It's the fourth week and I'm halfway done with the program! As most of you already know, this has been a blistering, hot week in New York. Luckily I have been in the hospital for most of the mornings. My evening runs, however, have not been very fun...
There weren't too many exciting things this past week, but here are the highlights:
Monday- I was working in a Hepatitis Clinic instead of HIV because the entire department went to Washington DC for a conference. It was a lot of the same things I normally see in the HIV Clinic, except the patients also have Hepatitis as well.
Tuesday- During my neurology rotation at NYP, one of the patients had a tumor in the frontal lobe of her brain. The doctor told her she would need to get surgery to have the tumor removed, but her response was strange because she was somewhat happy to get a Mohawk. It made sense afterwards when the doctor reminded me the frontal lobe is responsible for decision-making and she wasn't able to grasp the reality of the situation.
Wednesday- Lecture in the morning by a doctor. Then we went to Brooklyn to make T-shirts that read, "Don't 4Get Haiti" and to tutor kids in biology.
Thursday- Started my rotation at Downtown Hospital in Lower East Side. I came in thinking I would be translating most the time because there is a huge Asian population b/c Chinatown is right next door, but the majority of the patients spoke a dialect I couldn't speak. Although, I was taught "I do not understand" in that language. :)
Friday- Pretty normal Friday, I did get to see some people with Tennis Elbow (syndrome). The weird thing is, most people that get Tennis Elbow have never played tennis...
In terms of surviving in NYC, I finally made a chicken dish successfully last week. Also, I had a New Yorker ask me for directions and I actually knew how to get there!. Does that make me a city-person now? Hmm...probably not, but I got until the end of this summer.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Third Week
Yikes! Sorry for the delay in this post. Went home this weekend to celebrate my sister's graduation from college!
This week has been insane yet I've gotten so much experience.
While I was volunteering in the Pediatric ER at NYP-Weill Cornell Monday night, I encountered a Chinese woman who had a baby that recently came out of surgery from spina bifida (deformity in the spinal cord). I never learned medical Chinese, but I was able to act as a translator for a while and saw the interaction between the medical students and residents.
Tuesday, I began a rotation with a Physiatrist at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. I've never heard of Physiatry before, but apparently its one of the most recent board-certified fields that is similar to PT/OT. Except, physiatrists have to go to medical school and they can prescribe medications and diagnose conditions compared to physical therapists that simply try to alleviate pain.
My Wednesday class was canceled due to rain, but I went to the Met and it was super cool!
During the afternoon on Thursday, we were working for an organization called Churches United for Fair Housing (check it out: http://www.churchesunitedforfairhousing.com/). Our class separated into different groups to pass around flyers supporting the reconstruction of the old Domino factory in North Brooklyn. Its an amazing project because it would preserve the old factory to make a museum, create more than 600 affordable housing units, and form a park.
Another thing I forgot to mention last time was the differences between all the hospitals I work in. New York Presbyterian Hospital is a private hospital and by far the largest I've ever worked in. The majority of the patients I have seen are Caucasian and fairly wealthy as it is located in the Upper East Side. Woodhull Hospital is a public hospital that is located in North Brooklyn, serving residents of Bed-Stuy, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg. Many of the patients I have seen are Hispanic and African Americans that are fairly poor. Downtown Hospital is affiliated with NYP, but it is also a non-for-profit hospital located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Most of the patients I have seen there are mostly Asians because Chinatown is nearby. As you can see, they're all very different and I've noticed the treatments and the types of doctors the patients see are not equal. This brings up the point of the program, which is to introduce us to disparities in medicine.
This week has been insane yet I've gotten so much experience.
While I was volunteering in the Pediatric ER at NYP-Weill Cornell Monday night, I encountered a Chinese woman who had a baby that recently came out of surgery from spina bifida (deformity in the spinal cord). I never learned medical Chinese, but I was able to act as a translator for a while and saw the interaction between the medical students and residents.
