Tuesday, February 28, 2006

ColLABoration

The grad student in our lab, Josh, took me over to ETC today to discuss possible collaborration between our neuro lab and another professor's engineering lab. It looks to be a pretty mutually beneficial arrangement, and it's pretty exciting. On the one hand, they're engineering researchers with an interest in neuro regeneration (working with C. elegans), and on the other, we're neuroscience folks with an interest in their experiments and amazing equipment. Their lab was decked out with all sorts of femtosecond lasers (able to cut 0.5 microns a pulse; a major improvement over the clumsy, sharpened-glass pipette that we use for transections), with mirrors strategically placed all over the huge vibration table. They've also got a two-photon microscope that will be a huge improvement over our ancient scope. They also seem really friendly and eager to work together, so I'm looking forward to doing some more tissue culture as well as the surgeries I've already been training to do.

Pink-orange

I pulled my car over earlier to scribble this down. It may be the ramblings of sleep deprivation, and it may be terrible. But I haven't written any poetry in a long time, and I hope this means I have started again. I am the neglected East Side the strip-mall-neon crackling   through my veins the screeching-tire track-marks I am rolling hills and city views   obscured by demented industry   seen by sunken shifty eyes On your drive home I am the screaming, shrinking   reminder of how good   your life is.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Sigur Ros

I'm seeing them tonight. You should be, too.

It's not exactly sliced bread...

I think I may have invented something. I mentioned before that I'm working in my neuro prof's lab, where we are studying nerve regeneration utilizing polyethylene glycol for rapid fusion of crushed axons (sciatic nerves in rats). Exposing and crushing the nerve is no problem, but applying the electrodes and taking the readings is problematic. The way they've been doing it, the stimulating electrode is applied to the proximal end of the nerve (closer to the body), and the recording electrode is applied to the distal end (closer to the foot), with the electrodes pressed on top of the nerve and making incidental contact with the muscle and connective tissue below and surrounding the nerve. The stimulating electrode sends a little shock down the nerve, and the recording electrode reads the magnitude of signal produced. Because the extraneous tissue conducts electricity, often interfering signals will appear on the oscilloscope obscuring the nice, smooth action potential curve; the electrodes also often do not make consistent or sufficient surface area contact with the nerve to produce a readable signal. So these were some things I noticed in the last couple of weeks of observations. I asked my professor if there were any better setups for the electrodes that he was aware of - not to his (extensive) knowledge. I had some initial ideas for how to solve the above problems, but I couldn't quite decide on the material to use. So I stopped by the local toy shop for some ideas. I ran across something quite absurd that might actually work. To my surprise, when I ran the idea past my professor, he thought it was excellent. So now I get to go toy shopping for lab next week. I hope my idea works!

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Fog

It was very foggy on my drive home, and I had the strange feeling that I was traveling through something, rather than on or in or to something. It was a moment of clarity in which I was reminded that through is always really the appropriate preposition. I am reminded of this again as I watch the Nova episode, "The Ghost Particle." According to the show, a hundred trillion neutrinos pass through us every second. I have a passing familiarity with the particles, as they were my last physics professor's research subject. They mathematically must have existed, due to the laws of thermodynamics, but they were never seen. Only traces can be seen in shockwaves that occur when neutrinos scatter electrons, either in giant, underground tanks or now in a more natural environment. Either way, to say we're swimming in a giant tank of particles doesn't do justice to the fact that we're swimming through those particles. The universe is very foggy.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Practice MCAT

So I took a full-length practice exam this past Saturday. I'm very pleased that I improved in all categories from the original diagnostic I took in January. I hope the trend continues.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Dentistry Considered

Before my trip to Guatemala, I had never really seriously considered dentistry as a career option. Dr. Wayne had a good influence on me, though, and I'm now considering it very seriously. An interesting avenue just presented itself in the form of oral/maxillofacial surgery (via my mom, who apparently likes to discuss my potential career with her Medical Director coworker). According to my mom, paraphrasing her coworker, "you will make 1.5 M a year and you will be doing "God's work"...you would be recontructing people who have been in auto accidents, and would have long term relationships with patients who are very appreciative." Ha... my mom's way of summing things up (read: bluntness) is so funny. I'm pretty sure that description's not in the brochure. Although the money's not a factor for me, dentistry in general is an attractive option simply because, practically, it offers the thing about family medicine I desire - patient relationships - and less of the insurance/compensation headache. After working with Wayne in Guatemala, I've come to realize there's much more medicine involved in dentistry than I had previously thought. When Wayne initially told me to consider dentistry, I mostly dismissed the idea. I thought that it would lack the problem-solving of medicine; I was proven wrong. I also enjoy the technical aspects of surgery, and so a residency program in OMS would allow me to practice that (from what I understand, in much less time than a surgical specialty in medicine). It's something to think about, at least. I'll probably take the DAT sometime after the MCAT. It seems the material overlaps a bit, and it's only 4.25 hours, instead of 8. It's strange to imagine myself as a toddler, telling my mom I wanted to be a dentist. It was the first profession in which I expressed interest, and my mom tells me she shifted my attention elsewhere because she had heard about their high suicide rates. I find that whole situation really funny. What kind of kid says he wants to be dentist? Man, I'm weird.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

