fishscale really IS that good. really.

finished the surgery rotation today. "finished." haha. i was done with it a while ago. seriously, what a do-nothing rotation. just what i needed post-match.

tonight mr. and mrs. jaxxxon chrysler and mr. and mrs. pdubs will be rolling into town so we can go watch the crest throw down at the king club. somewhere in the course of today i will also be tracking one lizard_sterz as well as one hubba binskas

if this post don't make no sense to you, just do as the t-shirt tells you, and it still won't make any sense but damn that's a good record.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 10:26 AM |

this is the new apathy.

7 weeks left until graduation, most of which will be spent on rotations that will not be preparing me for the future but instead fulfilling graduation requirements. the academic guilt of more or less avoiding the OR on a general surgery rotation pulled me in today, and i spent a total of 2 hours scrubbed in and being sterile (and doing nothing, literally, DOING NOTHING) while watching the surgeon and a third year plastic surgery (read: overqualified) resident excise sebaceous cysts (which, incidentally, are digusting little monsters in their own right and definitely tried to spray the attending in the eye more than once with its watery-cream-cheese cyst filling.

anyway!

so what's good? the new graham coxon album is pretty damn good, actually. spank rock is still unbelievable. i love listening to shit in the car with bass turned ALL THE WAY UP. and i've been rocking (or gently grooving) the new yeah yeah yeahs album and i like it more and more. i noticed that pitchfork gave it a half assed thumbs up today. they also reviewed a couple remixes of a shit-hot tiga track last week ("far from home," fyi - seriously the album version is irresistible; downloading the remixes now as we speak).

i had to fill out my vacation preferences last week. i don't even know when to ask for time off. i asked for january and some time in the spring, like april or may or something. who knows if i'll get my top choices though. i could end up with both of them in september (god that would suck).

i sort of cleaned out my storage closet today. there is now a pile of old boxes in front of my apartment door that needs to be exiled to the dumpster. i discovered another box full of old medical journals. and yet another box of classnotes was discovered. all fodder for the dumpster.

the cleansing continues. erratic posting of irrelevant and uninteresting details of my life continues.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 1:02 PM |

ok, so what the hell happened.

we kicked it off early morning style at andy's house, with a nice breakfast spread of bagels, donuts, homemade delicious scones, a cheese bowl (haha), a plate of bacon (awesome), bloody mary's and mimosas. everyone got a nice buzz going and then we trekked through the wet snow to the medical school where match day ceremonies were beginning.

the ceremonies started with some awards handed out to different residents, nurse practitioners, etc for being great educators, and about a third of the recipients were unable to attend, which made for anticlimactic announcements, though it was nice to be reunited with some of our favorite residents over the past 2 years. we then transitioned into a 30 minute long video slideshow which was far more entertaining than it sounds, if for no other reason than the fact that i got to see pictures of several classmate's spouses for the first time. i also discovered that certain classmates were dating each other, let alone got married already (seriously! i wasn't gone THAT long!)

then we began the match. i don't even remember who went first. i remember saying that if i didn't go in the first 20 minutes, i was hoping to be last (to win the fishbowl full of money - we each put a dollar bill in as we went up). i didn't quite get my wish, jen bahner called my name at about a half hour into the ceremony, but i was DAMN SURE READY. as previously blogged about (which is a statement i hope to never reuse), i received my number one choice at NYU, preceded by an internship at montefiore in the bronx. HOLLA BACK. one of my classmates proposed to his girlfriend in front of all of us, but before he opened the envelope. she seemed a bit mortsed by the entire production but said yes. then he opened his envelope and said "kalamazoo" (true story).

after match concluded (in which several of my good friends all received their #1 matches), we scampered our giddy lil' bottoms (another statement i hope to never reuse) back to andy's house to finish off what was left of the mimosas and bloodys, and then called cabs to cart our asses to the kollege klub. at the KK we found that the booze was overfloweth and the food was mediocre but free. so we ate a lot of pizza and wings and meatballs and drank beers and redbull vodkas and i don't know how many rounds of car bombs and one round of scooby snacks (which i am no longer a fan of - the shot, that is), and basically drank ourselves into a frenzied mess by about 5pm.

once the KK wound down, we went and got some food at chipotle and then something about going to madison's for more drinking and then something else happened and then i came home and went to bed and woke up with a nice headache just in time to see wisconsin get blown out of the water by arizona.

