chronicles of the 40 man

Miss you man..

2012-01-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

Its been so long since I've written in here, I think it was my wedding. The last big impacting event in my life. So sad that this current blog is to help me put out my thoughts and feelings for the recent impact in my life.

Adam I hope you knew I loved you man. You were like 1 of 3 or so guys that I met up here in Washington that I could say was a friend. Hanging out was always fun, and we always had our heated discussions, especially when it came to you and your beloved Broncos. I think I'll always be a bronco fan after meeting you. Still have no clue why you loved them, but boy did you.

I'll never understand why you carried so many demons, and found it so hard to let go of the small stuff. I guess we were both similar in that fashion, but ultimately where I was able to let things go, you just couldn't. You had your good streaks and your bad streaks but were always able to clean your shit up and get your business taken care of.

I will always wonder if I was a good enough friend, if I listened enough, or did enough for you. I tried like hell to help you in your fight and always tried to keep in touch when you left the restaurant. You were one of the hardest workers that I ever met, even if you refused to make a pizza.

When we first met you thought I was a snot nosed punk who couldn't boil a pot of water to save my own ass, and I thought you were just another dishwasher/janitor who didn't know anything about working in a fine dining restaurant. Well we were both wrong, and we both tore shit up at the Cliffhouse. I'll never forget those days, they were some of the best I ever had.

I'm just so sad, angry, dumbfounded by your choice to give up. You had so much to fight for, and I'm pissed we'll never argue over the bronco's and chargers again. Or go watch a Mariners game only to spend the entire time arguing over who has better taste in women.

I'll miss you man..

Donec iterum conveniant

Sweet Summer...

2010-08-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

So I have officially tied the knot. Wow, I think this summer has been the longest and easily the best of my life. I just want to thank you for being there to share it with me Dee. It was fun and my first time in Hawaii, or Maui to be specific. I must say it was awesome there and I can't wait to go back. Although I don't think any trip out there can match this one.

Onto other news... Congrats to you Dee, I can't wait to be there for your big day. Just let me know when any news develops.

So we have a new season of football starting soon, and basketball just on the horizon. Going to be interesting this year. I can't figure out who I'll be rooting for this football season, I've grown attached to the hawks while living up here but at the same time I still secretly cheer for the Chargers and Raiders.

As always the Lakers should be a sure in for the playoffs this year, just gotta see how they play during the year and if they can stay focused all year. It's going to be interesting to see how the east coast shapes up now that Lebron and his lackeys are trying to team up for a ring. Plus its going to be funny to see Shaq in a Celtic jersey. He's such a fucking joke, I can't wait to laugh at him as he tries to jump on another bandwagon. Bah... how the once mighty fall, eh?

Well I am done with all the wedding stuff and sports stuff. Onto important things... I finally converted and joined the evil empire. Yes, it's true I got a mac.... My father is so disappointed but I couldn't help it. It was just so sexy and calling to me. Plus with the great perks for teachers I couldn't pass up using the wife's career for free gear. Got a free ipod touch for her and a wireless printer and a 50 dollar discount off my mac. I only splurged a little and got the mac mini. My next mac will be the Mac Pro, but that's when I can afford to drop 3k's on a computer, which may not be for a while. I'll be sure to give you some feedback on the Mac once I've had more than a day with it. So far so good though.

Well... joe out..

A giant leap...

2010-07-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

We haven't blogged on this site for a long time. I've gotta say, this past week was amazing. I was at Joe's wedding in Maui. Beautiful beach/sunset, tasty reception, great company. Really, I don't think it could have gone any smoother. Hopefully Joe and his wife are relaxing on the beach and working on their tans while I pump out this blog.

On my end, I finally proposed to my girl after three and half years. It was under the moonlit sky on a beach in Maui. I'm excited and looking forward to the next phase of my life. On the downside, flying back to LA, I miss her like crazy and am now sure how I'm going to make it through the next week.

Everything has changed with 3rd year of residency. It's the cliche everything is the same, but completely different. Expectations have changed, people are riding me harder. I'm kind of tired and beaten up on the inside. I don't think that I've changed that much, it's reassuring, but also scares me. I'm not sure if I've become that much better of a doctor over the past year. I hit a plateau midway through the year that I never really fully recovered from. There has been a lot of self doubt and waning motivation. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to give up. But I cannot and will not give up. I'll get through another day, overcome the insults and yelling and all that frustrations that come with the system that I work in. There really is no easy job out there and I'm daily reminded that I should be thankful for a job. It's rough out there for everyone. I guess that's just life.

Other changes since my last post. My sister in law is pregnant, so that's been a huge blessing. It's gonna be an interesting year...

-bender

Damn it...I'm gonna get a new camera phone

2010-02-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

Today kind of sucked. One of my stone surgeries went terriby wrong. One of my kids got filled up with irrigation, became hyponatremic with seizures and had to be taken back to the OR. He is in the PICU and hopefully doing better. Anyhow, while I was waiting for my kid to go to the OR, I saw a group of suits walking down the operating suites of CHLA with this guy...

The guy is freakishly tall and has ridiculously long arms. Looks like a hunched ape now that I think about it. Anyhow, I freak out like a little teenage girl and try to get my picture taken on my phone. My phone fails me...not once, but twice. Mother-f'er. WTF! No picture with pau. Damn it. Meanwhile, my attending is walking to the OR and asking me if pau is a big deal. Really? well, he kind is. At least to me.

-bender

Best feeling...

2010-01-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

It may seem weird, but after all this cooking, and getting my butt kicked in many kitchens. I still get the same rush and feeling when I'm pumping out food and getting compliments from customers. Sure, cooking isn't surgery or rocket science but it's still something that I take pride in. I'm not sure it's something that everyone can't do, but it's something that I can do, and I take pride sharing with others. Along with my work the wedding planning is chugging along and I think I'm going balder and growing grey hairs every passing day.

On the fun side, I've been watching a lot of WWF lately. And I think I've found my new favorite song. It's called S.O.S and it's the intro for Kofi Kingston, a Jamaican superstar. I'm actually thikning about going down to Portland in March to watch a match. I just need to find someone to go with me. Cuz kim won't be able to take a day off so I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do.

Well other than that I need to keep trying to not be fat so I don't look gargantuas for my wedding. Take it easy bro, and tell the familia I said hello.

Joe out

peace out 2009

2009-12-24T17:43:00.000-08:00

Man, this year flew by. I still don't know jack, but a few cliche thoughts on life in general

- Every year is rough, but each year things get a little big more complicated
- Things like cars, money, etc. suck to live without, but really, it doesn't mean anything if you don't have the time to enjoy it and people you love to share it with (yeah, I ended the sentence with "with")
- You know how you become an angry bitter old person? Life. Live every day busting your ass, chasing people down and kicking your own ass. Before you know it, you're that mean old guy that nobody likes.
- You know you're getting old when you read calvin and hobbes and the only characters to can relate to are mom and dad

I saw a pretty nice quote from the dalai lama "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."

Any new year's resolutions? naw...the same as always. Try to be a good person and do the right thing every time.

Merry Christmas homie...

-bender

She's got whatever It is

2009-12-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

Hey Bro,

Wow, it's been a long time since we've posted on this thing.

First things first. Congratulations again on getting engaged! It's about time. She's awesome and I'm very happy for you guys. It was good to see you during break. Sorry I was such a wimp, I'm just tired all the time. I'll be sure to go up and visit you later this winter.

Anyhow, I've been at children's hospital LA this past month. It's been a nice break from county. The hours are a lot nicer and so are the people. I've made a lot of friends in and about the hospital, so I've been having fun. I've been operating my ass off doing small cases like circumcisions to back to back living donor kidney transplants. All in all, it's been a humbling experience. I'm in a new environment and there's always a lot of stuff going on. I've been trying my best, but I keep forgetting small details, names, faces, etc.

It's hard to be a good surgeon...you have to know all the medicine, but also kick ass in the operating room. I'm been getting reamed lately for my mistakes and it's a little tough because I've been beating myself up over all of my mistakes...probably a little more than I should. It's hard to be on top of your game all the time. I'm kind of tired, every once in a while you're tempted to take a shortcut, not look up a lab/study, miss a detail on the physical exam. While these things are all understandable, they're not really forgiveable. I'm thinking I might want to do pediatric urology, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for it. The guys I work with are a moody bunch, but they're really in a league of their own. I've been feeling really dumb a lot lately. I know I'm a pretty smart guy, but it's been a humbling month. I'm tired bro.

Long distance is a bit rough too. Gonna see my girl this weekend for the first time in 3 months. Pretty stoked about that. A guy's got needs - somebody to watch movies with on the weekend, try out new restaurants around town, take to holiday parties, etc. LD is hard.

I've been listening to a lot of country again. I've listened to this song about 200 times this month, according to iTunes.

Talk to you soon bro

-bender

Surviving...

2009-11-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

I just finished my first block at county. Going over to children's hospital now. Should be fun. Anyhow, watched my dad perform over the weekend. I guess this is what he has been doing with his free time.

-bender

damn...

2009-09-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

I've become like every other person out there. I seriously freaking hate my f-ing job. I'm always messing something up, getting yelled about something or some shit is always going down. Damn...it's hard to go back to work after vacation. Got used to eating 3 meals a day and sleeping 8+ hours a day. Painful...oh well. Whatever. 5 more years to go meng...

-bender

Dammit, I changed again

2009-09-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

Good song...

On to other things, so I've been getting my butt kicked left and right at the restaurant. I think my need to have everything be perfectly the way I want it, prevents me from taking time off and leaving things to my guys to handle. Definitely need to learn how to be mellow and just calm. The funny thing is, I was mellow and calm, and then all of a sudden it hit me "this food, everything that goes to the customer.. is a reflection of who I am" and when that hit me I just tensed up and became an overbearing boss. I'm glad I have such a solid team who takes it all with a grain of salt and does their best to keep things fun in the kitchen.

Which brings me to my next subject... my bike. Man that thing is so liberating. When you get down a nice flat road, or get a slight hill to go down, the speed is just so intoxicating. Best part about it, it's completely healthy (other than the fact I might get hit by some jackass in a car). Probably best thing I could do for myself, I think if I didn't have old betsy (I named her) that I'd probably go insane with the stress I pile up on myself.