Tuesday, I began a rotation with a Physiatrist at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. I've never heard of Physiatry before, but apparently its one of the most recent board-certified fields that is similar to PT/OT. Except, physiatrists have to go to medical school and they can prescribe medications and diagnose conditions compared to physical therapists that simply try to alleviate pain.
My Wednesday class was canceled due to rain, but I went to the Met and it was super cool!
During the afternoon on Thursday, we were working for an organization called Churches United for Fair Housing (check it out: http://www.churchesunitedforfairhousing.com/). Our class separated into different groups to pass around flyers supporting the reconstruction of the old Domino factory in North Brooklyn. Its an amazing project because it would preserve the old factory to make a museum, create more than 600 affordable housing units, and form a park.
Another thing I forgot to mention last time was the differences between all the hospitals I work in. New York Presbyterian Hospital is a private hospital and by far the largest I've ever worked in. The majority of the patients I have seen are Caucasian and fairly wealthy as it is located in the Upper East Side. Woodhull Hospital is a public hospital that is located in North Brooklyn, serving residents of Bed-Stuy, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg. Many of the patients I have seen are Hispanic and African Americans that are fairly poor. Downtown Hospital is affiliated with NYP, but it is also a non-for-profit hospital located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Most of the patients I have seen there are mostly Asians because Chinatown is nearby. As you can see, they're all very different and I've noticed the treatments and the types of doctors the patients see are not equal. This brings up the point of the program, which is to introduce us to disparities in medicine.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Second Week
So I officially don't have a way of putting in pictures, but I'll make sure to post them all whenever I come home. :)
This week has been my first full week of rotations. Right now, my schedule looks like this:
Monday: Morning-HIV Research (NYP-Weill Cornell), Evening-Pediatric ER (NYP-Cornell)
Tuesday: Morning-Neurology (NYP-Weill Cornell), Late Afternoon-Rehab Medicine (Brooklyn @ Woodhull Hospital)
Wednesday: Classes
Thursday: Morning- Cardiology (Lower East Side-Downtown Hospital), Afternoon-Neurobiology Research (NYP-Cornell)
Friday: Morning-Internal Medicine, Rheumatology and Arthritis (Brooklyn @ Woodhull Hospital)
As you can see, it's a bit intense. Not to worry if you're interested in this program because the requirement is only 1 rotation per day. I overloaded it because I want to get the most out of the experience. I made a lot of additions and I decided to take out a rotation I had with a Psychiatrist. I found out she took in Urban Semester students because she needed help in writing articles for a paper. The worst part was, she wouldn't even let me see the patients because "they pay hundreds of dollars and they don't want to see you in there."
Other than that, my rotations have been super awesome and I cannot believe how much I can learn in one day from shadowing a doctor. I can't really talk about everything that happened in my rotations because there are too many, but I think the toughest I've had is working in the neurology department. There are many medical terms/conditions and drugs that I could not follow. I thought that if I kept hearing it over and over, I would get a clue, but that didn't work too well. I also found out that the chief resident is an Urban Semester Alum, which means this program really helps! On the other hand, my HIV rotation has been the best so far as my supervisor is extremely outgoing and makes all the experiments seem enjoyable.
That's it for now. I need to finish a 10-page paper due tomorrow about medical disparities I've seen this week. Leave comments if you have questions!
This week has been my first full week of rotations. Right now, my schedule looks like this:
Monday: Morning-HIV Research (NYP-Weill Cornell), Evening-Pediatric ER (NYP-Cornell)
Tuesday: Morning-Neurology (NYP-Weill Cornell), Late Afternoon-Rehab Medicine (Brooklyn @ Woodhull Hospital)
Wednesday: Classes
Thursday: Morning- Cardiology (Lower East Side-Downtown Hospital), Afternoon-Neurobiology Research (NYP-Cornell)
Friday: Morning-Internal Medicine, Rheumatology and Arthritis (Brooklyn @ Woodhull Hospital)
As you can see, it's a bit intense. Not to worry if you're interested in this program because the requirement is only 1 rotation per day. I overloaded it because I want to get the most out of the experience. I made a lot of additions and I decided to take out a rotation I had with a Psychiatrist. I found out she took in Urban Semester students because she needed help in writing articles for a paper. The worst part was, she wouldn't even let me see the patients because "they pay hundreds of dollars and they don't want to see you in there."
Other than that, my rotations have been super awesome and I cannot believe how much I can learn in one day from shadowing a doctor. I can't really talk about everything that happened in my rotations because there are too many, but I think the toughest I've had is working in the neurology department. There are many medical terms/conditions and drugs that I could not follow. I thought that if I kept hearing it over and over, I would get a clue, but that didn't work too well. I also found out that the chief resident is an Urban Semester Alum, which means this program really helps! On the other hand, my HIV rotation has been the best so far as my supervisor is extremely outgoing and makes all the experiments seem enjoyable.
That's it for now. I need to finish a 10-page paper due tomorrow about medical disparities I've seen this week. Leave comments if you have questions!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
First Week of Urban Semester
I moved into my apartment located in Chinatown this past week and it took less than a day to realize I don't really know how to cook! Luckily, my neighbor (my aunt's aunt's sister - yes it's very confusing) is always around to help me. Yesterday, I tried to make a bowl of rice, but it actually turned into a bowl of rice soup. I still need to work on that...
Anyway, I began my first day of Cornell Summer Urban Semester program on Tuesday. The program consists of about 30 Cornell students of different age groups (some actually graduated already) who are mostly interested in medicine. There are a few including me that are also interested in research as well. This week mostly consisted of Prof. Beck describing the purpose of the program, which is to show us disparities that exist in medicine. We'll be seeing this by comparing our shadowing experiences in the New York Presbyterian Hospital (Upper East Side) to Woodhull Hospital (North Brooklyn).
In terms of shadowing, I only had one rotation this week because of Memorial Day and the program just starting. But yesterday, I shadowed a neurobiologist named Dr. Michael Glass who is performing research on opiate addiction and withdrawal in mice. He first introduced his research and explained how he is mostly interested in the effect of opiates on uOR, NMDA, and AMPA receptors in the central amygdala (CEA). Afterwards, we went to a seminar (similar to a journal club presentation) in which a post-doc was presenting a study similar to Dr. Glass', but her work focuses on the hypothalamus. For the rest of the day, I was working with his technician who gave me a tour of the lab and introduced me to the methods of histology. After taking a look at just a few sections, I realized that looking at neurons in a textbook compared to real-life neurons is VERY different. The dendrites, somas, and axons come in all sorts of shapes.
Well, thats it for now. I took some pictures this week but I don't have a slot on my computer for my memory card. I'll try to add them in my next post!
Anyway, I began my first day of Cornell Summer Urban Semester program on Tuesday. The program consists of about 30 Cornell students of different age groups (some actually graduated already) who are mostly interested in medicine. There are a few including me that are also interested in research as well. This week mostly consisted of Prof. Beck describing the purpose of the program, which is to show us disparities that exist in medicine. We'll be seeing this by comparing our shadowing experiences in the New York Presbyterian Hospital (Upper East Side) to Woodhull Hospital (North Brooklyn).
In terms of shadowing, I only had one rotation this week because of Memorial Day and the program just starting. But yesterday, I shadowed a neurobiologist named Dr. Michael Glass who is performing research on opiate addiction and withdrawal in mice. He first introduced his research and explained how he is mostly interested in the effect of opiates on uOR, NMDA, and AMPA receptors in the central amygdala (CEA). Afterwards, we went to a seminar (similar to a journal club presentation) in which a post-doc was presenting a study similar to Dr. Glass', but her work focuses on the hypothalamus. For the rest of the day, I was working with his technician who gave me a tour of the lab and introduced me to the methods of histology. After taking a look at just a few sections, I realized that looking at neurons in a textbook compared to real-life neurons is VERY different. The dendrites, somas, and axons come in all sorts of shapes.
Well, thats it for now. I took some pictures this week but I don't have a slot on my computer for my memory card. I'll try to add them in my next post!
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