Just like that, another summer has come and gone. I believe in my last blog, I outlined some of the things that I was going to do this summer. To save you the time and effort of reading what those were, here they are:
1. Get some experience at the hospital or a doctor's office
2. Get research underway at school
3. Study for the MCAT
4. Make some money.
My summer pretty much consisted of attaining these goals, and not much else. I'll go in order, but this is not necessarily the order in which these things were done.
1. Hospital or Doctor's experience--I had to jump through flaming hoop after flaming hoop to get in with the hospital's shadowing program, only to be told that I would only be able to shadow a nurse, not a doctor. I have immense respect for nurses (more this summer after working with lots of them!) but shadowing a nurse really wouldn't give me the experience that I need. So I called about 15 doctors in the area and left lots of voicemails, and waited for responses. 2 doctors called me back(well, their nurses anyhow) and I took them both up on their offers to shadow.
Dr. Gil Aust of the Orthopaedic center let me shadow him in his clinic, and that really gave me a good feel for what the clinic is like. It's fast paced, not unlike a restaurant. The "host" was the nurse, who seated people(by putting them in their examining room) and then bussed tables (by cleaning and preparing the room). Then the server (who is Dr. Aust) would wait on people, trying to do his best to serve their needs while simultaneously trying to get everyone out the door as fast as possible. It seemed to be a high-stress, high-pressure environment, but I really enjoyed it.
The next doctor I shadowed was Dr. William Alison of Dunagan, Yates, and Alison Cosmetic Surgery. My goal is to become a reconstructive surgeon, so it was very exciting for me to get to shadow a plastic surgeon. Even though Dr. Alison concentrates on cosmetic surgery, he still does his fair share of reconstructive work, and I got to see several examples of work that he's done. During my time in his office, I got to see a facelift, a breast augmentation, and an eyebrow lift. The time went by very quickly, and it was truly amazing to see everyone in the OR working together. It made me very excited to be on my way to becoming a surgeon.
2. Get research underway--I certainly did this. I spent about 20-25 hours a week in the lab, doing around 2 beta-gal assays a week. Basically, this assay determines the amount of enzyme present in a cell. The cells I was testing were mutants that either I or someone else made. I went through a lot of plates, pipet tips (I must have used a couple thousand of these), and vials. I learned a lot about enzymes and about lab work in general. I will continue working this fall, albeit my experiments will be scaled back a little--probably closer to one beta-gal a week.
3. Study for the MCAT--I have been slowly but surely working my way through my MCAT study book. It's a very large book, and I'm not as far as I would like to be. But, who's ever as prepared as they want to be? I certainly hope I've got myself over-worried about the test. From what I've heard from people who have taken it, it doesn't seem that bad. We'll see, though, as I'm taking it on the 6th of September up in Chattanooga. It probably decides whether I get into medical school, as everything else I need to get in is pretty much in place. No pressure, though.
4. Make some money. I have actually lost money this summer, in terms of my bank account(s). With the purchase of the bike, I have less than I started the summer with. However, the experiences that the bike has allowed me to have are priceless--especially if they pay off with my admission to medical school. I have also acquired a job for this fall, at the Apple retail store. I'll be working about 15 hours a week there, so that will keep food in my belly. It's a fun job--I get to spend work selling computers that I love to talk about anyway. It'll be great:)
I haven't recorded as much music as I would have liked to (read:none) this summer, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing. It's all stored conveniently on my voice recorder, waiting to be recorded when I'm done with the MCAT. I think, for my new work, I'm going to record the entire album then release it all at once, rather than releasing it song-by-song. I think that will lead to coherence..but we'll see. It'll be no sooner than a month and a half before anything gets recorded...so stay tuned!
It's been a great(albeit BUSY) summer. It has probably been my most productive, rewarding summer to date. I guess it should be that way, what with getting older and supposedly more mature(ha). That's not to say that it has been perfect, because it hasn't been--I've had some of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with happen this summer--but I can sleep at night knowing that I've done everything I can. It's all part of growing up, I guess--and probably part of life in general. It's one of those things that people that are older than me can warn me about but I'll never take heed until it happens to me.
So! Thanks for reading, and I'll see many of you when you come back to school. Get ready for some fun and challenging times. It's gonna be a great year.
. Just for kicks, I tuned the guitar down to a dropped C, and figured out why modern rock uses this key. The Paul is a straight up rock guitar, and when coupled with the amp models of the Spyder, it makes for a killer neighbor-disturbing setup. At about $500 (student loans FTW), it was a bargain too.
