Behind the White Coat

Oncology Begins

January comes to an end... My clinic/teaching month is now over.  No more easy work days and weekends off.  It's time to hit the strong finish of my intern year.   I now start on the oncology floors.  Now in patient oncology compromises the sick of the sick--neutropenic patients with all kinds of infections from their chemotherapy, withered end-stage metastatic cancers, and all the people who have the bad complications and adverse effects from the chemotherapy.  Certainly not my cup of tea, but it is what it is.  I am on call Q3 (every 3 days!) which is going to suck!  At least I am not overnight I suppose....

So my loan payments I found out today cannot be defered.  I do not make the criteria to declare financial hardship, which is bullshit!!  I missed the cut by like 75 dollars a month or something.  I'm a resident, you think I can afford 400$ a month?!  Hell no.  So my other option is to forebare them--which means I'd pay interest on my non-subsidized loans, which basically means I will have to pay 200$ a month on interest, which will add up to my final payments.  Are you kidding me? Not fun. 

On another note, never go to a drunk barber.  Being too cold and lazy to go to my regular guy, I went into a random little barber shop on 78th street.  The guy looked a little out of it, but I thought nothing of it.  He fumbeld for 10 minutes to find the right sized clippers, but I still gave him the benefit of the doubt.  Then as he was cutting my hair, I could not only hear, but feel his breathing right into my face.  And im talking some heavy ass fat man breathing.  I tried not to breathe in the fumes, but he took so goddman long at the front of my head I had to.  It was either bourbon or scotch, I couldn't really tell.  It was too late by then too. I had come this far, and I had to try to play it cool and hope he didn't screw up.  Halfway through I almost ran out of their just to get some fresh goddamn air!!!  Anyway, it was way shorter than I wanted, but at least I maintained some symmetry.  Most painful $20 haircut I ever had.

Shakat Aziz speaks in New York

On Saturday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shakuat Aziz spoke to a large group of Paksitanis from the tri-state area at the Grand Ballroom of the Wallldof Astoria.  A room rich in history from the presence of prior heads-of-states and international leaders, it was a pleasure to have our PM pay us Pakistani-Americans a visit to address us on the state of Pakistan.  I was lucky enough to attend, as I secured an invitation via my parents (who left me behind when they went to Nobu with Mr. Aziz afterwards).  Mr. Aziz speaks eloquently, with sincerity, desire, and passion--his public speaking far surpasses that of General Musharaff. He is transparent, in that you can see he has nothing to hide regarding his decisions and motives, and he balances his priorities, and attacks the issues cautiously, but says everything how it is.  I truly believe his years in coporate America while in NYC gave him the background and the experience to really help our nation as finance minister, and ultimately as prime minister, in terms of his knowledge, his strategies, and his public relations.  As he put it in his story about how he got where he is, his transition from Park Avenue as an "arm chair critic",  to the driver's seat at Pakistan's helm,  truly is moving things in the right direction.

He spoke at length about the earthquake, and Pakistan's response an well as the excellent contribution by the U.S. and the World to date, billions of dollars in monies and goods, and the awesome manpower that came to lend a hand.  However he emphasized the long winding road that remains ahead for rebuilding, rehabilitation, and restructuring of the affected regions.  He briefed us on key issues regarding Pakistan's defense program, internal security, economy, diplomacy, and the future vision.  He assured Pakistan's recognition and action in all areas, from small things such as implementing effective highway patrols, to difficult issues such as the reform of the tribal areas and control of the porous borders with Afghanistan.  The war on terrorism and relations with the U.S. (especially in light to recent controversial events by the U.S. and their missle attack).  He also addreessed the age old issue of Jammu and Kashmir, and Pakistan's passion to resolve this historic dispute with India, and how it will take Paksitan, India, and the Kashmiri people to work toegether to a resolution--and as an aside, in light of the earthquake, I believe this fantasy will become a reality without more conflict.  He also addressed some important health-care issues, such as the control of water-borne diseases, especially hepatitis, by implementing better control and monitoring of the water supply.  Only a stepping stone of the exhaustive health care reform that lays ahead, but one of the key inital steps I believe.

I could go on, but in brief it was an excellent address.  He spoke from knowledge alone, with no notes, or written speech.  He gave opportunities for questions in the end as well, though unfortunately some of the saps that were chosen were quite useless, either embarassing themselves with a declaration of Pakstan Zindabad!, or an unintelligible question with their painful fobby-tones of skepticism or cynicism.  Some people have to learn to remember their love and respect for Paksitan regardless of your political views or criticism, especially when you are asking a question after being addressed by your country's Prime Minister.  A balance must be kept!  But alas, you always have those in the bunch, and that is a post for another day.