2/1/2006

This is the eleventh and final part in my Guatemalan series. Click here for parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. At the beginning of this journal, I expressed the hope that Glory would somehow prove an appropriate book for this trip. I just re-read the paragraph my "Roads Less Traveled" bookmark rested upon ("Roads Less Traveled" is a book by Cath, Mary Anne's travel journalist friend who joined our group for a while; she also is an award-winning photographer, and I was surprised and flattered when she told me some of my photos were publishable; I may yet take her up on the suggestion I contact my local paper). In this paragraph, I seem to have uncovered a deeper thread tying one of the themes of my trip to a central theme of the book:
"I know, I know," said the Frenchman wearily. "You, les Anglais, are fond of wagers, of records" (his "records" sounded like a drowsy growl). "Who wants a bare rock in the sky? Or - good Lord, how sleepy one gets on a train! - or icebergs or whatever one calls them - or, indeed, the North Pole? Or these marshes where one perishes from malaria?" "Yes, you may have put your finger on it. And yet even that, even le sport, is not all. There are besides - how shall I say? - glory, love, tenderness for the soil, a thousand rather mysterious feelings." (pp 155-156)
Oh, what marvelous and malevolent deeds are done in the name of Glory! We in the New World live in a distant ripple of that long-ago plunge for glory, and it is only more obvious when one visits the more turbulent epicenter. This concludes my transcription of the writing in my journal. I would like to conclude by saying that I feel incredibly fortunate to have traveled to Guatemala and experienced the satisfaction of helping those in need and the camaraderie of a truly outstanding group of volunteers. It was like we had all known each other for years; we would stay up chatting and laughing for hours after dinner every night. I will miss those nights. I hope to stay in touch as much as possible, and I can't wait to go again.

1/29/2006

This is the tenth part in my Guatemalan series. Click here for parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. I just noticed the carving on the back of an antique Spanish chair in our hotel. In our last few minutes here, I wish we had more time so that I could soak in all the little details.

1/28/2006

This is the ninth part in my Guatemalan series. Click here for parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. I just came home from the Hard Rock Cafe imitation in Panajachel, with the Danes (Michael, a pre-med, and Sara), and then the inebriated Brits out in the street after closing time, and I opened the patio to let the breeze from the lake pour into my room. I stepped outside, and as I looked up to admire the new moon and more stars than I've ever seen in a sky, a shooting star briefly burned itself out. - - We're now approaching Antigua, once the Spanish capital for all of their New World. How hard it is to imagine the first Spaniards to visit this strange place, wild and undiscovered, and then to build streets and buildings, to - for better or worse - teach the native people their language, their religion. I wonder if they could have imagined the lasting legacy they established, to which this city still stands testament. - - I think my room is haunted. I also think it used to be a closet. Just handling the heavy, enormous, wrought-iron skeleton key bestows upon the user a heady sense of history. The mind conjurs the original owners and invites them to wreak havoc with the imagination in a dark, cramped, hundreds-of-years-old room. - - Antigua's central plaza at night is heart-breakingly romantic for a lone wanderer. The water splashes in the fountains, lights are strung throughout the trees, and the whole scene of cuddling couples and strolling families is backlit by the glowing church to the east. I find it hard to imagine that just a few years ago this peaceful square would have been, at this late hour, a dark, threatening and dangerous place.

