A Complex Person

This week, I discovered new medical school blogs from strangers by typing in "Medical school" into the magic Google machine. I found entertaining blogs about medical school and the standard woe-is-me entries about how tiring, entertaining, pointless it is to be a medical student, even though we will go on and become the top earners in American society. The backrow blog has had its fare share of bitch sessions about medical school, and I realize now that these stories aren't universally entertaining. They are only amusing to our small, select audience of secret medical student readers, Jack's dad and sister Eileen, and Lindsay, our friend from the Detroit suburbs. What this blog needed was wider appeal like my hero David Sedaris.

And what I want to say is: yes, I'm in medical school, and it consumes a lot of time, but I am still an interesting person, regardless. In essence, I want to reclaim my identity from medical school, and I want to say to UTCOM, you have not destroyed me - I am still desperately clinging to the last shards of my personality. For instance, I do a funny white person voice with Farrah**, I really like zombie movies, and I love Sephora. In other words, I am a person without you, medical school. I am a person of varied interests, and I will now have to end my affair with you. We are officially on a break until I reclaim myself from your tyrannical clutches (really, medical school, you are as possessive as a jealous mistress). No more, I say! Down with medical school entries about butt abscesses and patient care! Viva non-medical school-related blogs!

**Really, it's very humorous. I wish blogs had audio capabilities.

--By Mariam, who can talk about things other than rotations and medical school. Just ask her about the Nazi plundering of art treasures during WWII.

Crtical Analysis of Drawings on a Tile: Part III of a Series

To help you dear blog readers pass the monotony of summer nights, here is another critical analysis of a child's drawing. Warning: it's one of the most challenging drawings to date.



Farrah: This drawing captures the very terrible nature of illness. Especially illness next to triangle shaped gravity-defying houses.

Mariam: ?!!???

--By Farrah and Mariam, who are now MS4s at UTCOM.

Critical Analysis of Drawings on Tile: Bonus Link and Video!

Sadly, there is no tile in this post, though we do have more tiles to offer at a later date. I was talking to one of my friends who reminded me of a website from my undergrad days that abrasively made fun of kids rather than critically analyzed their work in order to improve their art skills. Anyway, it reminded me of us, and it's from the humble guy who runs thebestpageintheuniverse.net.

When I was searching for the site, I was brought to another favorite undergrad website - Homestar runner. This clip is way more awesome than the link above, and it's highly recommended from this backrow baller. Enjoy!

--By Farrah, who just moved back to her sister's house where her 2 year old nephew now knows enough words to say "Teddy pooped" when the dog farts, aww!

Garage Sales

My husband and I recently had a baby girl, and let me say, clothing these little monkeys is a ridiculous venture. You pay $10 for what can’t be more than a yard of fabric which they will outgrow in a month or so anyway. Honestly, though, a month is about the longest these clothes would make it because the instant you put a clean outfit on your child, he/she will vomit/poop/pee on it. You can tell a baby's age by how much stuff their parents will allow to be on their clothes before changing them. Generally it goes from a small amount of spit up to a onsie so crusty it maintains the babies shape after you take it off.
So the best solution I have found to the huge cash sink that is infant clothing is attending garage sales. In the interest of public service and contributing to the blog, I want to share the many awesome things I have learned about garage sales.

1. The best prices can be found in lower middle class and upper class neighborhoods. Lower middle class members realize the value of dollar, and let's be honest, they probably bought the clothes at a garage sale too. The upper middle class was probably going to throw the stuff out anyway, so why charge more than a dollar for anything? The middle middle class is under the delusion that because they value their stuff, so do other people. But truthfully, no one cares that your little girl ate her first carrots in that chair, I am still not going to pay $50 for it.

2. Bring quarters. There will be adorable little children at most garage sales selling lemonade. And you may not care about supporting their first venture into a capitalist society, or hell, lemonade may give you a severe case of GERD, but I promise you, a cute little girl in pigtails + minute maid = you giving up those quarters.

3. Sometimes Googlemaps likes to mess with you. Bring a backup map just in case someone out there in internet land thought it would be funny to send you into the shady east side of Toledo near dusk.

4. Estate sales sound like the weirdest thing on earth, but actually it is an opportunity to spy on people in their (once) natural habitat. The only other way you will get to know people this well is by risking a breaking and entering charge.

--By Sarah, who is contemplating not letting her daughter watch Disney movies.

Critical Analysis of Drawings on Tile: Part II of a Series

We are well aware of the popularity of this series, and so, we present to you Part II of the series. Please comment below on what your analysis of the art is. After all, we bring a huge part of ourselves as observers when we examine art or in this case the confusing nature of child drawings. For more see: Part I of the Series.