My only gripe with biking is I wish there was a city where cars were outlawed other than emergency vehicles. Then I could ride with my ipod, but I guess I'll just learn to live with it.

Joe out

Damn...

2009-07-12T16:56:00.001-07:00

Sup Joe, sorry I haven't called you bro. No excuses. Man...second year is awful. I'm breaking every hour violation. I go in at 5 am and leave past midnight on most days. I go in on almost all of my days off to look through charts and review cases and make sure everything is ready for the upcoming week. I see consults, operate, take care of my floor patients, run clinic, give case presentations every week and study for the inservice exam during my free time. Damn...I'm tired bro. This is gonna be a rough year.

-bender

Careful what you wish for...

2009-07-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Just listening to some Lisa Lisa. Gotta love those 80's dance songs.

So I'm getting my ass rocked in the kitchen the past couple of weeks. Having to deal with half-brained dimwit cooks, ordering, scheduling, catering, and mentally challenged waitstaff can really suck the life out of you. On top of all of that my uncle and his family came to visit me. I feel bad because my uncle was really ill so he couldn't do much while up here, or eat any food at my restaurant. Was kinda a downer but it was still great seeing part of my family.

So I talked to Ags lately and her and I will be scheduling a vacation for you bro so you can come up and relax.

I've been real bad about posting and I apologize but its just so hard sometimes. I don't even know what to say cuz so much happens and I don't know where to start, or it feels like so little is going down that I'm ashamed to even write anything.

But I guess now I got a lot on my plate, you've had lots on your plate for a while and we both should be better about updating each other on shit that's going down.

Well I'm a chef, kinda... well technically I'm a chef but it still feels weird, like I still have something to prove but I guess that's just me not getting comfy and always feeling like I gotta outdo myself and not settle.

Here's to setting goals and going and getting em.

Go Joe

whew...made it

2009-06-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

I'm on my last in-house call of general surgery. I fully expect it to be awful, but hey, at least the pain will be over soon. I'm so done with being an intern...time to move on.

I've been getting worked on transplant surgery. I get yelled at a lot because all of my seniors are exhausted and cranky as shit, in addition, I stopped giving a damn. Great combination...man, I'm so done with this. And that's about it for an update on my life...on to more interesting things.

Since my last post the Lakers have dominated and earned Phil his 12th ring.

Jose Canseco has been embarrassing himself.

Shaq has openly challenged this guy. I might be willing to pay money to see that. Anyhow, hope all is well with you Joe.

-bender

Almost done with the year...

2009-05-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

Sup Joe,

Looks like almost another year has gone by. This last month has been pretty chill. I've been on breast surgery. The work is easy, the surgeries are fun and I've had very few, if any patients in the hospital. It's been pretty lonely down here though. No ags, most old friends are either moved out, or married. I've been filling the void by going out a lot with my co-residents and nurses. Man...LD sucks. I'm tired. I'll give you a call later.

-bender

Drugs are bad, mm-kay...

2009-05-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

Man, the song Dragula is just such an inspiring song. Not like, I want to change the world and make it a better place inspiration but more of a I want to burn everything around me down to the ground kind. I don't know where that came from, but as I was about to start blogging I had the urge to listen to that song.

So anyways, I've been doing ok, although we do need to speak sometime soon bender, cuz its been a while. I can't help but try my best to control my lakerdom so I don't get so emotionally attached that I'm devastated again. Hopefully things will be better, because it looks like the team will be much weaker next year, so this is our chance right here.

So, I think I'm starting to get ready for the spring and summer, and I'm just so tired. So much yardwork to be done, sigh. Seriously... people do not realize that Washington is called the evergreen state because, it's always fucking green, and the grass grows so freaking fast its depressing.

On top of that, I've been watching marathons of south park and big bang theory. You need to watch big bang theory dee, actually I'm not sure if you're geeky enough to get all the comic book and video game references, but the physics, literature and history references would probably appeal to you.

Well I gotta cut this status update short, gotta get my lazy ass to get some work done. Take it easy bro.

Joe out...

Dance Dance.... Revolution!!!

2009-04-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I am a horrible blogger, I will write out a 10 page blog, reread it and delete it because it only makes sense to me. Got to stop doing that, seriously, such a waste. So I guess what I want to say is "Hulk Smash", and instead of Hulk, just substitute Joe.

So what is your take on "signs", like do we really get these hints from fate telling us its time for us to mix it up, or to take a risk. Or is it simple mumbo jumbo that us humans conjure up so we have a reason to do something different or dumb and pass the responsibility off to fate? I don't know how I feel about all this stuff because, it defies logic. On one hand being illogical can lead to great success, and being logical can also lead to great success, so which road is the better road. Better yet, why am I pondering this shit anyways? I find myself babbling and not knowing what the fuck I'm trying to say.

Well you know what I was thinking about, remember the time you and I played DDR so much we couldn't even breathe and were drenched in sweat. I was just thinking about that, good times ehh? Or the time we peed on your school fence and people drove by, probably thinking we were some vagabonds sneaking into stanford to spread our filth. Ahh, the good ol' days....

Joe out...

In the home stretch

2009-03-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

Tuesday is officially my last night of call on the thoracic foregut service. This service is one of those classic malignant surgery services. I guess the best way to describe it is to imagine 6 Dr. Pevecs operating like crazy and ripping into you at every opportunity. It's only been 30 days and I'll never be the same again.

I had a nice weekend on call so I'm starting to detox slowly from this experience. Overall, I've got to say that I'm honestly a little disappointed in myself. I let the service turn me into a malignant doctor. All of the residents on the service become this way at some point or another. You don't really think about it until you start listening to yourself talk, or you see the reaction on people's faces...family members of patients.

You can't have sympathy for patients when you're completely engrossed in how miserable your own experience is. That leads to dehumanizing the patients on your service. They become "mustache girl," "retard boy," "mute guy," or "female genitals" for anyone that complains of pain. It seems like such a unreasonable thing, to have pain, especially after we ripped out their esophagus through their chest and cut open their stomachs and pulled it up to their throat. I have become unable to empathize with my patients. I love my intubed ICU patients because they can't talk to me, extra kudos if they're sedated. Vomit guy has metastatic gastric cancer and most of the lung guys have lung cancer. I've lost 4 in the last 2 weeks, took one off of life support this morning. Who knew viagra could be life saving?

I think for the most part, I've been able to grin and bear it. The nurses always ask me why I'm always so happy. hmm...do I seem that way? I'm not a good enough person to come out showing compassion to these folks. I'm tired of the cracked out lady with the bag of methadone under her bed. Sometimes I say half-jokingly, stick fentanyl patches to any exposed skin so that I can get some sleep. I need god, so I've been trying to keep going to church. I'm not a big enough person to get through this on my own without becoming an asshole.

My two best memories from this service

1) giving a patient xanax, then seeing him run down the hall naked 5 minutes later, then seeing cops in his room 5 minutes later when his scrawny roommate accuses him of sexually molesting him.

2) My co-interns and I were getting absolutely reamed in the lobby by an attending when a pretty lady happened to walk by. All of the interns stared at the lady and the attending stopped screaming once he realized none of us were listening to him. He then turned and stared at the lady, forgot what he was so mad about and decided to go home.

-bender is post-call and going to bed

whew...one more week left

2009-03-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Just one more week of this stupid rotation. It's been a daily beatdown my friend. The long hours don't bother me that much. It's the constant stress of getting yelled at, messing up and having patients die or waiting to die. Ags reminds me that there are a lot of people who can't get into surgery and would do anything to get in...true, but it doesn't make this service any less painful. I'm actually looking forward to being at the county hospital starting from next week. word..

-bender

ugh...

2009-03-06T13:43:00.000-08:00

I'm disappearing for the next month. I'm stuck on thoracic-foregut surgery = pain. Chest surgery on really really sick people. Everyone is in the ICU and it's scary whenever someone comes out of the OR...lines/tubes everywhere, bagging like crazy, barely alive. I survived my first call night. 9 more to go...wheee...

On a sidenote, this is crazy

http://www.heartattackgrill.com/index.html

If you're 350 pounds or over, it's all you can eat for free. Pretty disgusting. As much as I love my greasy eats, I'd rather not be encouraging this. Although the nurses do intrigue me...

Yo rabbit, I know the dating scene has been sucking. How about some speed dating?

http://www.dateanddash.com/

eh? Chat up some west side guys?

-bender is in a world of pain...

Stay Focused.... Listen to your mentors....

2009-03-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

So I guess there is one thing that I have to keep in mind at all times. Don't get comfortable, don't relax and never let up. If that's the lifestyle I wanted, I should have stayed behind a computer. But I don't want that, I want to be on the move and hustling. I must say that I am blessed to be in the situation I am in for now. I've got a great chef who is willing to teach me all he knows and is a mellow guy. He and I had a long talk after I had a severe blowup with my GM and was almost at the point of launching a plate at her face (gee can you think of what I would have done had I not been more mature and mellow) and he let me know that

1) we are not in a normal business
2) I have to stay hungry and can't get comfortable
3) Fuck em all it's about what you know you're worth and you take from life's lessons.
4) Never be scared to pick up and move to the next place after a while because there is always a bigger paycheck for the guy who can get the shit done in this business.

This was probably exactly what I needed to hear at that exact moment. I was so caught up with getting comfortable with my discounts, PTO and other bullshit that I forgot what the goal was, why I am working for someone... so I can be my own man someday and not some fucking robot reading recipes out of a book but spitting em out my own mouth.

Mentors are a necessity that you must take advantage of, remember that at all times. You will never be top dog, it's a myth just like perfection.

Joe out

Another chill week

2009-02-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

I've been living the life of an ass-doctor for the last few weeks and I've got to say that it's pretty awesome. It's a lot like urology. Lots of cancer, for the most part pretty healthy and lots of big and small life-changing surgeries. Life is pretty good, can't complain.

On urology, we keep things pretty chill.

My mom has been wanting to attach this little furry thing to my rotating surgery pager. She wants me to get beaten up and clowned at work.

-bender

Keep Hope Alive.....