THE END

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 12:33 PM |

the party don't stop at flickr

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 8:39 AM |

it happened today!

will post in more detail tomorrow, i'm exhausted right now after drinking for about 16 hours, more or less continuously, hitting up multiple bars and filling myself up with free pizza, wings, and meatballs...

i matched today at NYU for anesthesiology and i couldn't be happier (it was my #1 choice!)... my prelim year will be in the north bronx (aka the NOBRO) at the montefiore medical center, which, while it wasn't my #1 choice for prelim, i'm still happy with because the benefits are pretty great at monty and the cost of living is very cheap by NY standards (we're talking as low as $400/month for a studio apt and just about every single meal comped), so i'll be able to save loads of cash and (in theory) be able to afford a nice apartment the next year when i start at NYU down in manhattan.

i took loads of pictures and will sort through them when i have more energy.. for now i'm feverishly reading about my new residency programs and thinking about how i should get some sleep..

thanks everyone for your support and congratulations! so excited! so surreal...

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 2:08 AM |

got maybe 3 hours of sleep. woke up with a queasy stomach. man this match bidniz needs to happen soon!

it was supposed to be snowing by now.. i don't see shit.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 7:42 AM |

from a program which rejected me for interview:

From: [censored]
Subject:
Date: March 15, 2006 4:10:50 AM CST
To: Distribution@inet616.aamc.org

Dear Chris,

We need to receive your USMLE scores at this time.

sincerely,


[censored]
Chicago, IL

which was followed very quickly by THREE emails stating that the previous was an error. all three were worded differently, a bit more urgently with each one, including:

Please disregard the previous message from me regarding your USMLE scores.
THIS MEMO HAS BEEN SENT IN ERROR. PLEASE DO NOT CALL OUR OFFICE WITH YOUR
SCORES.

haha. i wonder how many overzealous students just started calling/emailing/faxing their scores over, just because they were told to. although i imagine if you were scrambling and your name was chris and you had called there, than that could have caused some confusion. i wonder how many people that sent in scores weren't named chris.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 12:30 PM |

rumors abound on the interweb about programs that didn't fill their anesthesiology residency programs.. some surprises among them:

• rush univ (chicago)


• UCSF (widely regarded as the #1 academic anesthesiology program in the country)


• virginia mason (also regarded as a top program)


• johns hopkins (also regarded as a top program in just about everything, and although the burgeoning bmore club scene would be tempting to immerse into, i hear not-so-nice things about baltimore living)


• univ of iowa


• jackson memorial (florida - duh, it's florida)


• univ of connecticutt
• st. louis univ


• med univ of ohio


• univ of kentucky (apparently they REALLY fucked up and listed their 3 year program as a 4 year, and their 4 year as a 3 year. their intent was to rank applicants only at the program length they preferred, but due to the fuckup i guess they're out like an entire program, or something. i don't know. something like that. it's kentucky)

i did not interview at any of those programs. i applied to rush, UCSF, and VMason, but none of them were interested. WHAT IT IS NOW BITCHES

in NYC, it was nassau county and SUNY upstate that were still empty (i didn't apply to either)

i heard that cornell (NYC) didn't fill a couple years ago, because they were 'cocky' and only ranked 20 applicants for their 15 slots or whatever, thinking that they were SOO desirable that they didn't need to rank more than that. then the program really blundered by sending out an email saying "you may have heard we didn't fill, but its okay because we didn't want any of those other people anyway, potential troublemakers and poor fits" or something of the sort, and then accidentally sent that email out to EVERYONE who applied to cornell that year. so all the closet misfits and social miscreants who weren't ranked by cornell were able to read just HOW cornell felt about them.

that story made me feel better about the fact that cornell was the only NYC program that i applied to that rejected me for interview. fucks.

and in more over-analysis news, i found out that my #2 preliminary year program in NYC did NOT fill, even though i was told it was a highly competitive position in a very desirable location (lower manhattan). now, this could mean that i definitely matched at #1 or #2, since #2 isn't even full and i ranked them that highly. which would be great, since #1 and #2 are at the same hospital, just different programs (transitional year vs preliminary medicine). however, maybe this hospital was cocky and didn't even rank me (in which case, they can go fuck off), and then maybe i'm actually at my #5 or something.

and i've been thinking about it, and i've decided that this tells me nothing. i guess i'll know for sure within 48 hours.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 3:02 PM |

1. i've been very bad at keeping my life streamlined. i accumulate clutter quite quickly and hang on to it for much longer than i should. this clutter includes medical textbooks, class notes, magazines, random junk mail that never made it to the trash and somehow burrowed into the magazines pile, etc. this morning i dumped out about 3 large cardboard boxes full of old class materials, notebooks, notes, handouts, whathaveyou. also a large pile of accumulated magazines over the years, including giant robot, the face (remember that one, chuck), sleaze (remember THAT one, chuck?), and far too many copies of things like musician's friend or american musical catalogs, which just migrated themselves into that pile. i still have a couple piles left, i just got tired of going up and down the stairs all morning. also a milk crate full of old JAMAs which i'm trying to decide if i should donate or dumpster.

2. the wardrobe cleansing has resulted in two large and one small bag of clothes that need to escorted to the nearest st. vinny's. it's embarassing. a various assortment of clothing items which have gone out of style, were never in style, have fallen apart, or no longer fit well. i have yet to tackle the sock drawer. already considering a second-time-through-purging of the wardrobe, just to be sure i'm getting everything.