Bodies: The Exhibit

Went to see 'Bodies: The Exhibit'  today at South Street Seaport.  It is in essence a cadaveric art exhibit, with all real human bodies dissected in various ways to show all portions of the human anatomy.  From the layers of the muscles, bones, nervous system, digestive system, and even circulatory system portrayed in ways you could never imagine.  The specimens were preserved in formaldehyde as are most post-mortem bodies for science, and then they were further processed with a silicone preservative which allowed them to be maintained in a specific position, and essentially solidified.  It could be seen as "creepy" and in some instances borderline unethical to some people (especially the exhibit of fetuses, deveopment, and abnormalities in development), but I thought it was a fantastic and educational experience, that everyone (who can handle it) shoud check out, whether you are in the medical field or know nothing about it.

A few of the cooler ones to note were for one, the circulatory system.  For these exhibits they injected some sort of fixative substrate throughout the vascular system--through all the arteries, and even all the capillaries.  This hardened all the vessels, and then they dissolved all other bodily tissue with some other chemical, leaving you with an intricate display of every single vessel, including capillaries.  It was phenomenal.  The some 60,000 miles of vasculature in the body is believable once you see some of these exhibits! I included some pics I secretly took on the bottom.

The whole body dissections were amazing.  In one they had the skeleton of the same body removed from the muscles and soft tissue layers, and they were just kind of holding each other's arms falling back.  All the nerves and muscle layers in the bodies were clearly dissected out.  One exhibit had the entire central nervous sytem removed, and perfectly intact, from the brain down to the cauda equina and sciatic nerves (end of the spinal cord and the nerves into the legs).  It was great. Whole digestive tracks removed, samples of vairous diseases and cancers on display, and stages of embryonic and fetal develompent from 2 weeks all the way to 35 weeks. 

I suppose there are some ethical boundaries to this, but it is education, and it is the human anatomy and form, something that everyone should at least know about.  it is the one thing that is more or less consistent in all of us.  If you notice the bodies all seem to be of Chinese origin.  It seems (though I haven't confirmed this) that they were Chinese prisoners at one time, so I cannot comment on the consent of these people for the use of their bodies.  But regardless, if you aren't "creeped out" by it, I suggest you check it out!

Some pics I swiped, Didn't get any of the whole bodies, but this is just a fraction of the display:

The arterial-arteriole-capillary system of the upper half of the body. Intact.

Another preservatin of the vasculature, rest of the body melted away!

Back to Life in the New Year

A belated Happy New Year to all!!

And a belated Eid Mubarak as well.  I was shocked to find out that alternate side parking was actually suspended for 2 days for Eid!  Now we are really a  legit holiday. 

As the holiday season ends, hopefully we all have some resolutions for the New Year, and hope to make the year one to remember. I have been super busy the last few weeks, even though I am on ACR month, which is mostly clinilc and teaching.  In theory I have a lot of free time, but I have spent that catching up with friends, working on the coming LRBT Gala in April in NYC(more info to come). 

I also got my consolidated loan bills in.  And sadly, it seems I do not make the financial cut to declare financial hardship to defer my loans, which means I'm going to have to pay like 400$ a month, because I make just about 150$ too much per month to drop below the "poverty" level.  This will seriously curtail my extra curricular's in NYC, so I am not too happy about it!!!

Some recent events I attended was the "First Friday" event at the Guggenheim.  9pm to 1am party at the Guggenheim with great music courtesy of rotating DJ's, a bar, hundreds of people, and access to the museum exhibits.

I was happy to learn at a friend's bday at Mundial in the LES (pretty cool place, with a nice spacious room for that area of the city by the way) that I stil have some devout readers of my blog, as useless as it has been lately.  I can always count on Shims to make me continue my feeble and pointless musings.

I finally ate at La Esquina, a new hipster latin joint, hidden beneath an old-school styled diner front, going down the back stairs through the kitchen into a chilled out underground, dimly lit revived basement, sleek decor with tables for small groups or large.  The vibe goes for exclusivity, but the staff was friendly enough to avoid being pretentious.  The menu was innovative for yet another latin joint, very tasty, despite small portions of tortas and ceviche starters for the price.  Drinks were strong, and the tequila list is endless.  Definitely a cool spot to enjoy a pre-outing meal on a weekday, with a date or with a group.

Anyway, thats all for now. Overnight on Friday for night-flloat, but I got Monday off. Gotta love MLK.