2009-02-09T22:43:00.000-08:00

So I see you've had a rough stretch. Well don't beat yourself up man, you are and always will be superman in my eyes. You and you're peers take a licking and keep on tickin, which is more than 99% people could say. Just put your head down, and keep on keeping on. It doesn't matter how many losses you take, because the one life you save makes up for it. Try not to focus on the bad, but just remember all the good, and how it can feel when you can heal a person. That's a feeling I can never know, or experience. So treasure it, because it's a beautiful thing, and something you won't feel if you become jaded to all this stuff.

Sorry if I sound preachy or something, I just think it's awesome how much you are accomplishing. Kinda makes what I do feel a little insignificant, but hey, I like my simple life.

I've been working my butt off and just trying to forget what's going on around the world right now. I have an awesome chef and a shitty GM, but I'm just glad I have a job.

Yo Joe!!

damn

2009-02-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

Man, it's been a crazy few days. Getting called into the OR in the middle of the night, people tanking on me, etc.

One of my gals is a sick lady in the ICU. Lots of problems, pancreatic cancer s/p whipple procedure, septic shock on pressors, with multisystem organ failure. Basically a lot of badness. As colorectal, we've been getting a lot of pressure to take out the colon because the CT scan looked funny and there was some concern that the bowel might be dead vs infected, causing our lady to be sick. We tried to do a colonoscopy, she got perforated and started leaking ascitic fluid all over our shoes. We rushed her over to the OR, once inside...man, it looked bad. Her whole stomach looked like red jello. Apparently she had been bleeding into her abdomen for a while and the blood was clotted off in her belly. Her bowels basically looked limp, on the way to dead. In the middle of taking out her colon, she started going into V-fib - read dying. We did the whole chest pounding, electricity shocking, epinephrine pushing thing for 45 minutes. Called it at 16:48.

Surgery guys usually will go out for a drink to fight off their aggression. I went down for some pomegranite ice cream with dark chocolate. After that kicked in, I went back to acting like an asshole.

-bender is burning out

It's gonna get worse before it gets better

2009-02-06T15:54:00.000-08:00

We've all been seeing the signs coming. All the homes for sale. All of the closing stores. It's getting really bad. Last weekend, I met with some of my college buddies. They're all worried about losing their jobs. The goal for most of their teams is to stay intact through the next fiscal year. These guys were near the top of their class at harvard and NYU law. I'm thankful for my job, and I've been busting my ass for the most part day in and day out.

Anyhow, I've been saving up all of my money for a rainy day in an installment savings account. Turns out my large korean chain bank is closing. I felt terrible about it, but I went to close out my accounts. Better that, than have to deal with FDIC. Anyhow, it felt like the bank run scene in it's a wonderful life.

well, maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but it sure felt like it. Everyone at the bank was there to withdraw their money. The employees all looked pretty disheartened. I didn't have the heart to tell them I was closing my accounts because their bank was gonna tank any day. I looked her in the eye, and lied that I really needed the money. I guess it's not completely a lie. I do need the money, but damn. It's a starting to get ugly.

-bender

End of days

2009-01-26T19:19:00.001-08:00

So I have been MIA for quite sometime now. I mostly have been working my behind off up here in Frozenville, aka Washington.

So I had to learn how to drive in the snow. Like real snow, it sucks with a small car. I will be buying a 4X4 at the end of this year. Probably a highlander or something. Definitely need that big 4X4 that can whoop ass in bad weather.

So I hope the preggo isn't being too much of a pain in the ass. I'd tell you to push her ass down some stairs, but I guess that would be insensitive. Although who are we kidding, sensitivity is not something I care about.

Well I've been very addicted to the pc game world of warcraft. Been playing it for the past 3 months. Man, that game is like crack, so hard to break away from it. If Kim didn't need the computer right now, I'd be on it right now. If only my laptop could handle it without overheating. Sorry, that was the addiction talking, sigh.... I miss my shaman.

Nerding it up... Joe out.

damn that womb

2009-01-24T14:34:00.001-08:00

Over the course of the last few months, I've had the pleasure of working with some of the worst interns I've ever seen in my life. Actually, some of the worst medical students too. They're like living stereotypes. The DO sub-I medical students took more "sick days" than all of the urology residents have taken in their entire residencies. The Preliminary surgical interns regularly miss critical labs, choose not to check patients in the middle of the night when they have problems, and generally tend to do stupid shit that hurt the patients. There are many docs with DO's who turn out fine and there are many people who don't match that have the potential to be great doctors, but a lot of them are where they are for a reason. If they're not that bright or have had life throw them a curveball, that's one thing. Laziness is never excusable, especially in surgery.

I'm all for women in medicine, pursuing their dreams, whatever, but seriously, pregnant women in residency make life miserable for everyone else. One of the interns that is on rotation with me regularly calls in with cramps whenever she is scheduled to be on call. It probably wouldn't bother me as much if she weren't such a shitty intern before the cramps set in. She almost let one of my post-ops bleed to death because she took an extended dinner/nap and she blew out one of my patient's kidneys because she never bothered to check if a tube was coming out of the bladder or the kidney. Damn, so annoyed. Now she is having cramps, so I can't have a day off for the next 3-4 weeks because I need to cover her weekends. This on top of the weekends she couldn't find a babysitter even though she had a month's advance notice before her husband took off for business trips. Seriously...it's killing us. I'm glad I'm on a Q3 service because otherwise, I'd literally be on call every day that I stepped into the hospital because we have to cover for the pregnant chick. Who the hell decides to get knocked up before their intern/prelim year...that's the year to shine and be a rock star. She sucks. For the patients' sakes, I hope she doesn't match.

I'll probably take heat for this post, but here are the reason I've heard for having children during residency.

The most valid reason is because of the biological clock. After a certain age, it gets harder to have kids and there tends to be more complications.
The other bullshit/selfish reasons.
1. It's better to have the residency program pay for their pregnancy, rather than lose money with days off while they're in practice.
2. There are always other residents who'll cover them during maternity leave/crampy days

-bender is tired of the _______________________ of county employees
(laziness, stupidity, selfishness)

I hate the holidays

2009-01-01T15:26:00.001-08:00

Man, he's a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

It's strange, I'm especially nasty and short tempered in the hospital during the holidays. Normally I don't mind working myself into the ground. On the contrary, it usually feels good to have a long day as long as I've been doing procedures/seeing different types of patients and feel like I'm learning and becoming a better doctor. Normally, I love it when the streets are empty. I zoom in at 4am and am gunning to go after my first cup of coffee...no more soy. Makes me gassy. Anyhow, something about the holidays. Everything from the decorations, having to say happy/merry whatever to all the music is incredibly annoying. It's really the only time in the year when you feel different. Everyone works hard. period. However, being on call during christmas/new year's/thanksgiving/etc sucks...seriously, there are few things more depressing than just sitting in the hospital alone in your call room reading about your patients. I can't quite put my finger on it. Yea...the holidays suck. It just gets harder and harder to get out of bed every morning.

On the plusside, since there are fewer inpatients and patients forget to show up to their clinic appointments, it leaves me with a little bit more time to scrub into cool cases. It's a blast to operate with your friends. On the flipside, nothing will get you clowned faster than having your ipod playlist blast songs from moulin rouge, mariah carey. It gets even more awkward when the attending is in the room and Dr dre and snoop dogg start rapping about rough sex, drugs and jizzing on people's faces...damn shuffle. back to work...

-bender

man, time flies

2008-12-22T19:56:00.001-08:00

Wow, time flies. I'm about a month and a half into urology. I'm working some ridiculous hours, but it's great because I get to do a lot of procedures and the guys are cool. Most of my procedures include making grown men cry by sticking a 1 foot metal rod up their penises and cutting balls to drain pus.

On the plus side, being a urology resident is kind of like being back in college. We're all pretty immature. We've covered our resident room with cheezy sports and car posters - we're going for the college dorm feel. When we round on our patients, we make stupid faces and jizzed in my pants jokes. See below.

When we have more time, we watch stuff like this. Seriously, if you have a lot of free time, it gets good with the midgets and stuff.

But for the most part, I'm tired as shit as I drag my feet into work and I miss my girl so badly that I can hardly breathe sometimes. The trips to popeye's and king taco keep me sane, but the county system is so incredibly frustrating that sometimes I want to choke a bitch.

But I'm learning a lot and I'm starting to get pretty good. Every day I'm hustlin'...

-bender

Lakers

2008-11-18T20:32:00.000-08:00

hey joe,

I'm watching the lakers work on chicago right now. Man, their defense and passing is really looking good. It was kinda ugly in the beginning with nobody scoring, except gasol. Anyhow, I'm liking it. As long as we don't collapse, I think we're looking solid.

-bender

Hate in your heart will consume you too

2008-11-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

My parents are cool. They're out hiking in the woods and are doing fine. Maybe a little shaken up in their faith in mankind, but otherwise doing ok. Thanks for the support.

I don't think one wink I slept Wednesday night. I must've murdered in my heart a thousand times that night. I walked into the hospital Thursday morning hoping to see a cholo in the trauma ward guppy breathing his last dying breath or get to assist on another cholo's colostomy after he had his spinal column resected by a bullet fragment. This isn't healthy...it's no good. Neither is it professional. My favorite patient last night on call was a former cholo with terrible metastatic prostate cancer being positive, looking forward to each and every day, and being supportive of me as his doctor despite my ineptitude. I've come to terms with it and am gonna let it go. No guns. I'm opting for a 7 iron and metal drum major's baton. The next time I hear someone getting their ass kicked outside my window, I'm gonna be running out with one of those. No more sitting back and letting people get their asses whooped. Hopefully all those years of kendo back in the day have kept my aim true.

-bender

Damn, why am I in LA...

2008-11-12T21:29:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting around waiting for the cops to arrive. My parents got mugged/jumped a little while ago while taking a stroll around the block. Who fucking beats up old people and laughs at them for kicks? Screw the colorful neighborhood bullcrap. This place is full of thugs....damn fucking cholos. Shit. Lets get rid of my fucking drug dealer neighbors too. Fuck this shit. Lets bring back the good ole lynch mob and canes and take back the streets. I'm tempted to buy a gun and join the neighborhood watch nazis in my building...I think it's time to move.

