Sief dreamin' about the muscle car he someday hopes to own. A 1969 Pontiac GTO convertible to be exact. I could go into the details on why a 1969 vs a 1968 vs 1970, etc but I won't bore you.
This weekend we went to the Carlisle GM All Nationals Car Show to check out the "Pontiac Pavilion" and any GTOs we could find.
Pictured above is a 1968 GTO.- it looks better in person
Sief's dream car will be a dazzling midnight blue with white interior and a white top.
And while we're dreamin'. . . I imagine myself sitting in the passenger seat top down, wind blowing through my hair (since Sief can't imagine that part ;) ), blue skies, driving down the pacific coast highway, a dog in the backseat, and not a care in the world.
Today one of my surgery attendings informed me that family doctors are like Dodge Neons and specialists are like Mercedes Benzs. He believes as do most Americans that the health care system has to change, but he feels specialists are the way to go. Because if we rely moe on primary care physicians then the standard of care will have to go down. The American people will have to be willing to accept a lower quality of health care. Most of the time a Dodge Neon will be just fine and can get you where you need to be, but sometimes you need a little more. How can a family doctor handle all these different problems, there is just too much to know. They end up refering to specialists for every little thing and don't do more than give their patients hugs. Anyway this went on for what felt like forever and being unable to do much else except for meekly insert my opinion every now and then (careful now he is grading me), I just sat there and took it. Asshole.
So, I guess today my skin got a little thicker. My skin has grown thicker over the past year. The 3rd year of medical school has a way of doing that to you. My attending did remind me of the passion & love I have for primary care. The way I want to know my patient's, spend time with them, provide comprehensive preventative health care. Yes, I will have to refer my patient's to specialists when needed, but I will be the one who ensures that they as an entire person, not just one organ system is taken care of. I could have sold out for the money, but I prefer to put up with the occasional ignorant doctor for the respect I will someday recieve from my patients. If you cannot respect me, well then I guess I just lost the little respect I granted you.
9 more days of surgery! The hating on family medicine won't stop, but I know what I believe and where my principles lie.
And if that means being a Dodge Neon then so be it.
Remember when you were a little kid and the goal of any slumber party was to stay up the latest or all night if possible? I attempted that feat so many times and failed, all but one. The first time I was up all night & able to see the dawn was at my friend's Caitlin's slumber party. I don't remember how old I was, but I do remember being outside in her driveway on a pogo stick at 6am as the night turned into day. Today/tonight I took surgery trauma call and I feel as if I am in that same boat again...attempting to stay up until the sun. I woke up yesterday morning at 6am and won't be leaving the medical center until 6am. It is currently 4:26 am as I write. Maybe you're thinking why aren't you sleeping in an on call room? Well, I could be but I want to be able to sleep tomorrow during the day and...it's harder to get up and run to a trauma if you're sleeping. Maybe it sounds silly & it is partly because I only have to do this for one night and then I have tomorrow off (except for lecture at 3) and then it's the weekend & I can catch up on my sleep. I also could still be coming off the adrenaline rush of close to 4 traumas coming in around 11pm this evening. I was able to be involved in 2 of them. One kept me in the OR until at least 2 am - I was just watching, but it was a crazy, surreal experience. The victim had multiple gunshot wounds that had to be explored. The gunshot wound entry points were much smaller than I ever imagined them from the movies and tv. Once all the excitement in the ED settled down, myself & 3 of my classmates (also on call) went to the student lounge & hung out... joking, laughing, talking about whatever...you know silly stuff that only happens when you are really tired at 3am. good stuff ok, time to go lay down on the couch to wait and rest...
Strawberry season is finally here! Strawberries are my absolute favorite fruit. Each year I try to find strawberries as fresh and as sweet as the one's I can get at home in Chico, California from the little roadside stands. And...Friday I found a place that came in pretty close. There was a little farmer's stand on my drive back home from work that had a huge sign saying "STRAWBERRIES!" 5 minutes later I was back sitting in my car with 3 quart baskets full of small, but super sweet strawberries by my side :) :) :)
In my excitement of the strawberries, I thought I would share my favorite strawberry dessert recipe with you :)
Strawberry Pizza Crust: - Combine 1 cube butter (softened), 1/2 c. powdered sugar, & 1 c. flour - I find it easiest to mix the above ingredients with my hand - then pat the dough into a pizza pan....or onto a cookie sheet - Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes - Cool - spread 8 oz cream cheese over crust
Topping: - Clean 2 baskets of strawberries & sweeten with 1/2 c. sugar - let set, drain off juice (if there is not enough juice to make 1 c. add water)
- pour into saucepan - add 1/2 c. sugar (you can omit if the strawberries are really sweet), 3 tablespoons cornstarch - stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly (it will turn to an almost gelatin consistency) - remove from heat & add 1 tablespoon butter - let cool, stir in strawberries - turn mixture onto crust
Ta Da - thin, crispy, flaky crust, smooth cream cheese, and sweet sweet strawberriness!
