Ben's blog about Med School/Life

One of the greatest questions that I get from friends and family is "what is the grossest thing you've done in school?" I've gotten to do some really crazy stuff that would get somebody thrown in prison for a long time if they were to do it on the street. When I put on my white coat, people start telling me about every drug they've ever done, every sexual experience they've ever had, the state of their bowel movements, exactly what color their urine is, what their dietary habits are, as well as every other possible detail they feel the need to tell me about. I've learned how to properly perform a pelvic exam on a woman through experience and have been informed to never say "everything looks good!" for fear that the patient may take that in a sexual manner. I did my first male genital exam on a freshman college student that was forced to let us molest them in the name of science due to his pledging to a fraternity at the local university. These types of experiences have been labeled as "gross" by many of the people close to me, but they have always been the mundane experiences a medical student goes through on a day-to-day basis. The things that I would label as "gross" have been the type of thing that makes your stomach turn a little bit. The two experiences that come to mind immediately were in anatomy lab. The first was when I took a hacksaw to a cadaver's arm and cut it clean off. It wasn't the act of cutting the arm off that turned my stomach a little but rather the fact that it was as easy as it was. It took five small strokes with the saw to cut all the way through the arm. When I say a hacksaw, I mean a rusty piece of crap that had been laying in the corner of the lab for the past 25 years without having the blade replaced. Absolutely incredible how fragile the human body is...until you get to the neck. The second experience is when we pealed away the muscles and ligaments of the neck in order to pull the head of our cadaver clear from the spine. It took FOREVER! We had to do it by hand in order to maintain the nerves and basic musculature. It was very interesting to see how well the head is attached to the rest of the body. The whole time I was imagining what kind of force would be required to cause the equal amount of damage that we were inflicting on our subject. Yep, I'd say those experiences could easily be labeled as "gross."

The countdown has commenced...5 months until I'm done with classes (for the rest of my life), 6 months and 1 week until boards, 6 months and 2 week until I'm responsible for human lives, 6 months 3 weeks until they kick me out of medical school and charge me with negligent manslaughter.

I love coffee. My relationship with coffee began at a fairly young age while elk hunting with my grandfather. He would throw a pot on early in the morning before heading out and there was always a pot ready after tromping through the cold woods when I got back to camp. As I grew up, the relationship only prospered. Eventually though, I became bored with the mundane cup brewing from my pot and started to experiment with the cups available at local coffee shops. This helped me to appreciate the finer ways that coffee could be prepared. When I finally left for medical school, I felt that coffee had established a fine place on my palate and I knew we had a great future ahead of us. What I didn't know was the strain that medical school would put on relationhips. Medical school soon forced me to put horendous hours of study time into my days and I became unable to fully appreciate the finer things that coffee could do for me. Coffee has always been there. I've had a cup next to me for the greater part of a year and a half, however my view of coffee has changed. Rather than appreciating coffee for it's flavor, I've began using coffee for my needs as a student. Instead of enjoying expensive coffee that I can buy over the internet, I've bought the local store's bulk special and have cruised through container after container of the stuff. My enjoyment of coffee has become a need. As the hours wear on, the darker my tastes become. I've made my coffee thicker and stronger in order to adapt to what I need from it. I've become reliant on what coffee can do for me rather than appreciate the immense flavors it possesses.

For my birthday, my sister sent me out a pound of some of the most amazingly flavored coffee I've ever put to my lips. It's great, it reminds me of the times when I appreciated my relationship with coffee. I feel as though I've used coffee, and I'm ashamed. Unfortunately, for what I need in my life right now, the HyVee special is what I'm going to have to have. I can't make my sister's coffee strong enough to get me through my day. It just isn't black enough, it doesn't have the umph that I need at 3 in the morning when I'm on the verge of failing out.

I look forward to the day that I can sit down with a beautifully brewed cup o' joe and apologize for my neglect of the wonderful relationship we once had. Unfortunately, I'm worried that I've neglected that relationship for too long and I will never be able to return to the pure enjoyment that we once shared. I fear that my future will be engulfed in bitter, black and potent coffee that will keep me cruising through this world of medicine. The coffee that I make now I imagine only I can drink. For that, I'm sorry. The saying goes, never let a cowboy make you coffee. Perhaps it should have an adendum added to it. Never let a medical student make you coffee.

Hey everybody, I'm starting this blog with the intenetion of keeping everybody up to date with what is going on in my life over the next few years. As most of you know, I'm heading into my clinical years starting this july and I'm going to be getting to do some really amazing things. I'll try to post my exploits/experiences and maybe a picture or two when I get a little motivation to pull out the camera. More than likely this is going to be a great outlet for me to tell funny stories, crazy happenings, and probably a fair share of bitching and moaning about the crap...I mean, wonderful experiences that medical students must go through in order to earn their stripes.