-bender is all out of compassion

Craigslist ad: ISO activity partners on weekends near 90031

2008-11-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day I've had off in the last couple of weeks. Maybe it's the mark of immaturity, but living in the hospital isn't always fun and games. Sometimes, you need to go out, drink yourself silly and make an ass out of yourself after spending another night sleeping in a chair. Usually I'm fine after a meal with friends or a heavy work-out session, but I guess the daily grind is starting to get to me.

I called all of the usual suspects, but everyone I know in the hospital usually is working on Friday night or taking some crappy weekend shift/call. That left me with my gals from high school and their 40 year old boyfriends, random calls to friends I haven't spoken with in ages or another exciting night with mom and pops. Dang...ended up staying up watching grey's anatomy, then crashing early in the evening.

A couple of years ago, I would've been fine hitting up a dive bar by myself and having a beer and some peanuts, while watching the game on the tv. Maybe shoot the breeze with the drunk old man sitting on the stool next to me.

It's the same old story. "We should go out bro! Fo sho'! What are you doing Friday night? Damn, I'm on call man, but we should definitely hang out next week..." Ugh, I've gotta meet some people who don't work at the hospital.

-bender

Make em say.... UHHH... na na na naaw

2008-10-30T00:43:00.001-07:00

Can you believe we've been doing this for over 3 years?

Crazy...

Thanks for being there and listening to all my shit bro.

Life has been ok, just been getting back into pc gaming, and trying improve my golf swing (which I think is getting worst the more I practice).

I wrote this long ass blog about gay marriage and religion, but decided to erase it. Don't need to say anything offensive.

All I gotta say is, don't be stupid. Gay marriage is alright with me and should be with you. If it's not, you probably like wearing blood diamonds and having 5 year olds in china make your clothes.

Joe out...

Slamming it out

2008-10-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

One of the few true things I've learned about life is that it goes on with or without you...

I don't know how to embed music, so joe, for some reason I'd like to have rock of ages in the background as you read this entry.

I've had kind of a crazy month. First off, I'd like to apologize to anyone that I didn't call or email back, which is pretty much everyone. I'm sorry.

I spent the better part of september on my ENT rotation. Thankfully it was a chill rotation. Just a couple interesting things that happened during that rotation.

1. I spent a lot of time working on patients with hearing loss. The most common side effect of hearing loss is tinnitus, a high pitched buzzing sound. I asked an old lady if she heard noises. She told me that she heard voices. hmm...so i asked her again if she heard noises. Nope...just the voices. Shit. Turn out she was apeshit out of her mind. She heard voices telling her to kill her grandchildren, but she didn't have much time to chat with me because she needed to go pick up her grandchildren...we took a little walk down to the pscyh ER.

2. I was consulted on a patient in AML/CML blast crisis. I scoped her nose and saw a lot of charred black tissue. We had to take a biopsy...I swear, it would have been better if she could scream. She looked like she was screaming for her life, but all I could hear was her raspy breath praying for death and asking us to stop the biopsy. All I could do was hold her down as my resident proceded to rip her septum out of her nose. The biopsy came back mucormycosis - badness. Seriously, a part of me dies a little bit each day in surgery.

3. On my last week, one of my co-interns got called up to the OR at midnight. It turns out that the anesthesiologist had passed out during the case and stopped breathing. A nice dose of narcan brought him back. Classic drug addict anesthesiologist. Once he realized what had happened, he just cried throughout the rest of the night. Poor kid, but seriously, grow some balls.

4. On my last day on ENT, I was irrigating out some upper lip pus. The patient started bleeding profusely. It all went into his mouth, so of course, he decided to spit a mouthful of blood into my face and my eyes. It seriously took a conscious effort to not beat the crap out of this guy. So I've become another statistic...luckily his blood came back HIV and hep C negative. whew...

Now I guess it's the meat of this entry. My last week on ENT was one of the worst weeks I've had in a long time. I know it was a million times worse for people who were more closely involved. My roommate from medical school committed suicide. He just put on a bow-tie, wrote his last good-byes and let go. I loved that kid. He was my little brother, but we weren't as close as I wished we could've been. Especially during my last year of med school while I was living it up, he was struggling to get by. Like any other korean man, I buried all of my feeling deep down, where they belong. I don't remember the last time I've cried in my life...maybe while watching rocky balboa. Either way, it was a bit too much. After the shock wore off, I spent the greater part of the week working myself into the ground during the day and torturing myself all night every night. Everyone that send words of support - ags, lonecoyote, hibiscus, rabbit, teresa and countless others. Seriously, thanks. It was really nice to hear from y'alls. Just sad it was under such unfortunate circumstances. Anyhow, ever since the ceremony, I've been sleeping like a baby. Here are a few of my favorite times with the kid.

1. Playing nba live late night when we should've been studying for finals. He'd work me with the heat, saying the whole time "dwayne wade is so sexy." There are variations on this. Late night fifa, late night street fighter II, late night midnight club racing the batmobile - then a break to KFC, arby's, del taco, la fiesta, whatever.

2. After I broke up with mo during 2nd year, he took me out to meet some of his friends. The first club we went to was soga's. By the time I got there, he got kicked out of the club because he kept fighting with the bouncer to stamp his arm, despite the fact that he already had one. Then we went to sophia's. When the bouncer asked for ID, he pulled out his von's card, credit card, everyone but his license. The bouncer took pity and let him in...that is, until he walked into the bouncer's chest. Then he pulled out $5 to bribe the bouncer. Finally, we ended up at pasta where there it was completely empty except 2 girls getting down with their badass selves. He made me dance with them...she wasn't interested. He tried to swing dance to gangster hip-hop...that was awesome.

countless other memories...good times bro.

This past week I've started on the hepatobiliary surgery service. I've been going in at 3am to pre-round on the patients on the list, plus consults. We slam out rounds, lots of big surgeries. Operate from 7-6pmish. Then we round and I take care of consults. I've been getting out around 8ish. Call nights are brutal because we cover for 5 other services - 2 colorectal, thoracic foregut, tumor/endocrine, and vascular surgery. Luckily, I've been busting my ass and have been on my game.

It's gonna be a long 6 years homie.

-bender

Superman Up...

2008-10-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

I agree with you on this financial crisis we are facing Bender, it's ugly and hopefully it can get sorted out. But on the flip side, it's times like these that will define this country. Sure the US loves to pride itself in being the best, but remember it's not even 300 years old. So it's time for the men who pride themselves as being the elite this country has to offer, to put aside their greedy ways and fix the colossal problem they are faced with. Then they can go back to being the money grubbing power hungry mongols that they are. Because if they entirely screw us all over, there isn't anything left for them to nickel n dime us for later.

I know I sound pessimistic, uneducated, and jaded. But I guess that's why our friendship has always worked. You see things from the intelligent and knowing side, and I try to take the side that sees things from the general publics view (with some common sense added, cuz seriously our common man has none).

Seriously, I think the one thing this country needs to do, is police itself. Pull out all our resources from the rest of the world, and focus on itself. Use our resources to stabilize what we have, instead of worrying about policing the world. Use some of our resources on us for once. Next time some tragedy occurs let France, Spain, Costa Rica, Brazil, all those guys take care of it. If they are going to call us out constantly why not let them step in, while we fix our problems. Man, seriously... this place is just going downhill... maybe moving to Canada isn't a joke I say to tease kim anymore, maybe it's turning into a promising option.

Joe out

man...what a week...

2008-09-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I never thought this week would come so soon. My roth IRA and 403 savings that I've been watching diligently grow over the past decade has tanked. It's not a huge deal because it was only a few grand, a year's worth of savings. My co-intern and his family lost easily over a half million. All across the country, people must've sat back and watched their security, their retirements savings tank. Years of hard work, earned on tears and sweat. Gone.

We're coming on bad times...I'm hearing trickles and rumors of people committing suicide. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Lets keep our fingers crossed...no bailout. Hope the republicans are right about this one.

-bender

damn, I'm lazy

2008-09-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

Man, I haven't blogged in like forever. I'm on my ENT rotation, so it's pretty chill. I roll in around 5:30, check in people for surgery, drain some pus, then bust my ass in clinic til around 2ish. Then I get to go home, unless I'm on call. Call isn't so that either. I get to sleep, which is totally different from my other rotations. I've got my own room with a tv, AC and a bathroom. Seriously, I'm spoiled. To top it all off, I cover for urology when I'm on call, so the urology guys schedule cool surgeries and procedures for me to do in the afternoon so that I don't get too bored. Not a bad life...

Hey, I don't know about golf though. My swing sucks and I don't know if I'll ever make time to get those starter lessons I've been meaning to get. Either way, I wanna play a round of golf with you at los feliz. It's like $4. I hear night golf is best. Instead of a gold cart, people wheel around kegs of beer. Beer golf at night. Sounds like a beautiful thing.

But either way, I feel ya on the couples thing. When I hang out with ma girl's friends, it's totally couple's night out. They're all either engaged or married, and it's kind of weird because they're all working and own their own homes and stuff like that. I mean, I'm gonna be piss poor for a pretty long time. I'm alrite with that, but sometimes I get jealous. Anyhow, her friends in SD are cool. The guys play league basketball and football on the weekends and play Call of duty online together. Eh. Sounds like something I'd be down to do. In LA, I've been mostly going out with rabbit's friends. They're a pretty cool group. On a side note, when did long beach become so nice? We went out to the pike in LBC and it was a fun time...lots of eats to walk around in downtown. Didn't really have that in sac and davis.

Yea, but otherwise, I don't really have too many friends in LA. Rabbit is the only person I hang out with on a regular basis. I have tons of acquaintances and people I'm cool with. Btw, sally had another kid. All the girls are off doing their own things. I don't know if I've become more of a typical guy, but I'd rather sit at home with a beer and watch the game than do the potluck things or a movie night thing with the girls. I think I've just gotten used to the company of guys. I don't really know what to say in when I'm with a group of girls anymore. On a sidenote sidenote, I think surgical residency makes you weird. Either that, or I've always been weird, or maybe a combination of both. Either way, the other interns I've spoken with feel the same way. Usually I'm checking out a wound or examining them when I speak to a patient. If I'm talking to them during a procedure, I usually have a towel over their face. Anyhow, it feels weird looking at people when i speak to them, even worse to make eye contact. But that just makes you weird...like when you pay for your groceries. I don't know where to look. I usually fumble through these interactions now and I get annoyed when people start going into details...but the gold is in the details of stories. ugh...I'm becoming a weirdo.

