that as my goal). I feel like all the testing we have done to this point really has only assessed my ability to remember what one lecturer said vs another. If you put me in a room with another student in my class with straight A's (and my meager B avg) I could do just as good clinically and probably even better on a social/personal level. My thoughts concerning all of this is that it will all come out in the wash during 3rd year. So many docs have told me that 3rd year is completely different as far as learning compared to the first two years of medical school. I can't wait!

I do feel comfortable now with the pace of med school and don't get quite as stressed when we get a bunch of new material. It doesn't make me overly happy when we get complicated material the day before the exam, but that is to be expected at this point. I would be shocked into a coma myself if they ever changed!!

1 Year Later

Well it is obvious that I have little time or better things to do than to comment on this blog as evidenced by my lack of posts. I am going to try and change that. Right now we are in the midst of the Repro/Endocrine block and winding down our 2nd year. It has gone really, really fast for me. The scary part is that Step 1 is coming up quickly and will be upon me before I know it. I've tried to adopt a new study strategy to try and get my STEP studying in each day. I skip class since all the lectures are up on the internet anyway and instead take that time to review and study material for STEP.

Since lectures are recorded I just download them in the evening, listen to them at 2x to make sure there was not anything extra that the lecturer added in and then go through my notes the rest of the evening. So far it seems to have been working well and I feel like I am getting caught up on everything. Prior to this I would waste the morning trying to muddle through a lecture on my own before the recording was available. It seemed like I was doing more internet surfing than studying, but it was better than actually attending class. I just have no capacity to sit in a seat for 3+ hours and listen to someone uh, mmmm, well uh through a lecture. Every now and then you get a lecturer who is engaging or the material is quite interesting and presented well, but that is perfect storm phenomena these days. Thank goodness it is almost over.

I just got a Nook Color and it have it running Android FROYO right now. I'll post more about how that has helped with studying and STEP on my next post. Till then.........

Phase II Begins

So we are off to a new year, 2010, and also starting a new phase in medical school. They decided to call it Phase II despite still being in our first academic year. In the past students have been taught what the normal state of the body was throughout the entire first year and then during the second year they learn the disease state. I can see plus side of doing it this way in that you don't have to remember what normal was a year ago, but at the same time you will still have to remember normal and the disease when Step 1 rolls around so I think it all evens out in the end. It never fails that I get to participate in a guinea pig experiment during my education. It happened during my MPH and it's happening during med school. Go figure. 


Enough with curriculum though. I need to vent about some of the student organizations and their elections. During the first two months of school we had a number of elections for student positions such as class president, VP, and all the other obligatory positions that are needed in a student body government. There were also a few positions for some of the organizations that deal with medical interests and issues. One in particular caught my interest, AAMC Student Representative. I didn't really campaign or anything, I just asked a few people if they would vote and prepared a little speech. I know I was by far the most qualified and I thought that I presented the best argument (don't we all think that!) as to why they should elect me, but of course didn't win. No biggie, I needed to focus on school and my family anyhow. 


SOOOOOO elections for another org come up that works to provide free immunizations to underserved populations in rural Texas. I had some work with them during my MPH and had also attended the first event so I knew it was something I wanted to do. I had some ties to the CON, SRPH and the SGA so I wanted to work to get those going. 


Well election time rolls around and the two people I am running against are freaking out because  they thought the election was a done deal. There were two spots up for grabs and none of the others in the org were even contested. I sit in the back of the class of about 150 seats in a stadium type seating area. These two were down at the bottom with a worried look on their faces while they are holding hands, and I noticed over the top of my laptop that they keep looking up towards me. I mean they have to turn around to do it, so I know they are looking. It made me chuckle then and still does. Then they start talking to the person in charge of the election getting even more worried it looks. The election is minutes away and they run out of the room together. I walk down to the bottom of the room and start talking casually to the current president about when the election is going to start and I ask if there is any problem. Apparently the two chickens didn't think they had the election sewn up so they ran to get more students. I was pretty confident that I would win after seeing who all had hung around (most of them friends of mine). I didn't really care at all that they were trying to get more votes and just figured that if they did win so be it. It just wan't meant to be. 
In the end I didn't win. SHOCCCCCKKKKEEEERRRRRRR! That doesn't really bother me since I didn't really want to work with one of the people anyway. I didn't really know him, but he seemed pretty anal retentive to say the least. Not a good combo!! 


What bugs me is that despite two decent efforts to participate in my school, I have effectively been shut down. In the end maybe it is for the best as I could definitely improve my grades, but it is still frustrating. I'm not sure if I will volunteer for anything anymore. I need to talk to a few people and see how important it is to have student organization experience for residency. I can't imagine it matters that much.


I have been toying around with the idea to work on getting a completely student run clinic established in town, but that is another issue for another day. Until next time........sleep.

Day 1: 30 and getting dumber

I am not your typical medical student and therefore my experiences leading up to this experience and during are quite different than your average early 20's med student. I am married, going on 6 years, and have two kids, Ryan~4 and Jackson 1 1/2, all of which make life challenging and rewarding at the same time. To top it all off I turned 30 on the first day of classes. 


I remember sitting down and looking around at the room wondering if this was really happening. I quickly snapped out of the wonderment stage and into the "oh crap! Is this really what I wanted???!" stage as they began talking about how quickly the material would come, but that we would all do fantastic as the mind is able to learn and adapt up until the age of 30. At that point your mental ability to learn new things starts to drop. Great I thought. Nothing like turning 30 the day you start med school and then hearing you are going to have a hard time due to your age. Age is relevant though. At least that's what I kept telling myself the rest of the day and for that matter the rest of the semester. I have to admit that my body is starting to get old. I have white whiskers in my beard these days, my hair line is receding and thinning all at once, and I am getting fatter by the day. 


December, that seems so far away at this point. I mean it is still July. Albeit the end of July, but still July. oh well. It's too late to turn back now. I better get caught up.........they are already talking about the spinal cord and autonomic innervations.