2.(b) any chicago 446ers want a megamayne costume?

3. i think i'm going to get rid of all my VHS tapes. i don't believe i've watched anything on VHS in at least a few years. anyone want a large collection of VHS movies?

4. i've arranged for charter to disconnect my cable and internet service on april 3rd. thats the day i start my preceptorship in beloit. since i'll be living there for the bulk of the time (coming up to madison on wknds, i presume), there's no reason to keep that service going up here.

CHARTER GIRL
And why will you be cancelling your service with us, sir?

SELF
I'm moving.

CHARTER GIRL
And you wouldn't prefer to transfer your service to your new place?

SELF
Well, I'll be moving out of state.

CHARTER GIRL
Oh, you are SO lucky. Moving somewhere warm I hope!

SELF
Nope, most likely I'll be moving to New York City.

CHARTER GIRL
You mean you don't know?

SELF
Not yet.

CHARTER GIRL
Not yet?

SELF
I'll know on Thursday. So can we get this disconnection scheduled for April 3rd?

(beat)

CHARTER GIRL
Um, sure...

(END SCENE)

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 2:04 PM |

You Have Matched!

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 12:45 PM |

2 hours until i find out IF i matched!

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 10:03 AM |

1. listening to leaked tracks off of prince's new album makes me listen to hott tracks off of prince's old albums.

2. tomorrow will be DAY ONE of match week. tomorrow i find out IF i matched. i can get a variety of messages, anything from "sorry you didn't match" to "congratulations you matched". in between are the messages that say various things like "congratulations, you have matched at an advanced position but not a preliminary position" or "i'm sorry, you're ugly". the excitement begins tomorrow at 11:00am CST.

3. and so begins the process of inventorying and selling or throwing out many of my accumulated possessions over the years. books will be returned to their rightful owners (namely, my sister), schoolbooks are being sold (almost half of them are gone so far, thank god), old class notes and such will be thrown out, furniture including my dresser, bed, coffee table, desk(s), bookcases (yes, even yours charles) will be given away (to ben) or donated to goodwill or curbed if i'm too lazy, there will be a massive wardrobe purge wherein i will rid the closet of many old thrift-store t-shirts and the like which haven't been worn in ages ((and hang on to the keepers, of course) said purge will also include my embarassingly large collection of shoes and outerwear), assorted sundry items such as a vacuum cleaner and ironing board which will be surveyed for value and more than likely abandoned in front of st. vinny's, and then a thorough reexamination of my electronics, among those on the chopping block: my 19-inch tv/vcr combo i've had since freshman year, several stereo speakers, and a marschall jcm 900 head with matching slanted 4 x 12 cab (how much does that go for these days, anyway?). serious consideration is also being given to selling off the 5 channel sony receiver which will have no aforementioned speakers to power.

4. hopefully this means i will be moving with only the clothing and footwear i wear on a regular rotation, books that i truly own that i MUST keep with me or haven't finished reading yet, the small family of CD binders which follow me from apartment to apartment, assorted cookware, glasses, and plates, the extended family of computer equipment and home recording setup which has been pieced together over the years, my two guitars, and my cell phone charger.

5. speaking of cell phones, this piece of shit phone with piece of shit service will be over and done with by the time of the move, i hope. my contract expires the day before graduation, and i have zero intentions to renew it. i hear verizon offers nice service. anything but sprint, frankly.

6. and the car. the car will be sold as well. to help fund the move.

7. and finally, my current rotation is general surgery at a local hospital which will remain anonymous and it is a terribly organized, complete waste of time. there are maybe 3 or 4 ORs with general surgery cases going on at any given time. this means, at most, there will need to be 4 people covering those rooms to assist with surgery. the general surgery team (currently) consists of a third year plastics resident, 2 anesthesiology interns, 1 urology intern, and 3 surgery PAs. so, MORE than enough to cover those 3-4 rooms. and also there are 2 of us fourth-year, nearly post-match students. as you can see, there is a whole lot of necessity for us to even be on the team, let alone motivation for us to do, well, ANYTHING. the cases i've been on, i've been treated like a mentally retarded farm animal that doesn't understand english. AWESOME. usually what happens is we show up at the cafeteria by 7am, receive a 30-40 minute "lecture" on a topic by whoever is the designated lecturer that morning while we eat our breakfast which is fully comped by meal cards (twice last week we learned about appendicitis), look over the cases, realize that there isn't anything to really do, and then go home. i'm totally serious. after being first assistant for two pilonidal cyst removals (which means, doing just barely more than nothing), the novelty died and i went home.

8. charles's (charles'? charleses? charlese? charlize?) lists are always much more fun than mine. YOU WIN AGAIN, drat

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 9:15 PM |