Anyhow, yea, my life is pretty boring. Working during the day, study every night, then fall asleep a little past 10. I see some nasty stuff in my clinic. Did you know cockroaches can't crawl backwards? I've already seen two patients come in with ear infections because a roach crawled into their ears and died. I told my parents and then they asked me to stop telling them about my day after that. Oh well. whatever.

-bender

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta...

2008-09-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

That is probably the best song ever, hopefully one day I'll be able to sing that song and mean it 100%. It'd be great if I was singing it after sinking a 60 ft. putt for a double birdie. Anyways, I've been up to the same ol same ol. Practicing my shitty golf swing at the range and cooking, repeat cycle and let it air dry.

The winter is coming, pretty fast as well. It went from summer to winter in about 2 days. Kinda depressing, but on the flip side, I don't have to water my grass or rosebush for about 5-6 months. WOOT!!

Yeah, so I don't know if this applies to you yet Dee, but Kim has these friends from her masters program, and they plan get together for themselves and their significant others (4 couples in all). Once everyone has arrived we eat, and then we proceed to have what they have deemed "game night" where we play various board games (taboo, cranium, etc.). Now don't get me wrong, it's fun, but at the same time I feel that not all the guys are totally into it. It's kinda like, guys aren't down for the whole hey... sit in this room with strangers and BE friends. Kinda awkward, and I wonder if guys do that to their significant others, we probably do. It took a while but I think I've made friends with one of the guys, one of the other two guys I'll probably never get too close with, and the 3rd guy I could kick it with but he's got kids and all this stuff so he's ahead of me on the whole life process so I don't see it happening too often. Yeah... anyways... couples hanging out... kinda weird... not sure if I am more scared of having friends who are couples or what. Cuz with the exception to Bender, all my friends are single... so I guess it's just more comfortable to be around single people. I don't know, I guess we all have to move on from that point sometime.

So I think I have babbled enough for one day.

Don't be a stranger.

Joe out...

Sleeping in Seattle.

2008-09-08T00:48:00.000-07:00

Hehe, I thought the title was clever.

So the weeks feel like they have been flying by. Work has been good to me. I love my job and I love where I work.

Ok, just had to interupt the blog to kill a fucking giant spider. And when I say giant, I mean... like 3 inches tall. Just to inform you, I hate spiders and all bugs in general. Seriously I can handle cholo's, gangsta's, wanksta's all those fuckers, but bugs and spiders.... scare the shit out of me. I think its cuz they have poison (well some of them) and they are just so icky. Seriously... I am more scared of something that is 400 times smaller than me, than I am of something bigger than me. So yeah, killing this giant spider is something I am very proud of (seriously... I am not exaggerating, it was 3 inches tall. The thing looked like it was big enough to eat a fucking lab mouse. Sigh... I hate the bugs in washington. Spiders are huge, the ants are 5X the size they are in LA and they fucking sting like a motherf*cker.

Back to my job, it's fun and I like most of the people I work with. Some people are useless jackasses (but they are everywhere, no?) but mostly they are awesome. I feel like I'm an integral part of the team and I work well with the rest of the team. Lastly I have a shot at becoming a sous chef soon so that's an added bonus.

Other than that, football season has begun and it's shaping up to be an interesting season. My bruins started off strong with a victory over the ghetto ass SEC conference Volunteers. Blech! Pac-10 is where its at, and if you don't know, you don't go.

So anyways, I got a set of golf clubs for my birthday and have been going to the driving range once a week to practice my shot. When we meet up next, we need to go hit a couple, I think I should be pretty good by then. I can go schmooze with your doctor friends and not look like some ghetto cook (which I am).

peace out.
joe

p.s. seriously that spider was fucking huge, I'm gonna have nightmares about it... It was walking in my tv room like it owned the place. Stupid spiders..

Holy shit, I just fucked myself

2008-08-31T17:51:00.001-07:00

Damn, I need to start reading the fine print on my loans. My loans were in their grace period, which I could've extended for a little more than a year. Instead, I stupidly decided to consolidate all of my loans early so that I could lock in all of my variables rates at the current low rate. That effectively throws me into active repayment on over $100k. Shit.

The only problem is, I've already committed close to $25k into an installment savings account over the next two years. Hmm...It's a good thing I'm living at home right now, or else I'd be totally screwed.

I just need to make sure that I don't eff up my perkins and health professions loans. Damn...I hate sweating the details, but I should've read the fine print.

-bender

why am I so tired?

2008-08-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

Sup Joe,

It was nice hearing your lame ass on the phone yesterday. Granted I'm on vacation, but I've been so lazy lately. Finished my step 2 yesterday, and have been playing nba 2k8 since. I built up a powerhouse laker team, but that got boring, so now I'm fixing up the knicks. I ended up getting rid of everyone on the team, including the coaching staff, except for David Lee...cuz I like David Lee.

So here's my new squad, all acquired through legit trades:

Starters:
Mo Williams
Andre Iguodala
Josh Smith
David Lee
Samuel Dalem-beast

Bench:
Jason Terry
Josh Childress
Gerald Wallace
Al Thornton
Joakim Noah - surprisingly solid game

Man, I forgot how awesome vince carter's dunks were.

man...I miss the nba. I know when fantasy hoops time comes along, I'm gonna be too busy to properly manage my team. Not that I win when I manage my team, but there's something to be said about trolling the free agency list in the middle of the night for potential goldmines after injuries and rotation changes.

Anyhow, I spent the greater part of the morning in the cadaver lab studying hernia anatomy. Had a pretty good time with it...county always has a lot of bodies that we can practice on because a lot of the bodies are unclaimed by the families because they're too cheap to pay for the burial/casket/etc.

The next couple weeks are gonna be cool. Finally get to hang out with ma girl. That'll be nice, although sacto is hot as shit right now. Aiite bro. Actually, on a sidenote, I'm wondering what'd be cooler, going to world cup in brazil or going to london for the olympics. Either way, it'd be awesome. I'd better start saving up. And you, make sure you don't get stuck at customs cuz they think you're a child molestor again.

-bender out

damn...

2008-08-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm paying $700/month in taxes. Hope that money is going towards something good...

-bender

rotation vacation

2008-08-19T17:02:00.000-07:00

sup foo,

So I made it through my first two rotations. I went to steve and barry's today with rabbit. They were having t-shirt sales. Was gonna get you a gi-joe and captn crunch shirt, but I couldn't find the captain crunch to get you the 2-fer.

I just finished up a month on orthopedic surgery. The hours were a little better than my previous rotation, but I would've much preferred more hours and a team that I gelled with a little more. There were 5 of us on the team, but I almost never saw the rest of the team around. They pretty much ignored me and I ate alone most of the time. There was not a single person on the squad that I connected with...man, felt like such a loser. They'd text page me whenever they needed anything, otherwise, I was pretty much alone on the floor all day. Even when shit went down, my chief bailed on me. I ended up handling an upper GI bleeder who had a PE and a septic shock guy I was cross-covering on my own.

I think I'm just pretty tired of being in the hospital. I haven't been compliant with my hours since I started. No single day is bad enough that it makes me want to throw in the towel, but daily grind definitely challenges you to the core. I guess it's like that with every job. I've just gotta suck it up and stop being such a wimp about it.

I'm looking forward to this month off. I'm studying to take step 3 of my licensing exam, which is actually a lot more fun than busting my ass on the hospital floor. Gonna take a real vacation for labor day, and take a week to learn how to surf. Bought a wetsuit. Just need a board. Might go out to visit gigi since she is out in san clemente, your old surf joint.

Otherwise, it's been pretty good. Living at home has been good to me. I've opened up a long term savings account to put away what I would've normally spent on rent every month. I eat lots of korean food and my laundry gets taken care of. I've been taking my parents out to nice eats, we work out together at night and I've found a nice little movie theater in highland park where admission is only $3. Overall, it's been nice. Don't have too many peeps to hang out with out here. Gonna have to start reaching back and calling old peeps.

On a sidenote, I've realized that I'm not such a nice guy. When I'm totally wiped out and my pager is going off more than 30 times an hour during nursing shift changes, it's hard to stay cool. I've lost it a few times, nothing crazy, but far short of professional. Hopefully I don't get written up. Even the patients and their families are starting to get to me. I guess it's good that I've got a vacation early. I think I need to regroup and focus on what I'm doing and who my customers are...take another long hard look at the person that I want to be, then focus on what I need to do to get there.

-bender

Maybe I'm not so slick...

2008-08-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Went to the driving range today....

First time ever....

Was not so slick. I usually pride myself in being able to do most sports fairly decent or average. I'm fast on my feet, used to be balanced (damn beer belly has thrown that to hell), and just all around was a great athlete. Well I've slipped off of my peak condition just a little (ok, a lot) but seriously, just being at the range with Kim's dad teaching me to swing and how to hold my body and posture and everything, I'm FREAKING POOPED. My hand is so cramped (from holding to tight of a grip) and my forearm is tired (probably from bowling two days ago and sucking ass at that as well).

Seriously... working so damn much is leaving little room for the workouts kim and I were doing earlier this summer. Need to figure something else, and also I need to practice my swing. Think I'm gonna start going to the range once a week for a couple of months, then take some lessons, see how I do at this golf thing that everyone loves so much.

Well, that's the update on my out of shape ass, how about you Dee, how about blogging once in a blue moon, you punk.

Hehe, just kidding, I know you're busy, just keep doing what you're doing and don't do anything I would.

Joe out

Kinda like the story of the woman who bled to death in the E.R. while nurses looked on...

2008-07-26T09:55:00.001-07:00

Came across another sad story.
http://www.slate.com/id/2195851/?GT1=38001

I don't know much about hospitals, or the health care field. I only know its expensive in America, and that's because of capitalism. Everything is expensive here because it's a great business, unlike other countries where it's a necessity and kept cheap. It's only expensive here because they can make money, plus the schooling is so damn expensive that Dr.'s, Nurses, those guys who put you to sleep, have to pay off loans that are more expensive than the average home. Plus the guys at the top have to be able to afford that country club membership (elite country club, not the local one) and when you get down to it, it's just the american way.

