Today I got to do a triple catheterization procedure (the jugular vein, carotid artery, and urinary bladder) on a rat. It took about an hour, and it went smoothly, until I realized at the end that the rat had died. Haha, oops. There was very little blood loss from the procedure, so we figured that the oxygen must have been set too low. Oh well, it was a good learning experience.

The most noteworthy/comical thing I did today, however, was to perform CPR on a rat (not the same rat from my procedure). To anesthetize the rats, we use isoflorane, and this poor rat knocked over a little bucket of it over its head. It stopped breathing almost immediately, and after intubating the rat, we tried to revive it, but failed. We called it an anesthetic death. Unfortunate, and expensive. All in all, each of these rats costs the lab about 100 dollars, so if you ever donate money for research, you know where it's going.

An update is overdue (as a particular person keeps reminding me - you know who you are). The last 10 days or so have been good. It's tough to settle into a routine in the labs, just because I only get to spend a week in each one, but I'm still loving it. Some weeks have been better than others, though.

This past week was probably my least favorite one thus far as far as the lab is concerned. I love the faculty member whose lab I was in, and his research is interesting (pregnancy-induced hypertension stuff), but I didn't get to do too much. They just threw me in there, without assigning me to anybody. The result - I had to continually ask different members in the lab (most of them high school and college students) what they were doing, and most of the time they either didn't know or couldn't explain it. Oh well, next week should be better. I know some of the people in the lab I'm assigned to, and they're going to be doing a lot bunch of surgeries.

I'm looking forward to the week after next. I'll be heading up to Chicago for four days to hang out with a good friend I grew up with, then we'll be driving to Ohio together to go to a wedding of another friend. It's a nice way to break up the summer.

A small group of my future classmates and I went out to eat pizza last night. There were seven of us, and I had previously only met one of them, so that was nice. I think I've now met around half of our class (60-70 out of 120). Everyone I've met seems to be very nice, and I'm looking forward to spending the next two years with them.

Not too much else new is going on. I signed up for a membership at the St. Dominic's Hospital gym, and got a fairly good deal on it. They have a pool, which is awesome because I've been wanting to take up swimming for a while now. I got in the pool today, but it was intolerably warm (86 degrees) and I only stayed in about 10 minutes.

My first Jackson Free Clinic experience was great! I spent about 5 hours over there today, and it is definitely something I want to be involved with during the first two years of med school and during my graduate work. The physicians working there told me that the students involved in the clinic are far better prepared for the third year of medical school than those who are not.

At the Free Clinic, all the volunteers sign in and are assigned to a group, each of which usually have a few medical students (at least one upperclassmen) and a pre-med or two. In my group we had a rising M4, a rising M2, me, and one pre-med. I fall under the classification of a medical student now, even though I haven't started classes, so I was allowed to help with the procedures. No significant procedures are done at the clinic, but it's still excellent practice.

I already knew how to take a blood pressure (I've done that a good bit in the past), so that was no big deal, but what was a milestone for me today was learning how to draw blood. I got to do it three times today, and every time, I hit the vein on the first try. But boy was I nervous! I don't know exactly why, but drawing blood is the one procedure that I had built up in my mind to be a bigger deal than it is, so I was happy to find out that it is quite simple. My hands were shaking visibly, but my patients were great and didn't seem to be bothered by it. I was trying to sound confident when I was talking with the patients, so I like to think that my voice reassured them.

I'm ready to learn more!

I got to perform an ovarectomy on a mouse today. It wasn't the prettiest job ever, but it didn't help that I had an anatomically anomalous mouse for my first try. This mouse was ancient, like great-grandma age for her species, and she had tumors all over her, especially around her ovaries. On one side I couldn't even find her ovary because she had so much excess junk around it.

Tomorrow I get to try another one, and hopefully I will improve as I get the hang of using forceps, miniature scissors, hemostats, and things of the like.

I took a medical specialty aptitude test on the University of Virginia's website, and here are the results. You answer 130 questions about your personality, the way you are, the way you like to handle things, etc., and it pops out a long list of medical specialties for you. I have no idea if anyone places any stock in this sort of test.

Rank	Specialty	Score
1	plastic surgery	45
2	general surgery	44
3	radiology	44
4	urology	44
5	nephrology	44
6	gastroenterology	43
7	thoracic surgery	43
8	occupational med	43
9	otolaryngology	43
10	orthopaedic surgery	43
11	pathology	42
12	nuclear med	42
13	dermatology	42
14	colon & rectal surgery	42
15	radiation oncology	42
16	anesthesiology	41
17	pulmonology	41
18	hematology	41
19	neurosurgery	41
20	obstetrics/gynecology	41
21	physical med & rehabilitation	41
22	ophthalmology	40
23	neurology	40
24	aerospace med	40
25	rheumatology	40
26	endocrinology	40
27	infectious disease	40
28	allergy & immunology	39
29	cardiology	39
30	psychiatry	39
31	preventive med	39
32	pediatrics	38
33	med oncology	38
34	general internal med	37
35	emergency med	36
36	family practice	35