I Hate Physics, But MD Doesn't Hate Me.

So, I'm in my last week of Physics for Science Majors 1. I still think I'm going to fail, thus leaving me with some very tough choices in the near future. I really wish that I had known that this school had tight connections to the Columbia School of Engineering and that the class is targeted for pre-engineers. So here are the potential scenerios:

• If I don't get credit for the class then I'm certainly not taking Physics 2 this summer. It's not that I wouldn't be allowed; I just don't know why I would do that so myself. That then leaves me with a couple of options of when to take physics.
• I take it in place of one of my classes this fall and spring w/ Orgo(year long) and Micro(fall)/Genetics(spring). This would then allow me to take the MCATs in the spring and continue with the tradtional medschool application process. But it may be too heavy of a course load. Plus the Physics prof. at my school is a diiiiiiick.
• I take Physics in place of Micro and Genetics and then leave my senior fall with Vertebrate Physiology, Developmental Biology and Micro, and my senior spring with Comparative Anatomy, Genetics and Human Nutrition and/or Clinical Microscopy.
• I take Physics at a different school next summer, which would leave me with that year off after college.
• I take Physics my senior year with the other classes listed above and then end up taking the MCATs senior spring and leave myself with a year without school.

I'm not a fan of any of these choices and I'm constantly praying that somehow I get credit for this class. And I honestly don't know which of these choices I would choose. My advisor would probably play a big role in what I do. If a gun were held to my head I would choose the first option and suck it up.

• If I get at least a C that means I get credit for the course, but I don't think I want to push my luck next summer session. I would then take Physics 2 at my school with Orgo and Genetics. I definitly think I could handle that. I've heard that genetics isn't that bad. This would also allow me to apply according to plan.
• If I get a B- or higher in the class then I would take Physics 2 this summer. I mean if I can get a B- then I guess grades don't mean shit in this class. Plus this would allow me to continue with my ideal schedule of classes.
  

Did this make your head spin? I normally love making these scenerios and scheduling for the future but the idea of not getting credit for this class makes me feel physically ill. Normally I'm all for talking about my classes with people, but I actually refuse to talk about Physics with others because of how crappy it makes me feel. I should know by sometime next week what the plan is going to be.

In other news...

I was telling my friend (whose mom is the office manager at the doctor's office where I'm shadowing) about how I didn't think the doctor liked being shadowed since he didn't make any real conversation. He just laughed at me. I was a little confused and he explained that the doctor isn't much of a talker the first time he meets people. NICE! (no sarcasm) I'm so glad that it's him and not me. I'm just going to have to break out the old charm. I've always had a knack for getting non-talkers to become comfortable and break out into conversation. Not that I think he's uncomfortable. I just seem to be good at getting the ball moving with the mutes.

Today in Physics the professor decided that he was going to give us his sales speech. He was talking about how the school has close connections with Columbia University's School of Engineering and how being a physics major is great. He told us all of this after finding out that the majority of the class was premed. He explained that as a physics major one could still apply to medical school and if it didn't work out engineering could always be a safety net.

Engineering....
a safety net....
You've got to be fucking kidding me. I'd rather drown.

He continued to talk about the program they have where as long as the student has a 3.0 they would be accepted to Columbia's School of Engineering and would graduate with a B.A, in Physics and a B.S. in a wide range of engineering fields. He also told us that he thought everyone of us was extrememly bright and could guarentee us scholarships should we choose to change schools and majors. (I guess 31/60, 41/60 and 20/70 on physics test qualifies me as bright.) No offense, but he was telling this to the people at Duke, Cornell and Boston College. Hell even my school is tons better than this place.

Horrah for Shadowing!

