The end of the 1st semester!

I cannot believe that the first semester is coming to a close! It seems like only yesterday I was moving in and now it is time to go home for Christmas break. This semester has been amazing to say the least. I have truly enjoyed all my classes and this program has only strengthened my desire to attend medical school. Being able to take a second year medical school class has been educational, but it was really learning alongside the students that I found most beneficial. The professors really challenge the medical students to not only learn, but to think like a practicing physicians. I have learned so much about medicine that I was not aware of such as the seriousness of bacterial and viral resistance and the plethora of obstacles one must deal with when choosing medications to prescribe involving side effects and drug interactions. Furthermore, I have also enjoyed the seminar series aspect of the program as it is an excellent way to be aware of upcoming research agendas in the medical field.

As I anxiously wait for our last set of exams tomorrow, I find myself excited for what next semester has to bring. Unfortunately that also means MCAT studying for me but I am remain hopeful!

On a side note, Aubrey and I learned how to butcher a whole chicken at ESY this week. It was really exciting. Hopefully I can impress my family over Christmas with my newfound cooking skills.

Happy Holidays!

December: 7 hours

Semester Total: 61 hours

Happy Thanksgiving! I cannot believe that there are only 12 days left in semester. Time doesn't not seem to be slowing down. November has been a great month... well because it was my birthday month and I went home for the first time since I moved to New Orleans! Classes have been going great and I can whole heartedly say that this program has been extremely beneficial for me in my path towards medical school. It was has been very educational to be able to take a 2nd year medical school and very rewarding to know that I have what it takes to succeed in a medical school environment. We had a new course called Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology added to our schedule this month. The course emphasizes specific laboratory techniques that are currently used in the pharmacology field such as DNA recombinant technology and PCR. It has been slightly more challenging due to my lack of experience in using these techniques, but I hope through this course I will become knowledgeable enough to be able to apply them in the future should I find myself working in a laboratory setting.

I did not get to volunteer on the medical unit this month, but I hope to work a couple of shifts next month before returning home for Christmas break. Both the nutrition classes are coming to as close as well. At St. Annas, I can really see the kids starting to broaden their horizon. They look forward to cooking a healthy snack, and they are more curious about what makes something nutritious. Their final performance is next week so I will post some pictures in my next blog post. With the main director of the program leaving, Aubrey and I hope to take over the nutrition class next semester. I am very excited to be able to collaborate with her to develop creative learning lessons for the kids! At Edible School Yard, Aubrey and I had to say goodbye to the 7th graders. They finished off their year with an exciting Iron Chef Competition. I truly enjoyed working with them as they inspired me make learning how to cook a priority, and I hope I was able to inspire them to continue to work hard towards their dreams. I look forward to meeting the 8th graders and cooking some great food with them next month.

Volunteering at Touro this month has been great. Andrew and I were lucky to have the ER director spend some time with us again. This time he showed us various CT scans of patients he had seen. This included a patient hit by a car that caused his tibia to break and penetrate through the skin and a patient who swallowed nails while intoxicated. He also took the time to analyze an EKG with us (which I was extremely excited about). It was really interesting to see what EKGs look like in the real world vs. the EKGs they use in medical school for students to learn from.

That's all for now!

Hours:
ESY: 2 hours
SAAK: 1 hour
Touro: 5 hours
December Total: 8 hours

Total: 54 hours

Making Deviled Eggs with the kids at SAAK

Settling Into the Swing of Things

Wow! I cannot believe October has come to an end. Time seems to be flying by so quick! I was extremely excited to start the month with our cardiology block. Having always been interested in the inner workings of the heart, I truly enjoyed taking my interest to the next level. My favorite part was learning how to read EKGs and associating a particular reading with a cardiac pathology. However, it was also very educational to learn about common diseases such as Hypertension and Heart Failure that clearly plague our society and the drugs that are available to treat them.

On the volunteer front, I have continued to volunteer with St. Anna's both on the medical unit and assisting with the nutrition class. On the medical unit, I am enjoying being able to educate adults on the importance of healthy life style choices and the seriousness of hypertension and high blood glucose levels. I am really enjoying myself in the nutrition call as well and have found that the service has been extremely rewarding and satisfying knowing that we are making a difference in these children’s lives that could last them a lifetime. This month we taught the girls how to make mexican pizzas and pinwheels with pears and cheese. It has been really frustrating to me that while the girls know if something is healthy or not, they don't really understand why something is healthy. I hope that in the next month, Aubrey and I can come up with some educational diagrams to help them understand something as simple as why fiber is healthy and how it works on the digestive system.

I have also been working at Edible School Yard teaching children who are taking cooking as an elective. This was a little different from St. Anna’s Art for Kids in that it focused mostly on passing on both recipes and techniques that they could use in the future for their own use or in a restaurant setting. It is truly amazing how great these kids are at cooking and it inspires me to want to learn. Throughout my life, I have never really learned how to cook but I hope to change that this year. A lot of the recipes are new to me and I have been learning a ton. My favorite so far was learning how to make pasta! It is really great to see these girls striving for a future and I am glad to be able to help them.

I didn't have much time to volunteer at Touro this month. My experience here has been a little disappointing. I was hoping to learn more about the medical field, in particular emergency medicine, through this experience, so I hope next month I can accomplish that. However, I did have one exciting experience. Classmate Andrew and I learned how to read a chest X-ray. It was really interesting to see how simple and quick doctors take to analyze them. ABCDE - Airway, Bone, Cardiac, Diaphragm and Everything else. That is something that will stick with me!

Hours:
ESY: 3 hours
SAAK: 2 hours
SAAM: 3.5 hours
Touro: 3 hours
Total October: 11.5 hours


Total: 46 hours

As I reflect upon the time I have spent in New Orleans thus far, I find myself shocked that it has been almost three months since I packed everything I owned into 4 large suit cases. It has been a whirlwind to say the least, but I have enjoyed every minute of it. I first fell in love with the city in 2011 when I spent a week with my undergraduate classmates volunteering with Operation Jeremiah after Hurricane Katrina. It took about 10 minutes for me to realize this was a city I wanted to live in. 

The aspects of New Orleans that really drew me to the city was the rich culture followed by the southern hospitality. 

Since moving to New Orleans, I have started volunteering my time at a few organizations in hopes of taking in all that the city has to offer. Each organization is unique in its mission and I hope to gain something different from each experience. The organization I have had the most time with is St. Anna's Episcopal Church. Initially, I started volunteering on their mobile medical unit. Coming from Boston, a city where virtually everyone has health care, it was really eye opening to see how few people have health coverage or even a stable doctor here in New Orleans. A main part of my duties is to educate patients about the important role diet, exercise, and smoking have on hypertension and diabetes along with taking their vitals. I am struck by how unaware most people are of their conditions, as well as, simple solutions they can make to reduce their risk of developing serious life threatening conditions. Through numerous discussions with director of the medical mission and expressing my interest in healthy life style choices, I learned about the church's arts programs for kids. They were in the process of launching new health program that would consist of teaching children how to cook healthy meals while simultaneously educating them on the important of nutrition and healthy lifestyle choice. I was eager to become a part of it. Having only assisted with one class, I hope to reflect more on this later. But I hope that working with children at a young age, I can be a part of something that will give these children a chance at living a healthy life. 

Some of there other organizations I have volunteered with is Habitat for Humanity, Edible School Yard, and Touro Emergency Department. More on my experiences here on a later post!

Total hours: 34.5 hours

St Anna's Health Fair: 6 hours

Habitat for Humanity: 8 hours

ESY: 3.5 hours

St Anna's Arts for Kids: 2 hours

St. Anna's Medical Mission: 12

Touro: 3 hours

 St. Anna's Health Fair

 St. Anna's Medical Mission

Samuel L. Green First Line Edible School Yard Garden

Spending our day with Habitat for Humanity