I've copied below the recipe so if you want to copy, paste, and then print it - you can do so without all the pictures. Strawberry Pizza Crust: - Combine 1 cube butter (softened), 1/2 c. powdered sugar, & 1 c. flour - I find it easiest to mix the above ingredients with my hand - then pat the dough into a pizza pan....or onto a cookie sheet - Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes - Cool - spread 8 oz cream cheese over crust Topping: - Clean 2 baskets of strawberries & sweeten with 1/2 c. sugar - let set, drain off juice (if there is not enough juice to make 1 c. add water) - pour into saucepan - add 1/2 c. sugar (you can omit if the strawberries are really sweet), 3 tablespoons cornstarch - stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly (it will turn to an almost gelatin consistency) - remove from heat & add 1 tablespoon butter - let cool, stir in strawberries - turn mixture onto crust
Sorry I have been out of touch for a little over a week. I would like to say that I have been busy, but....I was on breast surgery for the past 2 weeks which was actually rather chill. I guess I was just being lazy & not blogging - well...I was also catching up on sleep and trying to get some studying done. I also managed to go out to dinner to a Lebanese restaurant with the boyfriend and then watch a movie in the park. Shank Park had a big screen put up and showed the movie Madagascar 2 on Saturday (good movie!). It was unexpectedly cold. We watched the movie from the grass lying atop a blanket. You could also watch from your car parked on the grass, but I prefer being out in the open. I was the lucky one sandwiched in between Melanie and Sief - curled up in too few blankets. Next time we know - more blankets & pillows to rest our heads. The next movie is in July and it's ET! (i think it will be fun to watch that movie outside - i'll try & remember to take my camera)
Ok enough about me...on to the CONGRATULATIONS.
First - Congrats to my cousin Rachel and her fiancee Scott. Recently engaged on her birthday :) We're all happy to welcome Scott to the family.
Second - Little cousin Colby for her graduating from high school! No more cousins in the family in high school - man that makes me feel old.
Yeah! WOO HOO! DONE! (and Colby can't get mad, because I have pictures more embarrassing than this one that I could post)
It's that time of year - graduations and weddings galore! Happiness & love fills the air of spring as it turns into summer. Get out there and enjoy!
Sunday morning, Sief asks me "Hey you want to go see the Coldplay concert tonight?" I being the planner that I am, look at him as if he is crazy. You can't just decide to go to a concert the day of. This is something that needs to be planned out at least a week or two in advance. Coldplay was in Hershey playing at the Hersheypark Stadium last night. Me, "Are you serious?" Apparently he was, later that afternoon I found myself at the Hersheypark Stadium box office shelling out $40 for a concert ticket. We attempted to study the rest of the day. We head to the concert early to avoid traffic and grabbed some fast food to eat in the car beforehand. Of course as we are getting ready to walk into the concert, it starts to sprinkle and the beautiful clear sky has blackened with gloomy clouds. You can see the wind blowing my bangs. We had to document our being at the concert, we decided to leave cell phones, camera, etc in the car in case of torrential downpour and complete soakage of our clothes.
Once inside the stadium the rain really started to pour. A San Antonionan type of rain where it rains so hard, even if you had an umbrella it wouldn't make a difference because the wind would throw the rain at you & still completely soak you under your umbrella. Hersheypark was nice enough to sell cheap ugly blue plastic ponchos for $5 a piece. Of course they only take cash, no ATM in site and guess how much cash we had between the 2 of us --> $4. Sief convinced a vendor to give him a poncho for his girlfriend for $4. So 2 people, 1 poncho and the hope that the rain will pass as predicted.
thankfully, 30 minutes later the rain stopped and the concert continued. Pete Yorn opened and then Coldplay! It was a great show. They did a fantastic job. At the end the band came over to our side of the stadium and stood on something near the crowd. They were probably 200-300 feet away from us. They sang a few songs there and then made everyone do "The Wave." The cool thing about this wave was that since it was dark people did it with their cell phones. They choreographed it so people would raise their cell phones all around the stadium in a specific order. It was pretty amazing. Can you imagine how they feel to have 12,000+ people there just to hear your music. I can only imagine the adrenaline rush. And the fact that they can get that many people to work together on "The Wave" while high school teachers fight their students just to get them to sit down and be quite for an hour. It's incredible.