It's amazing that after only about 8 hours of shadowing I feel like I've already seen such a wide variety of patients. I've seen people that have dropped 45 lbs. weights on their feet and breaking every metatarsal. (And not having it looked at for over 24 hours) I've had a little old lady come in with these ridiculous clear plastic shoes that she want turned into customized orthopedic shoes. I've had someone cry once they heard that their shoulder was probably going to need surgery to fix and that is would only be 80% better at best. Then there was the very odd hippie couple that had a million and one questions about a broken heel surgery and then decided they wanted a second opinion. There was the single mom with the baby who had a "bent" wrist but didn't have the insurance to pay. (They were taken care of free of charge.) Oh I love shadowing so much. Too bad that I don't think the doctor feels the same way about someone extra being in his way. Oh well, this is what I have to do and I'm not taking prisoners.

Freaking Global Warming Son of a Bitch

So CNN.com has reported that the world is now the hottest it had been in 400 years and they chalk it up to global warming...wait no now they're saying the past 2000 years. My question is, "WHY THE FUCK WAS IT THIS HOT 400/2000 YEARS AGO WHEN THERE WERE NO CARS?!?!?!?!?!" They say that past warming trends were due to volcanic eruptions and increased solar fluctuation. Last time I checked a volcano just recently erupted and oh yeah there was Mt. St. Helena. Duke also just did a study on recent solar energy intake and it's relation to the recent increases in SST (sea surface temperature), one of the main hypothesis to why we've been having more and stronger hurricanes. Oh, wait a second. Only the North Atlantic basin has had that pattern of hurricanes.... The actual average number of hurricanes has remained constant across the globe. Silly scientist should be calling it USA Warming, duh. Regardless, there was a solid correlation between the increased solar activity and increased SST. But I doubt they're connected in anyway. Oh yeah, and thousand and thousands of years ago (i forget the specific time period name) when the CO2 levels were very high one would think there would have been a pattern of climate conditions that we claim global warming causes now, like El Niño. But I guessed Global Warming has changed it's mind since then since there was actually a higher frequency of La Niña back them.

I'm off to drive my $50/tank car until there is no oil left on the Earth, and I'm going to love every second of it.

Well It's Over Before It Began

Today the Chair of the Environmental Science department at my school sent out an e-mail about how good the Al Gore Global Warming movie was. Well, ya'll don't know this about me yet but I don't buy into the accepted theory of global warming. For a while now I've supressed my beliefs in fear of being blacklisted from the School of Science but this was the last straw. So I wrote a letter about how I didn't think it was fair that the anti-global warming theories are never mentioned in class. The e-mail was respectful and I was "cool." Regardless, I'm sure that the science department will disown me. I probably should have done this after getting all my LoR from them. Oh, well.

Why DO instead of MD?

A commenter asked this question and I felt that it deserved more than a comment answer.

Number one reason why: Because if there were TWO Dr. Gregory House, MDs the world would probably collapse upon itself. I'm doing it for the goodness of mankind.

The first way I heard about osteopathy was from my mom who knew our old babysitter's daughter went to some kind of different med school where she wasn't a MD, but she had all the same privileges. She also mentioned that it might be easier to get into this type of school than an MD. So, I'm not going to lie. The initial reason I was drawn to osteopathy was because it was suppose to be easier. (I'll wait for the room to stop booing and hissing before I continue)

I then did my research on osteopathy to figure out what it really was. What I found amazed me. How could there be this type of profession that was exactly the same as a MD-doctor that so few people knew existed? As I read further about the founding of osteopathy I seemed to agree more and more with their philosophy about treating the cause than the symptoms. Then there was this part that looked a little like voo-doo. OMM. But once I learned more about it it made more and more sense to me. Keeping things in the body in their correct places should help the body run optimally. My dad then told me about this doctor that his entire office goes to for all of their back and neck problems and that they were kind of like this doctor's cult following. Turns out that he was a DO.

Lastly, I feel that the medical philosophy of osteopathy most similarly resembles what I love about medicine. I like that symptoms are seen as pieces of a puzzle of a bigger problem and that it's not always the most obvious answer. I like how osteopathy sees the connection of all the parts of the body and that one part is not independent of another. I know that now a days both osteopathy and allopathy (MD) recognize and address this when teaching but I feel that it's more innate in osteopathy.


