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Tuesday, March 30, 2004
On the way to school today, I was thinking about all of the things I wish I had:

fabreeze
a haircut
a flat stomach
a brake job for my car
time for __________ (fill in the blank)
my tax return
peace of mind
immunity from drama (I used to. What happened? I guess people are more dramatic these days, and I've lost my skills.)
a book about Frida Kahlo
a memory stick for my palm pilot
a medical dictionary for said palm pilot
crest whitestrips
curtains and pillows
oranges
money for Ryan to take to Best Buy and go nuts
more energy
a tad more motivation
a photographic memory
review books for the USMLE
Better yet, I wish the USMLE was over.
new contacts
a trip to the dentist
new shoes for when I have to look professional
Gary in Toledo
Missy in Toledo
Contact with Laura, Danielle, Michelle, Sally, Debbie, Shivani, Sarah, Alex, Kate, Yawande, and the rest of my girls from college. We're all scattered around the globe now. It makes me sad.
enough yogurt to last me the rest of the school year
Q-bank for the USMLE (for free)
smiles from my friends
self-possession
sleep
~Sara~
12:44 PM


Friday, March 26, 2004
Self-righteous Students of MCO-- Pay Attention

Pharmacist Refuses to Fill Prescription for Birth Control Pill
A pharmacist in Menomonie, Wisconsin is facing legal action for refusing to refill a woman's prescription for the birth control pill. The K-Mart pharmacist claimed it would violate his religious beliefs to fill a prescription for a contraceptive that could cause what he believed to be an abortion, and refused her right to have the prescription transferred, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

The Pharmacy Examining Board and Policy Committee of the American Pharmacists Association both assert that the pharmacist had the right to refuse service based on conscience but should have transferred the prescription to another pharmacy. Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle (D) has promised to veto pending conscience clause legislation that would allow pharmacists and other medical providers to selectively fulfill their duties based on religious beliefs, reports The Capital Times: "I don't believe medical care should depend on whether a medical practitioner has a certain opinion said Doyle.

The Right to Life movement has been very active in ensuring that pharmacists can refuse a woman access to her birth control prescriptions, said Lisa Boyce of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. The best way to prevent unintended pregnancies and make abortion rare is to make sure that women have information about and access to birth control. The anti-choice movement is so extreme, however, that they are working to weaken the very means that women rely on to prevent unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion.


THERE! If you don't want to deal with ALL of the problems a woman can have, DON'T become a doctor, or a pharmacist. It isn't your job to push your beliefs on your patients. In fact, if you refuse to refer a woman for the medical care she seeks, you are breaking your oath to do no harm. If a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, she will find a way not to be. I think any doctor who refuses to refer a woman to an appropriate source for her care should be held accountable.

This has really pissed me off. Hey--Right to Lifers! Do you want women to stop having abortions? THEN LET THEM GET BIRTH CONTROL AND TELL THEM HOW TO USE IT. The abstinence only policy isn't going to work. Parents can't always be trusted to teach their children. This is a public health issue, and it should not continue to be religious issue.
~Sara~
9:54 PM


Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Sage Advice

I got a good tip at my USMLE review session today:

If you know the answer, it's easy to see that the others are wrong.

ha ha. I know I shouldn't poke fun. I really do like this professor, and he spent a lot of time preparing the review for us. I just couldn't help but chuckle at that "well, duh" moment. See, it's the little jokes that you can have with yourself that make work and school bearable.
~Sara~
5:53 PM


Sunday, March 21, 2004
Paranoia anyone?

Hello there! This email is regarding the AJ V Blk.sil from jetfire13. I contacted him about sending me pics of the tag and he did not send me any. He also said that his "friend" has his camera. He might be selling fakes because he doesn't even use his own pictures. He has no feedback of selling shoes so beware when bidding.

I have been jipped by people like that before and I don't want to see a fellow eBayer get jipped too. :)

Hey asshole, not everybody has a digital camera. If you don't believe that the shoes are authentic, don't bid on them. I guess 100% positive response rating doesn't go far with you.
~Sara~
11:15 AM


Saturday, March 20, 2004
I feel like a wreak on the side of the road. I had bronchitis a few weeks ago. Then, I got tonsillitis, and I'm still taking antibiotics. Last night, something didn't sit well in my stomach, and I sat up half the night trying not to lose my dinner. We ate pork chops, and I was lying there thinking about pork tape worm. I was seriously sweating about tape worms. I know that they pork chops were fine because Ryan and I cooked the heck out of them. Sometimes knowledge is a burden. It can make you really neurotic. On top of everything, I have lost the majority of another day of studying to illness. I'm going to live in a plastic bubble until after boards. I can't afford to get sick again. Maybe I should try to get in bed before midnight. humph.

