Yes, it has been over a month and a half since my last post. When we last left our hero, he was just finishing up his second month of Internal Medicine. A month of outpatient Internal Medicine has come and gone, as has the enormous collection of end-of-rotation tests. We haven't gotten our official grades yet, but I feel confident that I passed. Now I am well into my second rotation, Ob/Gyn, which started on August 8. I will be delivering babies, working in women's health clinics, and scrubbing into gynecologic surgeries until September 10. But instead of writing about my academic life, I wanted to share some thoughts on something completely different: food.
You see, over the summer, before the pre-clinical M1/M2 academic year begins, the members of my medical fraternity Phi Rho Sigma don't have the luxury of Chef Amy's culinary skills. Housemates who stay over the summer for pre-clinical research jobs or for their M3/M4 clinical responsibilities have to find their own way of dealing with daily sustenance. Some go to the grocery store and are able to fend for themselves with an impressive array of home-made food. My preferred means of getting my meals, however, was to buy outside food. My summer was pretty much a blur of No Thai! noodles, Chipotle burritos, and Jimmy John sandwiches. (Maybe that's why I seemed to have gained 10 lbs when I weighed myself at the gym this morning...)
This isn't to say that my dining experiences over the summer at Phi Rho have been bland. Having free time breeds creativity. Case in point: 45-cent wings at Buffalo Wild Wings (B-dubs). I innocently emailed Phi Rho my plans to order take-out from B-dubs and offered to place additional orders. Although I lost the exact order, the picture below is worth a thousand words.
[A moment of silence, for the chickens that were sacrificed to satisfy the hunger of Phi Rho.]
This also isn't to say that I ate out every single day. Summer was the perfect opportunity for me to expand my skill set beyond nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, and computer hacking skills, to include cooking skills. With encouragement from Anne and Danny, I've boiled pasta, grilled meat, baked banana bread, and made other non-bachelor foods (i.e. PB&J sandwiches). In fact, my proudest moment this summer was recreating an old favorite of mine from home: fried dumplings.
[1. Boil dumplings until edible, 2. Lightly coat frying pan with cooking oil, 3. Fry boiled dumplings in lightly-coated frying pan.]
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[Unfortunately, learning to cook has nothing to do with learning to avoid awkward poses.]
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[I'm shaking with excitement in anticipation of eating these dumplings. Hence, the blurriness.]
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[Dumplings fried in cooking oil with a touch of garlic. Kudos to Anne for letting me use her kitchen and for helping me finish this meal.]
Despite all the good times I had with food this summer, I'm very thankful that Chef Amy is back. For one, her meals are more delicious and nutritious than my salami sandwiches. Plus, there's a renewed energy in the house. Eating with the new M1s and the old M2s, M3s, and M4s helps me appreciate the sense of community I love so much at Phi Rho. Scarfing down cafeteria food in the middle of a Labor & Delivery shift just isn't the same as sitting down at a table with good friends.
Despite all the good times I had with food this summer, I'm very thankful that Chef Amy is back. For one, her meals are more delicious and nutritious than my salami sandwiches. Plus, there's a renewed energy in the house. Eating with the new M1s and the old M2s, M3s, and M4s helps me appreciate the sense of community I love so much at Phi Rho. Scarfing down cafeteria food in the middle of a Labor & Delivery shift just isn't the same as sitting down at a table with good friends.
P.S. Other big news/interesting tidbits from my life:
- I'll be working the night shift, 10 PM to 7 AM, in Labor & Delivery this entire weekend, starting today and going until Sunday 7 AM. Wish me luck.
- Hey Stanford folks, I'm coming back for Homecoming 2010! My flight arrives in SFO the night of Friday, October 22, and leaves SFO the morning of Sunday, October 24.
- Also, I'm planning on working in Honduras for a week in May of next year, between my M3 and M4 years. A group of Michigan med students is heading to La Ceiba to volunteer at a low-income clinic in the town. Updates to come.