Friday, February 10, 2006

1/27/2006

This is the eighth part in my Guatemalan series. Click here for parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Left to right: Unknown, Elena, Kaylea, Rosa. I bought Ana's little sister, Rosa, a pair of shoes last night. Best 20-something bucks I've ever spent. What a joy it was to provide such a simple but so-appreciated necessity. Both sisters have a prominent upper canine on one side (a sort of "fang" I had braces to correct), and so they tend to hide their smiles, which is a terrible shame since their faces light up so brilliantly when they smile. I made sure to tell them both not to hide their smiles, and I hope I helped lend a little confidence to the girls. There was an awkward silence when I asked Ana what she wanted to be, and she answered "nothing" and looked a little embarassed. I hope with time and a little more confidence that answer changes; she is certainly capable of more than "nothing." Dave and wife Jamie. - -Lake Atitlan, 4200ft This place is gorgeous. The hotel is so much better than I could have hoped for - there is a breathtaking view from my room of the lake and volcanoes. The hammocks in the garden make me imagine this would be a place Hemingway would stay and write. Our guides name the volcanoes as we speed towards them in our little boat. Toliman, the most imposing of the three, seems to have an impressive foothold on the biggest group of clouds in this bright blue sky. The spray from the crystal clear lake is flirting with this very page. The rest of the sky rolls past the volcanoes clinging to the clouds as if the earth is slowly climbing across the sky. Or maybe if these mountains loosened their grip on the heavens, the earth would spin out of control. We spent some time in one of the villages (Santiago) across the lake. Dave and I discovered a wonderful old mission church at the top of the hill. There was a memorial to a priest from Oklahoma, to which is bound a tragic and inspiring story. The recent hurricanes had devastated part of Panajachel (the town we stayed in on Lake Atitlan) due to mud slides. Though the mud slides had destroyed the water treatment plant, and raw sewage was now spilling into this part of the lake, many locals still did most of their morning washing in the lake.

1/26/2006

This is the seventh part in my Guatemalan series. Click here for parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Fog over Chichicastenango Today was a half day, and the last day we work. This week has flown by. I worked dental again today, where I could be more useful, but since we were all in one big room, the other docs could call me over to observe interesting cases - one woman with advanced shingles (herpes zoster), and a man with chronic pulmonary disease who presented with clubbing of the fingers. I was able to recognize the same symptoms in another man who sat down for dental, and Kerbey confirmed it. Unfortunately not much could be done at our little makeshift clinic, but it felt good to help diagnose. I've just said goodbye to the three giggleboxes - Carmen, Anamaria and Christina (pictured left to right above). They got such a kick out of calling out my name, which apparently means "little maiden" in Quiche. - - I just met Rosa and Elena; Rosa is Anamaria's little sister. Rosa is 14 and Ana is 16, which is hard to believe, given that Rosa looks more like 10. Elena has a pair of brand new shoes from Mary Ann (the lawyer from Minnesota with us). Next time: Lake Atitlan

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Stable again

I don't know what happened, but my blog started crashing browsers. I assume it was a script that was running out of control, but I couldn't locate the problem (I hadn't made any changes recently), so I just recopied the template. Everything seems to be fine now, but I'm sorry if I caused any problems.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

1/25/2006

This is the sixth part in my Guatemalan series. Click here for parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Note: I spent this day in the company of the ER doc, Kerbey and his interpreter / significant other, Martha, while they saw patients on the medical side. It was a bit of a change from being in dental - less hectic and more cerebral, and slightly more frustrating since we could only offer limited primary care. Kerbey holding one of his more affectionate young patients. Pretty heartbreaking, that family we just saw. I'm in the small shack-turned-examining room with Kerbey and Martha. The family's tiny 18-month-old presented with failure to thrive, a hernia, and very likely a ventricular septal defect (I was proud to have guessed the correct diagnosis due to the baby's underdevelopment and almost blueish color, owing mostly to the book I've been reading; though admittedly it was a lucky guess) with possible mental retardation (his growth plates still remained widely separated) - oh, and a dysplastic hip. Kerbey didn't give him more than five years, since there's practically no way for this family to get him the surgeries he requires. They can barely get him the nutrition he requires. It's upsetting to think how this baby's life would have taken a much different course in a more wealthy nation. Anabela, pictured with Peggy above. Martha is considering sponsoring one of the children in this village, Anabela, who is exceptionally bright, confident and good-natured, not to mention curious and helpful. She is 11 and in the 3rd grade, but obviously should be accelerated. She is bored with curriculum far beneath her level ("and what color is this?" they are trying to teach her) and so has been held back; how wonderful it would be if Martha could make that kind of change in her life. Left to right: Peggy, Anabela, Martha, Erin, Kerbey, me. Steve having a gobble-off with a turkey; the old Mayan farmer behind me was laughing harder than anyone. Next time: