Sixth Week

Not much action this week due to 4th of July. Here's a recap though:

Monday-All clinics were canceled due to observance of July 4th. When I was volunteering at the Pediatric ER at night, it was SO QUIET! No one was in the waiting room and patients were discharged a few minutes after they arrived.

Tuesday-Quiet morning as well, the neurologist I was shadowing was teaching medical students and we only saw 1 patient. Surprisingly, I knew the patient's husband Yugo, who was on the panel last year when the Biology Scholars Program went to Weill Cornell for an Open House. Small world...

Wednesday-Guest speaker was Prof. Fein, who is the Professor of Clinical Medicine and Public Medicine at Weill Cornell. He had a very informative presentation on health care, which I really needed because I haven't been following the whole health care reform debate. As many of you are probably aware of already, PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) was enacted several months ago. I don't think he agrees with what is going on because he actually supports a single-payer health care system which is very much like Medicare, except Medicare is restricted to mostly the elderly.

Thursday-Very weird day, the doctor I was supposed to shadow was MIA. So I shadowed his colleague in the clinic. For the first time, I noticed today that the patients were really unaware of what their condition was and what medications they were taking, but I guess their excuse could be that they speak another language. Nonetheless, one patient that spoke English didn't know he was admitted to the ICU a week ago for a heart attack and any of the 7 medications he was taking. This certainly indicates that education may be a source of the disparities in medicine.

Friday-I was shadowing a rheumatologist in Brooklyn and coincidentally, his colleague returned today after recovering for more than a month from surgery (they never met). It was interesting to see 2 attendings go back and forth about their ways to treat people and new drugs they considered using. I also just learned that all the residents working in the clinic are from foreign countries. The two residents I shadowed today were from Bama (near Thailand) and Pakistan. They were telling me that they're lucky because they don't have to pay the ridiculous costs for US medical schools, but they have trouble getting used to the system in US such as all the technology which are rare in underdeveloped countries.

Hope everyone had a good July 4th, I spent my day in Coney Island. In case no one heard, Kobayashi jumped onto the stage at the Annual July 4th Nathan's Hotdog Contest. Check it out on youtube, its hilarious :)