Last night, before I got sick, Ryan and I hung out with our friend Brian from high school. He's an avid snowboarder, and has done more traveling than anyone I know. It's funny, kind of, to see your friends from school all grown up. Brain is much more settled, despite is obsession with roaming all over the place. He's mellow, but he's still Brian. I had a lot of fun seeing him, and I hope we get to spend more time with him before he moves to Utah. (I'm not kidding.) Apparently, the snowboarding is unbelievable there. Something about that freedom makes me envious. I almost wish Ryan and I could pack our stuff and the kitties, and move somewhere that has something unbelievable. Instead, we're grounded in Toledo, the most boring city in the Midwest. I guess this is what is meant by "paying your dues."
~Sara~
7:35 PM


Friday, March 19, 2004
I'm taking a break from all of the stuff that can go wrong with your GI tract. I promise I will not describe anything, in order to spare the more squeamish of you. Let me just say: do not drink a lot of alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or ignore gastric reflux for too long. These things can mess you up.

So, I have 5 weeks of school left. We get done on May 5th, or something like that. After we're done with classes, we have to jump through the next hoop, USMLE step 1. I was feeling fine about it, really. I figured I would use my MCAT tactics on it: total immersion in the material while sitting by the pool working on my skin cancer for about a month. Then, I was watching ER last night, and I realized that I don't remember the autonomic drugs! I don't remember biochemistry! My grasp on anatomy is shaky, at best! I have a lot to do to prepare for this test. It pretty much decides where you will go for residency. Since Ryan and I want to come back to Michigan, I am going to have to do really well. Anyway, I'm scared, and I feel really stupid. I think I've written about this a million times, so now I feel boring and repetitive.

Do any of you watch The Apprentice? This is the first reality show I have ever watched on a regular basis, and I have to say, it's a guilty pleasure. Anyway, I was checking out MSN's homepage as I sometimes do, and I noticed that Omarosa is claiming that Ereka called her the "n-word." I absolutely recognize that racism exists in this country. Even among educated people, it happens. It is one of the ugliest things about this country. (apart from the $60 billion that W spent on the war on terror last year) However, Omarosa was nothing but a bitch since the beginning of the show. She tried to prove that she was cultured and above the other contestants, but she was more that willing to stab them in the back. Amorality is worse than a tendency to drop the f-bomb now and again. Anyway, she got fired during the episode two weeks ago for trying to get out of doing her share of the work due to her "concussion" from a falling piece of plaster. Never mind that a physician that came to her room in the hotel, and then physicians in a hospital told her there was nothing wrong with her. My guess is that her real diagnosis was malingering.
~Sara~
4:04 PM


Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Well, I fixed my comments. Yay me.
~Sara~
4:43 PM

Hey Kids! How do you like my new blog template? I figured out how to do it all by myself, which is why the comments are stuck weirdly at the top of the post. I just got home from hanging out with Dave and Diane, and I decided to mess around with my blog at midnight. Anway, I'm too tired to teach myself enough HTML to move my comments, although I think I'm getting the hang of it. The whole time I was changing my template, I had my fingers crossed that I wouldn't lose the previous posts on my blog, which has happened before.

If any of my fellow bloggers out there want to get a new template for their blog, the site I got mine from is here.
~Sara~
12:55 AM


Friday, March 12, 2004
Oh my God, I am overcome with joy. Really. Another of my favorite authors, Jennifer Weiner, has just finished a book. Everybody should read her book, Good in Bed, because it's a scream. I loved it. You each should get a copy and read it by any pool that is accessible to you as soon as summer arrives. Here is Jen's webpage. I've written her a few emails and she has responded. It makes my pitiful little life feel worthwhile. ha ha.
~Sara~
11:56 AM


Thursday, March 11, 2004
I just found out that my favorite author, Melanie Rawn, is working on a new book. This will be her first new book in something like 7 years. I'm so happy! This has totally made my day.
~Sara~
11:06 PM


