From Bagels to Beignets

Well this was a weird month.... Everything was normal until the week before the shelf exam was supposed to happen. We had finished our final med pharm module and we were all studying hard for our final exam until we learned that colleges all over the country were closing due to the coronavirus pandemic. Within a span of 48 hours, our classes had switched to remote learning, our shelf exam was cancelled, and some of my classmates had started considering moving home for the rest of the semester. Now it has been around 2 weeks since the announcement and day to day life is proving to be a bit unusual. With the whole city on quarantine there do not seem to be any opportunities to socialize or meet people in person for the near future. It is important that we all do our part to self isolate and help reduce the spread of the virus, but I am sure I'm not the only one who is a bit starved for face to face interaction. Regardless life must go on and the transition to online lectures was

February Hours: 18 Total Hours: 18 What a hectic month this was! With classes, volunteering, and exams to start and end February, there was a lot packed into the shortest month of the year- not to mention my first Mardi Gras ever. This month we did the neuro and psych modules, with our psych exam taking place right after we finish spring break. After that comes the shelf exam and from then on its smooth sailing to the end of the year. It's crazy to think that one month from today we will be done with all of our core classes and only have electives to finish. This month I did two volunteering activities- I volunteered at the Rock n Roll marathon in the medical tent and volunteered to judge the junior division of the GNOSEF science fair. At the marathon, my friends and I were stationed in the main medical tent where we helped doctors treat runners that had severe injuries or health complications from the marathon. Most of what we saw was severe dehydration or hyperthermia- usu

January felt like it passed in the blink of an eye- its hard to wrap my mind around the fact that spring semester is 25% over already. Having had a very bad case of the flu this month, I felt pretty out of it for about a week and am finally starting to feel better now. This semester feels very presentation focused as we have three classes that require us to make presentations. I think it's a cool way to get all of us talking about the material and pick things out that we want to learn about. Although, it is a bit stressful as I ended up getting scheduled to do three presentations in the span of a month. This month we did hormones and the neurology module. I find neurology to be slightly more difficult than other topics, mainly because it feels harder to conceptualize in the body. While most organs in the body have very obvious structure/function relationships, the brain feels a lot more arcane in that sense. As it is a mass of neural tissue, it's harder for me to imagine dr

December Hours: 8 Total Hours: 12 It's hard to believe that the semester is over in 24 hours! The last few months have been a wild ride as we all discovered what New Orleans and Tulane had to offer. I'm typing up this post as a break from being absolutely buried in flash cards from the GI/neoplasia module. I think everyone was very excited for this module as cancer medication is some of the most well funded and cutting edge research out there right now. This month, I was able to volunteer at two locations- a community kitchen where instructors teach people from the community to cook recipes and a food pantry where food was given out. The community kitchen was a unique program that teaches people how to cook healthy recipes that are easy on both effort and time. It was a program that lasted about two months and each session had a different theme behind it. Attendees would be each responsible for one or two dishes, then all the food would be brought together for a discussi

Cumulative Hours- 4 Wow, November is already coming to a close! This month in class, we did the renal and pulmonary module. Every time I learn about the kidney in class, I am always amazed at how complicated it is. It's crazy to think about how every part of the nephron has its own function- while they all contribute to the same end goal, each portion of the nephron contributes in slightly different ways by changing which ions and molecules can permeate through at each region. Seeing that and seeing how different drugs target different parts of the nephron really underscores the complexity of the kidney.  I think my friends and I have solidified our study strategies for this program. We all take notes during class and sometimes study together after class, but for the most part we do the initial legwork for learning the material individually. As the exam approaches, we review together, quiz each other, and try to fill the gaps in each others’ knowledge. At the end of every modu

Hey everyone! I’m back at the end of October and it was a pretty busy month. October has always been my favorite time of year, as the weather gets cool and everyone pulls out their sweaters. It is a bit weird not seeing the trees change color here- back home, all of the leaves would range through vivid reds, oranges, and browns.  School has been in full swing this month and there were some very welcome deviations from standard lectures. We had three team based activities that were helpful in learning the material. Applying the material critically in a different way than usual helped us all solidify our knowledge, whether it was by answering questions as a group, walking through a clinical case, or doing a full patient simulation. The patient simulation was especially helpful as we not only learned what clinical signs to look for and treat in real time, we gained some insight on our instructors personal philosophy on bedside manner and what it means to be a good caretaker. Keepi