Very sad, and very ugly...

I wonder if we'll ever get it right??

Joe out...

So long Josh....

2008-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm sorry to have to bring this kind of news to you Dee, but here it is... Josh Childress has left the NBA.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3501488

So, I guess my hoping he would come to the lakers is over and the hopes of seeing the best player to come out of stanford in 8 years or so, is over as well. Maybe the Lopez twins can light it up and we won't even miss him.

Probably not, but hopefully they still light it up.

Joe out... of the country... greece style... like the childress

Lucked out

2008-07-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

My chief was on call last night and finished all the work that I was going to come in and do. Seriously, she is badass. Seriously needed the sleep though...Q3 is painful.

Anyhow, i joined my parents for a trip out to Riverside. My, the place has really changed. Lots of buildings...looks nice. My grandmother's lil sister just moved out there, and we owed her a visit to her new place. Her husband is an art collector. He opens museums on the side when he isn't developing real estate. Anyhow, his whole entire place is full of random shit. He is working on domestic interior design art or something snooty like that.

telephones

fans

radios

and other random stuff

The good part was, we went out to eat at claim jumper's. Man, I love that place. Yo Joe, they're biting your style. They've got a seared scallop salad. weak sauce...

-bender out

random thought

2008-07-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

There have been a bunch of ants indoors lately. I always see a few in my bathroom and they're all over the workstations at work. They live a pretty rough life...

They risk their lives every time they go out. When they find a tasty piece of cake, they can't sit back and enjoy it. They have to take it back to their queen, or their maggot kids, or whatever baby ants are called. I mean, they get rocked for the tiniest things. If I notice an ant on my arm, it usually get mushed or flicked across the room. How much would life suck if the things I interacted in this world responded to me like that? I mean, you might get shot in my neighborhood for looking at someone funny, seriously...

anyhow, enjoying my day off.

-bender

Got one under my belt

2008-07-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

The feeling of inadequacy is a theme that plagued me in medical school and has followed me to residency...actually, my whole life. I'm always worried that I'm a shitty intern, so I try to log extra hours. Just finished putting in a 33 hour shift, but maybe that just means that I'm an inefficient intern. My biggest concern is that I don't have the hands to be a good surgeon. I have a mild essential tremor that becomes magnified whenever I start stressing about it, then it's a downward spiral from there.

I feel like a huge burden has been lifted. I did my first appendectomy last night from skin to skin, albeit at 3am, on a teenage kid with acute gangrenous appendicitis. Was able to get through the procedure without any big problems...able to lay out suture and tie stuff down without problems. Didn't nick any bowel. Granted it was an easy case, but I feel like I needed that case to realize that it is not impossible for me to become a proficient surgeon and am not just a poser on the wards. Even with my chief breathing down my every movement, I know every time she yelled, it was meant to make me a better doctor/surgeon. Even when she called me out and told me, "you're a urologist. So grow some balls." I realized that sometimes you have to yell and call people out. This is not to be a dick. If your patient needs a CT scan in the middle of the night and the tech is too lazy to do it, you roll your patient up by yourself and make sure it gets done. If your patient has an abscess and the nurse is too lazy to give antibiotics/clarify an order - you call pharmacy, beg, do whatever the fuck it takes to make sure that you take care of your patient. They depend on you to take care of them. If it takes a few asshole phone calls and a visit to the neighborhood radiologist/nursing station/etc. to break some balls, I think I'm alrite with it as long as I can sleep in peace when I get off my shift.

Anyhow, it was another brutal night on call, but I got through it, just like I'll get through the next one. Next on my list is to learn how to dictate a proper operative report. Dictations that start with, um...we started by cutting the belly button with a knife, then we dug around to look for the appendix. Then I cut it off with a knife and then sewed up his stomach....yea, it doesn't hold up so well in a court of law as an official dictation.

time to prep for more cases tomorrow.

-bender

summertime in the nba

2008-07-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

A lot of interesting moves being made here.

I don't really like signing baron davis. Guy is expensive and streaky. He isn't the guy who gives 100% every time. He is mentally weak and gives up early if they're down, so it's not gonna help. I would rather try to build up with a guy like kirk hinrich, who is gonna get moved since they have rose.

Brand going to philly?...hmm...sucks for the clippers now that they've brought in a PG and was willing to give everything brand wanted. Seriously, the guy has no class. Most of the guys in the nba lack class, but I don't have it either, so whatever. Anyhow, it's a great move for 76ers. They've got an awesome unselfish point guard in andre miller who'll be able to feed it to brand. Plus you've got iggy who is a legit scorer. You've got decent defense and boards with dalembeast. You've got a growing bench with willie green and thaddeus young. Looking pretty decent for the year.

Guys I wouldn't want to get. Guys like agent zero and ron artest are poison to a team. I don't like score first point guards, no matter how good they are. That's why I don't like baron davis, although he has been feeding to monta ellis. I can't believe ronny sold out and signed with golden state. They're gonna suck. Their big men are weak, they don't have davis, plus monta ellis can't defend worth a lick.

Type of guys I want for the Lakers...I want a young healthy point guard with post-season experience. Your boy farmar was choking all over the place, and fisher is getting old. Guys I like...usually...hinrich, andre miller, devin harris, chris paul...not too many guards out there actually. Next, we need big men who can defend and hold their ground. I'm thinking timmy D, a young big ben, tyson chandler, big guys. Next I want odom to stop being a retard - no early stupid fouls, nothing dumb. I like the rebounds and when he takes it to the hole. I'd be happy with a shane battier, or even a peja. Perimeter guys who can shut down the shooters and knock down the open looks.

I'd avoid at any cost high injury guys - i.e. baron davis. We need to dump chris mihm once he starts getting minutes. Lets see how the new season rolls.

-bender

Say it aint sooooo......

2008-07-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

Ronny Turiaf.... heart and soul... signed an offer sheet with the Warriors... 4 years 17.8 mil. What a fucker.... not sure if I want the lakers to match, don't know what to think, or feel.... so confused...

summertime in the f-dub

2008-07-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

So, It's warming up here, well... nothing compared to LA warm, but warm enough to get your pits wet. I'm here on my laptop, messing around with the desktop. I decided to dabble a little with Vista, and got more than I bargained for. Lot of software isn't compatible with vista drivers, and I'm not one to abandon certain luxuries for the sake of having the "new" stuff. So I'm here, reloading the desktop with the XP SP2 that dell was so nice to provide me with when Kim and I purchased the PC. Hmm... yeah, I know I'm boring but I figured I should try and post whenever I can.

What do you think about all the nba free agents so far? Pretty insane ehh? Brand a Sixer, Davis a clipper? Hmm I wonder what the odds that the Lakers can sign Childress, that'd be sweet. I have been playing nba 2k8 a little. I think you are right, as much as I love Farmar, the guy misses every single layup, even wide open on fast breaks. It's ridiculous. I mean can you imagine how he feels, if he ever plays the game, and is missing stuff like that? I bet he writes a death threat to Sega or TakeTwo, whoever makes the game now. I can only imagine it'd be like playing a cooking video game, using myself, and not being able to make a bean and cheese burrito. Hmm.. probably a horrible analogy there, but whatever, I've never been good at that comparison stuff.

So I hope everything is going good in LA. Kinda sucks that it took you 9 years to get back there, and when you did, I'm up here now. How's that for irony... oh well. I guess I got one extra reason to go to LA now whenever I can.

So I was watching Rocky Balboa (again) and just getting all worked up (as I usually do when watching it) when I sat there and reflected upon it. What makes me (us) love the character so much. I think it's because its the ultimate feel good story. A guy who is down on his luck, not smart, not ambitious, just traying to stay afloat. Once he gets there, he never really changes, still the nicest guy, polite, just tries to do the right thing. As he ages, he's still dumb as dogshit, but so wise... if that makes any sense.... well I guess the reason I love it is, cuz in someway... I hope I can be that guy, no matter how far I get, I do the right thing, I stand up, go toe to toe and no matter how hard I get knocked down, I get back up. The only bad part is, I always get sentimental when he's giving his speeches... damn you rocky, get me right there... everytime.

Joe out..

getting through it...

2008-07-07T20:44:00.000-07:00

Yo rabbit, I can never find yo ass. Stopped by the micu to look for you while I was doing post-ops. Anyhow, I'm getting through this month the way I usually get through stuff like this. Putting my nose to the ground and reaching for my ankles. So far I haven't gotten a wink of sleep on my nights of call except for the morning after call when we present to the attendings. Seriously, I can't stay awake in front of these guys. I get the impression that I'm not gonna get a good eval from them.

It's been a pretty rough month. My service is supposed to be a sink or swim service. For most of the time, I feel like I've been sinking. My chief has been good about trying to make me a better doctor/intern. She looks out for me and the 2nd year and I get along really well, so that's been nice. We all come from such different walks of life. My R3 is a persian, classy gal. Buys extra houses, family throws lavish $300k parties. It is so beyond me that we are worlds apart. Super nice, but we're pretty different. The R2 is a prelim guy who is busting his balls so that he can get a formal position in a residency program. General surgery makes no pretense about being hard nosed. We get the daily you've got to lean against the wind speech and the glory days of the chiefs pounding out 1500 cases each year. I feel like such a surgical loser. My attending told me to get a hair transplant and asked my R2 if he loves being a perpetual prelim when he answered a question wrong. Q3 in a general surgery service is rough.

The environment is definitely not as warm and friendly as cow-town. I'm missing that a lot. Moos, a davis grad has been looking out for me. I guess I'm pretty lucky. I'm surrounded by good people...it's just rough to stay focused in this place. I've already lost it a few times and am wondering if I'm gonna get written up. The system is so frustrating...nose to ground, pray that I become a better person/doctor.

-bender

Don't be a tool

2008-07-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

hey joe, I think it'll work out. 2014 is when I finish my residency, so it'll be all good. The only thing is, after watching the Hulk, I'm not so sure what brazil is gonna be like. Anyhow, sorry about this boring ass post, but it's gonna be a totally medical post.

Damn, this call is the first time I got pissed off after reading a note. I'm on an emergency/non-trauma surgical service. I live and breathe appendix and gall bladder problems. Anyhow, we had a patient with choledocholithiasis, and eventually developed gallstone pancreatitis. GI did an ERCP and supposedly got rid of the stones. However, the total bilirubin kept going up and our patient started looking as yellow as a banana. We kept bugging GI to do another ERCP because clearly the patient's ducts were still obstructed. Then obnoxious 4th year medical student left a note stating "the patient appears fine. Her pancreatitis has resolved...it takes a week and a half for the lipase to come down. You should really try to treat the patient, rather than just treating labs." Oh my freaking gosh. I wanted to stab that kid. First, he has no idea what we're trying to treat. Second, you just don't write condescending lame ass notes, even if you're a hot-shot attending. Damn kid.

-bender is annoyed

Wake up Mr. Joe...

2008-06-30T02:33:00.000-07:00

Hey it's me, mr. never blogs cuz he's a bastard friend. Hehe, sorry about that Dee. I really gotta stop being such a stranger.

On to other stuff.... I've been here for 9 months, 9 long months and I have a couple of friends and my own little way of doing things. I have my spots, vices and watering holes. It's starting to feel more like home than LA does. It's weird but after going back to Cali, things just weren't the same, maybe its cuz it I spent so much time on the go trying to visit everyone, please everyone, that it felt too much like work.

Also, I'm not sure what it is, but LA just feels wrong, I never understood what you meant when you said you loved nor-cal and how its so much more chill. Well that's how I feel, it's like.... so much cleaner, smooth even in seattle. Sure the sports suck, the weather isn't always great, and the mexican food just straight blows donkey balls. But despite all that, it is so much more of a life that I want. At the same time, I find myself missing all the dirtiness and ugliness, because it makes you rough, tough, and just stronger. I mean, other than a jew growing up on the wrong side of the israeli border, it doesn't get much uglier being a mexican in east la. (sorry about the jewish reference but I've been around too many this past week)

So this past week I got my share of Bender shifts, 15 hours running around cooking for some rich jewish kids, then 5 hours sleep, then repeat. Very tiring and very boring. Seriously, I do not like dealing with picky eaters, it's like operating on a guy who brings in his own dull ass knifes and wobbly table.

In other news, I think I've decided to take up soccer watching... in a more intense fashion, its just so much more gratifying. Watching 45 minutes of straight action. No fucking advertisers throwing their shitty ass beer, car, penis/depression drug commercials down my throat until I have a seizure. Then during the break, you take a piss, grab some water and chips, sit down and watch another 45 minutes. So sweet, so fast, and pure... other than the shitty calls the refs make sometimes, but hey... you gotta have something to bitch about, right?

Seriously though, Bender, I'm so disappointed you forgot about our trip to the world cup in 2014. Seriously, if I have to remind you about it every year for the next 5 years I'm gonna kick your ass. I've already started a savings account for it, and did so months before Kim or Ags were in the picture, but of course, you being the busy bastard you are, you probably forgot all about it. Well you have 6 years to save, cuz we are going to Brazil and we are watching as many football games as we can. I'll be sporting my US jersey for the first two days, then when they are eliminated mathematically after the first two group games, I'll throw on my Italian jersey (gotta claim my 1/8th italian blood) and if they let me down, then we'll cheer for the team that has the hotter girls wearing their jerseys.

Well, I'm out of stuff to say.. actually I'm not, but I don't feel like ranting about politics, religion and other stuff.

Joe out...

P.S. You gotta send me your address Dee, I need to send you a couple of cd's and some other stuff.

In Living Color

2008-06-29T15:34:00.001-07:00

Man, this picture reminds me of when 3D tv first came out and we had to wear those blue and red glasses from 7-eleven. Nothing topped captain EO at disneyland.

Anyhow, this is the stuff that is keeping me motivated in general surgery. These people are in India watching a live 3D broadcast of a robotic prostatectomy from Detroit. They are literally seeing the exact same image that the operating surgeon is seeing in live time. Crazy technology...

-bender

what have I done?

2008-06-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic of me and rabbit on our first night on call...all downhill from there. seriously...

I had my department dinner last night and it was awesome. I love my urology peeps. Definitely feels like a family and I'm really looking forward to working with them.

General surgery in county on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. I just finished my second night of call. walking through those lime green halls feels like a bad dream all night. I'm seriously having second thoughts about this year. Yea...this year is gonna suck really badly. I love surgery, but I hate the hours and the culture that permeates it.

-bender

NBA draft

2008-06-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today was the NBA draft. The bulls took Derrick Rose for #1. They need a legit scorer, so Beasley might've been a better option, but whatever. It probably means they might be wiling to move Hinrich. Maybe we can do a Hinrich and Deng for Lamar and mihm, haha.

Looks like the Lopez brothers did well in the draft. Go Stanford! Hopefully Brook has a better career in the NBA than Jason Collins. Anyhow, looks like we picked up Joe Crawford, the SG from Kentucky. Not the most exciting college career...seriously. Whatever. We need another guy at the 2 to back up kobe and sasha I guess.

Guys I want to drop - Vlad is garbage. I haven't really seen Coby Karl play, but he looks soft. Lamar is garbage mostly, with mild glimpses of greatness. Actually, I kind of like the Hinrich and Deng idea. They've had a rough year, but they'll come around. Anyhow, we'll see how this new year comes along with a healthy bynum. We should trade mihm the minute he gets healthy before his bum ankle becomes a problem. Lucky for him he had an year to exercise his option on his contract.

-bender

Made it through my first night on call...

2008-06-25T19:12:00.001-07:00

So I'm post call today. Went in at 5am on Tuesday and got out at 10am on Wednesday. The only sleep I got was from when I dozed off while an attending was talking to me.

Honestly, that was one of the most brutal days I've ever spent in a hospital. Even the free food wasn't enough to keep me going. Luckily, my second year resident turned out to be pretty cool, so I think it's gonna be an alrite month.

My duties seemed easy enough. We had about 15 patients on our service and on average got 1-2 new patients every hour. My job was to log all the labs on the patients, see them every 6 hours and jot a quick note on them. I had to make sure everyone was ready for surgery (PT/INR, x-rays, EKG), write post-op notes, etc. In addition, I had to write all orders, admits, etc. Outside of the service, I was in charge of the wound care clinic in the jail ward.

Actually, now that I write it out, it sounds bloody easy. Really, the only part that made it complicated was that I'm really slow. The hospital is huge, ~15 stories, and the elevators don't work that well, so there was a fair amount of stair climbing involved. I had to cross cover for the non-trauma/general surgery service, so I looked like batman with all the pagers on me. hmm...I think that was what got to me. Every time I tried to get something done, I'd get paged for something. Seriously, the nurses in my part of emergency are awesome. They really take care of me. In other parts of the hospital, there were definitely power struggles. I readily admit that I'm their bitch. They'd have me run across the hospital up 10 flights of stairs because a form didn't have the patient's name stamped on it. Seriously...you could just write the patient's name for me. Lots of little things like that kept me from keeping up with patient care.

One of the tougher parts of being a newly minted doctor was having a title, but no power. Actually, I guess it's the same for all doctors. We've got some pretty sick guys on our service. There's a young guy with AIDs, a huge brain mass, crazy fluid in his lungs and we had to remove his colon because he got a massive C. dif infection. He is my age, DNR/DNI palliative care aka let die status. I don't think he knows what's going on. Every time I go in, he just looks at me and mouths "help me." I can't do shit, except feel bad and give him some more morphine. Then it's off to see the next patient. There isn't enough time to transition mentally/emotionally like a normal human being between patients.

One day and I'm completely drained. I came home and crashed. Eight hours went by, but it felt like a blink of the eye.

I can see why the 80 hour work week was instituted. By the end of my shift, I kept making mistakes on my patient's notes, kept writing the wrong ID numbers and lab values. In addition, I just got slower and slower. It was a pretty painful night. I'm glad that I get tomorrow off. I think my resident took pity on me.

-bender

Here we go

2008-06-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my first day in the Emergency/non-trauma surgery unit. My team is on call my first day, so it'll be an interesting 30 hour shift.

I'm a little scared, but I'm sure that it'll be alrite. Just gotta get the first few pages out of the way. The nurses in my ER are hilarious. They all have names that end an ary sound, like mary, gary, larry, etc. I must look a like a newb because they keep calling me their baby, stopping short of calling me bambi.

-bender

I work here

2008-06-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

Here are a few gems from my fire and safety orientation today.

1. The security officer gave us a few tips on how to survive county. This is literally his advice on what to do if someone tries to kidnap you. He had a big powerpoint slide that said FIGHT!!! "If you get kidnapped, chances are, we won't be seeing you again. It doesn't happen that frequently, but when it does, it'll ruin your day. If you get killed, the ER docs can bring you back to life. Right guys? In addition, if you can feel yourself getting shot, it means that you're still alive."

hmm...way to inspire faith.

2. Our fire system. The county hospital was built in the 1920s, so it doesn't have fire sprinklers or smoke detectors even. Rumor has it that it is some guy's job to walk around the hospital and check if the wing of the hospital is on fire or not.

3. The elevators. They're really really slow. Damn, I really miss the davis tower elevators. Anyhow, the sensors on the doors don't really work that well. Several people break their hands every year trying to stop a closing elevator door. It gets better. The safety inspector bragged that they can get us out of the elevator in 45min to an hour if it gets stuck. The national standard is 2 hours. Apparently, this happens with some regularity. Sometimes, the elevator falls a couple of floors, but the safety mechanism stops you from falling to your death. Yay...

4. This is probably my favorite. If there is an emergency and you need to evaculate, there is no way that you're going to get people out through the elevators. The beds have this thing called an evacusled. The mattresses have straps that tie down the patient, and there are ropes that allow you to drag the mattress across the floor. The idea is to basically push your patient's mattress down x number of stairs.

I finally got my long white coat with holes so that I can put my hands in my pockets. I'm pretty happy about that. I'm even more happy about the free meals at the hospital. Life is good.

-bender

Let the good times roll...