Tuesday, March 09, 2004
So, it turns out I actually need 11 hours of sleep per night. I have been sleeping that much, and I feel like a million bucks. I don't wake up in the middle of the night. I don't have trouble falling asleep because I go to bed when I feel like it. It's great. Vacations are the best. Of course, it has occurred to me that the reason I'm sleeping so well is that a huge source of stress is gone now that I'm on vacation. Maybe I need 11 hours because I exhausted myself studying for this last test. It wasn't so much that I was keeping weird hours. I was in bed by 11:00 most nights. I think that it was more that keeping that kind of concentration on something when you're sick to death of it is exhausting. I watched something about the science of stress on Discovery Health last night. (I know. I can't even leave well enough alone when I'm on vacation). This is what I learned: sustained stress sends cortisol screaming through your system until it kills you. The end. This means, you're fatter, you have greater risk of heart attack, etc. This makes me wonder about my career choice. Yes, the preclinical years are bad, but the clinical years require many many more hours at MCO. I will be away from Ryan and my friends a lot, and they are my major source of support. I will have responsibility. I will have to show that I'm "doctor material" because I will constantly be evaluated by everybody and his brother. I have to find time to study for tests after work. I will have to learn procedures that are uncomfortable with the patient, and may even hurt the patient for his or her own good. I will be expected to look up information about my patients' ailments every night, so if the attending gets a hair up his ass and starts to pimp me, I won't look like a fool. I'm sweating just thinking about it. That's just medical school, too. Residency is even worse, I'm told. So, I was thinking, when does my reprieve from stress start? Is it the second year of residency, which I'm looking at like it's the promised land? I doubt it. I picked a hard career. I picked something where people die, and other people want to sue you about it. The unrealistic expectation of the physician begins with the physician when she's a medical student. Lawyers don't have anything on us when they assess guilt. I promise.

With that bleak picture, why does anybody go on in this field. Well, because you want to help people. There has to be a way to help people without killing yourself all the time. Maybe the answer is to reframe your idea of stress, or maybe take your unrealistic expectations down a few pegs. It also helps to remember that I want to do this. When I get mired down in the muck of studying, it's hard to remember. I am looking forward to 3rd year very much. It seems that things will get better, or at least they'll be bad in a different way. I'm one of those people who actually likes change. I think it might be that I like the idea of getting closer to being done. I'm sick to death of being broke all the time. I think that might be the hardest part about this. Even though the payoff isn't great at first, $38,000 is still over two times what I have to live on now. I just hope that when I'm done that I have a career that is fulfilling and that I make enough money to buy myself a house, and a car that runs all the time.
~Sara~
2:39 PM


Sunday, March 07, 2004
Does Bill Gates really need more money?

NEW YORK (AP) -- If the U.S. Postal Service delivered mail for free, our mailboxes would surely runneth over with more credit-card offers, sweepstakes entries, and supermarket fliers. That's why we get so much junk e-mail: It's essentially free to send. So Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying "stamps" for e-mail.

Dear Mr. Gates,
I appreciate the fact that you're just trying to think of a way to cut down on all of the spam; however, my poor ass likes it that I can drop an email to my sister for free when I can't call her during peak time on my cell phone. I like it that I can send a funny forward to 10 of my friends. Isn't it enough that the free greeting cards online are no longer free? Don't tell me that was an attempt to cut down on spam, Bill. I don't believe you, Bill. I don't care which charities you donate to, Bill. I'm pissed off at you. You stink.

Sincerely,
Sara Duckett

(Bill and I are in a fight, and he doesn't know.)
~Sara~
11:34 PM


Thursday, March 04, 2004
Dr. Christina Aguilera! I don't think so.

Nicole Kidman has opened up about the medical mystery that last month forced her to publicly deny a rumor that she had breast cancer, reports the Australian Associated Press.

"I had my first mammogram and then I had to go and have it checked out," Kidman told reporters Monday at a benefit in Beverly Hills for the Women's Cancer Research Fund, which presented her with the 2004 Courage Award for "her unwavering commitment to the cause." "I went through a 48-hour period when I didn't know what was going to be the outcome. But I think it is important to discuss that, and fortunately for me it was fine."

Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and a freakishly bronzed Christina Aguilera were among the celebs who turned out to honor Kidman, who also talked about her own mother's battle with breast cancer when the actress was a teen. "It damages you, and it also gives you compassion for people," she told USA Today. "If I hadn't been an actor, I would have been a doctor."
~Sara~
5:21 PM

About me
profile
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Things I love
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Missy
Courtney
Tiffany
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Dave
Lindsay
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Ifinding
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