Farrah: This picture was clearly drawn by an adult! CHEATING! Nice representation of sterile technique though, except for the LACK OF EYE PROTECTION.  Shit in the eyes is a very likely complication of said "miracle of birth." 

Mariam: Your cynicism about this tile is so ugly and disheartening. This kid could be the next Michelangelo for all you know. However, I'm not sure what is going on with these proportions - the torso of this butch-looking lady is way too short to give birth to anything remotely human. The "miracle of Rosemary's baby" perhaps?

--By Mariam and Farrah, who should be studying for their surgery shelf so they will never have to endure this horrific rotation again.

Critical Analysis of Drawings on Tile: Part I of a Series

The walls of the pediatric ward at our local hospital are decorated with touching tiles made by children about illness, recovery, or any of the other fascinating things that can occupy the mind of a child about weighty topics such as death, dying, and cancer. Though they could only work in blue, yellow, green, and maroon, since these were the only colors given to them by the Color Nazi hospital admins, the tiles add an artistic flair to the dull walls of the hospital. They were drawn by children who are now grown adults. Maybe they can look back at these tiles of yore make some objective observations about their art. And since we can't possibly track down those folks, we will offer our own critical analysis of the tiles in Part I of the series.

Farrah: This picture doesn't really differentiate between hurt and better. The sun is shining in both sections which doesn't really leave kids with a motivation to move towards better. A+ for spelling. B- for leaves on trees.

Mariam: I completely concur with your analysis. I really don't see much difference except that the tree is closer to the so-called "patients" in the "better" picture. I am truly not getting a sense as to what the hospital did for this child except plant some trees. Def a C- effort and that is only because I'm feeling generous.

--By Farrah and Mariam, who are not this critical of people who are still children, and who actually want to heal kids when they grow up (which probably won't happen anytime soon)

"It's all fun and games until someone gets shit in their eyes."

Although I blogged on this topic not too long ago, I firmly believe in knocking down the facade of the seemingly glamorous lives of doctors. Everyone sees the fancy cars, the long white coat, and the self-assured and cocky attitude of doctors, but rarely does anyone realize what this job actually entails.

My mom was always enamored by doctors. She didn't get to go to medical school and always regretted that decision. She said things that were classic of a non-doctor like, "Wow, you get to be economically self-sufficient" or "Doctors get so much respect," or "You help people!" In short, the classic immigrant lines about the American Dream. She, of course, had me at "economically self-sufficient."

I find that it is my duty as the resident blogger/muckraker to dismantle the myths about this seemingly dignified, respectable profession of the bourgeois class. I realized this year that being a doctor involves doing a lot of shit, literally.

For instance, last week, I scrubbed into a procedure that I thought would be simple - a mere colostomy and central line placement. But then, suddenly things took a dark and sinister turn as the patient was placed in the lithotomy position. The surgeon started to explore this lady's anal cancer as if he were the Vasco da Gama of the anorectal canal, and I was his humble skipper there to help with whatever was needed.

The scrub nurse (who had the attitude of a cab driver in rush hour in NYC) aggressively forced a small yellow bowl and suction into my hand and told me place it under the butt hole (for a lack of a better word) as the surgeon irrigated the fistula that had developed there. As he cleaned out the fecal matter from the vagina, I got to suction the lovely contents up like a dutiful Vanna White that I was. It was at this point that I thought, I went through 8 years of extra schooling to do this? To have the dubious honor of suctioning up shit?

My internal diatribe was interrupted suddenly with a huge splash. The saline and fecal solution that the surgeon had been irrigating splashed on my face and eyes. The moment was very surreal - did this really just happen? I didn't say anything at first until I heard the scrub nurse making a huge commotion about how it got into her eye.

"Uh, can I, uh, please get a towel?" I asked timidly still thinking that my job of holding the feces bowl was still relevant despite actual contact with someone else's bodily fluids.

"WHY?? DID IT GET IN YOUR FACE?" the nurse said in a panicked voice.

"Yeah, um just in my eye and face," I said. I was then forced to de-scrub and promptly head to the eye wash to irrigate my eye.

The doctor looked at me with bemusement and said, "It's all fun and games until someone gets shit in their eyes." Ah, a surgeon's sensitivity.

When I told my friends about this incident, they couldn't stop laughing. "This happend to YOU? YOU?" they said with incredulity as they pictured their prissy blogger friend in such a horrendous, disgusting situation. And then I had an epiphany as I filled out an incident report at the nurse's station that day: that being a doctor doesn't require the intellectual mind of a great thinker. Because when all of that prestige and respectability and glamor is stripped away, all you're left with is someone who is willing to get down and dirty and deal with all the literal and metaphorical shit of people's lives.

--By Mariam, who loves the "Wedding & Celebrations" sections of the New York Times, just like Katherine Heigl in that crap movie 27 Dresses.