Now it's time to get back to Physics.
ACK!

2 Down. 8 to Go.

Physics is going by reasonably quickly. Although, that's not really going to matter if I don't step my game up a bit. I got a 31/60 on my first test. In the other class evidently the class average on tests are like 30% and if you have a test average of 60% you'll get an A; so I don't really know what to expect grade-wise. I miss the days when professor would just make fair tests. I won't say that I'm that surprised by my grade because I really didn't know what to expect his test to look like, but now I know how to study for them. Hopefully this will lead to better grades.

Lab seems to be going okay though. The labs are fairly easy and the computer does most of the work. Plus he doesn't make us write lab reports since we have lab twice a week. I don't know how I'm doing on the questions because he hasn't handed anything back yet.

My lab partner is a pretty good guy. He always seems to know what the deal is with the labs, which is excellent because before we start the lab I'm always a little slow. I make up for it though with my Excel skills. He's never used Excel before and we have to use it for every lab so I pull my own weight. But I seem to have another one of those lab partners who wants to get out of there as fast as possible. Now don't get me wrong I don't like lab anymore than other people but if all we have to do is add a weight to a block then why do we have to fake results? My Chem lab partner last semester was the same way. She was much worse than this guy about rushing everything and freaking out if things weren't moving quickly. She would sometimes want to leave things until next time even though I knew that would just delay us later on. So I being the tool that I am would insist that we stay a little later than the average group and get it done right. Once again though she was a little more on top of what was going on in lab than I was.

Lab seems to be a bit of a weak area for me. My first lab ever was my freshman Bio2 class. That was probably the biggest waste of time in terms of what they had us do. (Stare at a tank with a fish in it and wave pieces of paper at it? Wtf^>!>!) Plus it was impossible to write a lab report for the woman since she never said what we were supposed to explain. I also had never written a lab report in my life before this class and she just assumed that we all knew how to so that sucked. Chem1 lab was just a blur to me along with the rest of that class. I don't remember what the hell happened in that. Bio1 lab I enjoyed but blew at the practicals up time. The prof. had a slide fetish and I'm absolutely horrible at examining slides. Chem2 lab was fine cause I had a good partner. My lab reports still blew though. I really just don't like writing them and put little effort into them. I'm going to have to work on that for next year.

The other day in recitation I was making some small talk with the other premeds. I asked DukeGirl about some of the classes she’s taken. She said the first semester of Orgo isn’t bad, which is consistent with what other people have said also. When I asked her whether she had taken “micro” she looked at me like wtf is micro. Worst. Bio Major. Ever. Then I asked if she had taken Immunology and she said it was a graduate level class at Duke. I’m not gonna lie; that was a little bit of an ego booster for me. BCboy told me that he has taken it and that it was also a pretty tough class for him as well, which also made me feel better about myself.

Tomorrow I'm going to my brother's high school graduation. I was never a fan of his school because it cost so much money to go to but he never did any work. Also he went to school with a lot of uber rich people, which skewed his view of what life is really like. For instance when I told him that I don't plan on joining a country club when I get older he thought I was nuts. I then pointed out to him that none of my friends belong to country clubs and they all live in our town. He's in for a big shock once he goes to college, which coincidently is also my school. I'm so upset that he got into my school I can't even tell you. He's in for a shock when he actually has to do work. I can't wait. Some may think I'm a bad older brother for being happy about the transitional shock he's going to go through. But if you knew him then you would be happy that he's finally going to get slapped in the face by reality. Although, he is going to be a business major so there is a slight possibility that he never does have to do work in college either. (That's a whole other topic for me to talk about one day)

PS - I don't hate MDs. Any remarks made about them are with love. :-)

666-Satan Has Taken the Form of Radians

Today in Physics we had our first test and I have good news. There wasn't any calculus to be found at all!

The bad news: my calculator was set to give answers in radians and I didn't know how to fix that until after the test.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure the way I tried to solve the questions was wrong...Oh, wait this just in: After consulting with my notebook it looks like I was dead on.

Awesome.....Akndlfnasodnfvklwdngbrnw
I just sent my professor an e-mail, but like every time I try to send important e-mails through my school's e-mail service I'm sure it won't really be sent.

Why do med schools put me through this? Actually the better question is: Why do I put myself through this?

I was just reading a blog on my beloved studentdoctor.net about this person who was doing his IM intern rotation at Johns Hopkins and I seriously thought he was going to kill himself because of it. Evidently the hospital was completely ignoring the new work hour regulations and he was working 34+ hours shifts and consequently almost killed someone. From what he said though, regardless of the hospital ignoring the regulations IM is one of the more demanding residencies. I always thought it was the opposite...

So, I pose another question to myself. Why do I want to go into the field that's going to kill me?

Everyone keeps telling that I'm crazy for putting myself through this but what else am I going to do. It's pretty undeniable that bio/medicine is what I really like and I already know that I hate the business world. So that leaves me with.....lawyer? yeah right. teacher? well that's probably going to happen since I'm going to fail physics....screw my med school application...and have nothing else to do with a B.S. in Biomedical Science. (In psychology we call this chain of thoughts the Distorted Thought Process, “catastrophizing”.)

Hmmm, psychology. You see there's a field in which I excel. The only problem is that I'm not terribly interested in it. The science isn't "hard" enough for me. Well maybe when I'm teaching at my high school I'll learn to love psychology and go into that.

Ugggggghhhhhhh... ::breath:: ::play Michelle Branch:: Okay, I feel a little better. The tests are non-cumulative including the final so I'll just start doing better on everything. It's great that all I have to do is say "I'll do better," and it'll come true. What's that you say? That's not how it works? Shit.

On a funnier note I was "that guy" in class today. We were talking about speed of objects in relation to other objects. He had just finished the topic and asked if there were any question.

Yes, I had a question but did I really want to risk him going into a tangent? It may never end... and what about the social repercussions. The class would think that I was "that guy." Until that point of was just the guy who didn't talk to anyone and I was fine with that. (In fact, that's what the majority of the class is. I love it.) But no I just couldn't help myself...

"Is anything in the universe completely stationary?"

And like the dog that chased the cat with the white stripe down its back I realized this was a terrible idea. And whispered to the class "I'm so sorry." Most people just turned around and laughed and one person said "curiosity kill the cat." So I guess I'm no the longer the loner anymore. I'm the cat.

Meow.

I Now Know Why People Hate Smart People

God this class is so annoying. All day the professor just keeps proving all these formulas using calculus. That's great and all but he doesn't do any examples showing us how to use the calculus methods to answer questions>!dflnqwdgfnw;kdgknv

Then in recitation when we're doing practice problems the TA (who btw is a moron) just shows us how to answer the problems using the non-calc equations. So how is someone who isn't use to doing calculus suppose to know how to answer the questions using calc?

The worst part about all of this is that my class is filled with a bunch of braniacs. We have the chem and math majors who get all horny over calc and then we have the girl from Duke who is above memorzing formulas (there are only three...) and would rather just derive the answer. Well that's great for them and everything but once again WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE ONLY TAKEN CALC 1?!?!?! I feel terrible for the girl who has only taken pre-calc because I don't know how she can follow what's going on in class. The class doesn't even have a prereq. of Calc I so how can they force us to use calc to answer the questions????

We have a test on Tuesday and I have no idea what kind of problems are going to be on it. The TA claims that my professor is an easy grader, but I don't think I buy it. I'm probably just going to end up solving the problems using the equations instead of proving the answers using calc. I mean he's already proved to us that the equations work by using calc so why does he need me doing it? I mean what's the purpose of developing the equations if you're not even going to let me use them?!?!?!?!?

Bah. I'm def not enlightening these people to D.O.-hood because they don't deserve to work with normal people.