2008-06-18T15:22:00.001-07:00

Joe, I've been pretty lazy about blogging, but you know what's been going on. Here's a quick recap of the last few weeks.

Before graduation, I took a couple of weeks to go to korea. It was some interesting time. Got to visit the DMZ, see lots of palaces and see my family. Most memorable incident. I was hanging out with my buff ex-model cousin and his thugs friends in Itae-won. They were hoping to see some hot russian girls. It was late and we went out on the street to get some korean fast food from the carts on the street. A totally drunk, super skinny gay guy came up to my cousin and playfully kicked his butt. My cousin got pissed and almost threw him into the food carts. A few minutes later, the guy came back, grabbed my cousin's arm and pulled it toward his crotch, leans over and kisses my cousin's ear. It takes three guys to hold my cousin down so that he doesn't kill this skinny kid. Good times...

I graduated from medical school. Thanks Joe and KB. It was pretty sweet...played a lil forty man and re-lived some good times.

The Lakers got crushed by the Celtics.

Fast forward to today. Had my orientation for my general surgery internship today. Me and the neurosurg intern showed up in t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops. Everyone else decided to wear a tie or a suit. Luckily, the chairman no-showed and decided we should have breakfast with him at 6:30am on our day off...

There were 3 schedule options available for the urology interns - a month off in december, march or august. I drew the short straw, so I'll be taking august off a month into my intern year. This sucks in a few ways...I won't have enough time to get used to the system, so I'll still suck when I restart after my vacation. I'll look bad in comparison to the other interns. Second, by the end of the year when I really need a break or a golden weekend, I'm gonna be dying without a vacation to look forward to. I'll be on all major holidays. Third, my vacation isn't really time off because I'm gonna be going in to surgery skills clinics during my "vacation" so that I don't fall behind my colleagues. Worst of all, I won't be able to take a real ski holiday this year. yikes...oh well. Usually everything has a way of working out. On the plus side, I'm looking forward to seeing my girl again soon. I've got a few rough rotations, but there are some cush months on ortho and ENT to cushion the blow. In addition, my co-interns don't seem so bad.

It's a really small world. It turns out, one of the neurosurgery interns is the guy who dated one of my college friends after we left the farm. One of the plastics interns went to high school at exeter with my college mentor.

On a sidenote, I don't know whether to laugh or be horrified by this. On the side of the emergency room is a door with a bell. It's called the "homie dropoff." It's the place where the homeboys leave their gunned down friends and cars pull up riddled with bullet holes and pools of blood. Whoever brings the bodies rings the bell and takes off so that they don't get in trouble with the law.

hmm...interesting

The PGY-2 general surgery resident told me that if I think about quitting fewer than 5 times on my first day of call, I'll be able to make it through the year.

-bender is now officially moved back in with his rents

I had to copy rabbit and list a song that's been on my mind

politics

2008-05-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

I generally steer clear of politics, but it's been getting pretty heavy lately. It's one of the most important presidential elections in recent history. Seriously, I hate Hilary Clinton. Prior to the primaries, I would have loved representation from either Obama or Clinton. After the debacle that is the current Bush administration, it seemed like a ripe time for the democrats to sweep into the white house. Seriously, leave it to the democrats to fuck things up. Honestly, the republicans are awesome at presenting a united front. Even if things don't make sense, they're good at spinning stuff to their advantage. We don't even need the presidential election. Hilary has dug up enough dirt and take enough low blows to make Obama look bad. I wouldn't even want her as his running mate. Playing the race and gender card. Seriously, no class. Totally turned off by the elections. I won't support McCain, gonna stay independent...just wish the damn Dems could get their shit together.

-bender

on a side note, what's going on with the world. Crazy storms in asia, giant 7.9 quake in China. Pres bush...way to step up big and offer all $500,000 to China in aid. That's pathetic.

Scrubs...

2008-05-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

I should seriously be sleeping, but here's my list of favorite episodes. Thanks for getting me through medical school. I've seen them all at least 5 times.

Scrubs - 101 - Pilot: The scene where JD is on a crazy call night and they have David Gray's Please forgive me in the background. Seriously, that's what call felt like on medicine when we were taking admits late at night and I was running in and out of the ER.

Scrubs - 111 - My Own Personal Jesus: Nina Simone - Sinnerman

Scrubs - 606 - My Musical. Awesome episode! Guy love, the poo song. The finale is amazing...

Patti:
What's going to happen?
What does the future hold?
So many things that I put off
Assuming I'd have time, assuming I'd grow old
What's going to happen?
And will I be alive tomorrow?
What's going to happen...to me?

Dr. Cox:
You're going to be okay

All:
That's what's going to happen
Everything's okay
We're right here beside you
We won't let you slip away
Plan for tomorrow
'Cause we swear to you
You're going to be okay

Patti:
I'm going to be okay

All:
That's what's going to happen

Patti:
Everything's okay

All:
Everything's okay
We will never leave you
Right here we will stay
(Plan for tomorrow)
Plan for tomorrow
'Cause we swear to you
You're going to be okay

I need to remember to do that for my patients when they're scared.

Scrubs - 509 - My Half-Acre: I've watched Turk's poison dance sequence at least 50 times.

Scrubs - 505 - My Way Home: Great twist on the Wizard of Oz.

The guest appearances with Branden Fraser...
Scrubs - 122 - My Occurrence
Scrubs - 123 - My Hero
Scrubs - 314 - My Screwup

Scrubs - 417 - My Life in Four Cameras: surreal...it's scrubs meets 70s television.

Scrubs - 503 - My day at the Races: I've watched this episode 20-30 times. I watch it whenever I can't sleep or worry about stuff. The theme is universal...I'm getting older. What's going to happen. I can get through anything with my God, gal and a lil help from my friends.

-bender

2008-04-30T16:54:00.000-07:00

I've been so lazy on radiology. Actually, I've just been lazy since around November 2007. I've been slacking and goofing off. My clinical skills aren't as sharp as they used to be...finally found something that expresses exactly how I feel about 4th year.

from my favorite blog, truehoop by henry abbott

Kurt Kragthorpe of The Salt Lake Tribune: "Carlos Boozer knew what he was talking about, all right. The Jazz did not come back to Houston, according to the available evidence. Well, there were reports that they technically showed up at the Toyota Center for Tuesday's Game 5 of their playoff series with the Rockets, but that was about all. Acting like they did not want to be here and were willing to bank on a one-game chance to close out the series at home, the Jazz pretty much mailed in a 95-69 defeat that may have been predictable and understandable, but not quite forgivable."

-bender

holy crap

2008-04-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

lakers swept the nuggets 4-0. I didn't see that coming. Was expecting 4-1. And the Hawks tied up with Beantown 2-2. You gotta be kidding me.

Anyhow, I'm chilling on radiology. Had an awesome time visiting Joe in Seattle last weekend. Will post more pictures when I get less lazy.

-bender

take care sir...

2008-04-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

In Memoriam: John Peter Stein, 45

04/16/08

The renowned Keck School professor and surgeon touched the lives of thousands, says Dean Puliafito.

Stein was a nationally recognized oncologist and researcher.

John Peter Stein, an internationally recognized authority on the management of urologic cancers, died April 11 while attending the annual meeting of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons in Florida. He was 45.

Stein was a professor of urology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“Dr. Stein was a superb surgeon, a gifted clinician scientist, a role model for peers, residents and students,” said Keck School Dean Carmen Puliafito. “He touched the lives of thousands of patients and saved the lives of many using his extraordinary clinical talents.”

Stein’s work has included research that identified a molecular marker that predicts which bladder cancer patients likely would face remission and which would have relapses.

He served on the editorial board of four major urologic journals, including Urology and the Journal of Urology. Stein was co-director of the Genitourinary Program at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and was known for his compassion with patients.

“Receiving my diagnosis was the hardest moment of my life,” said Paul Scott, a former patient of Stein’s. “He not only saved my life but gave me full assurance that I would live a long and healthy life. It's now been more than six years.”

Stein’s reputation led to his inclusion on the list of “America’s Top Doctors” for every year since 2005. In 2003, he was the recipient of the Young Investigator Award given by the Society of Urology Oncology.

“Dr. Stein was a brilliant surgeon and dedicated leader in the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center,” said Peter A. Jones, director of the USC/Norris Cancer Center. “He was one of the most compassionate and skilled physicians I have ever met.”

Born in San Francisco in 1962, Stein grew up in Walnut Creek, Calif., and was a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine.

He completed his urology residency under the direction of Donald Skinner at USC and spent his entire clinical career at the Keck School of Medicine, where he rose to the rank of professor of urology.

“I consider John Stein one of the best surgeons I have ever trained, an extension of my own hands, someone very special, a son and member of my family,” Skinner said.

A nationally known urologic oncologist, Stein was appointed to committees of the American Urology Association, the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network and was secretary-elect of the American Urologic Association, Western Section.

A prominent researcher, he also received several grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute for his bladder cancer research.

He was a passionate basketball player who, despite employment at USC, continued to root for Notre Dame. But first and foremost in his mind was family.

“He was our rock, the foundation of our family, our devoted and loyal support for all of our endeavors and our own biggest fan. His presence lifted any situation, from ordinary to extraordinary or from special to extra special,” said Randi Stein, his wife of 18 years.

“He brought us peace and contentment knowing he was always with us, regardless of where he happened to physically be on any given day. We knew he was always thinking of us first.”

A resident of Pasadena, Stein was a dedicated husband and father. He leaves behind his wife Randi Goress Stein and their four children, John, Joseph, Eleanor and Louisa May.

He is survived by his parents, Robert and Helen Mary Stein of Walnut Creek, by his two brothers, and family of Riverside, Conn., as well as many members of the Goress family.

The Keck School of Medicine of USC will be holding a memorial service in the near future.

Donations can be made to either the John Stein Children’s Trust Fund c/o UBS Financial Services Inc. – Operations Dept. 2000 Avenue of the Stars, 7th Floor North, Los Angeles, CA 90067, or the John P. Stein Chair in Urology c/o USC Department of Urology, 1441 Eastlake Ave, Los Angeles 90033.

His obituary from the LA times...

Dr. John P. Stein, 45; USC professor, expert on urologic cancer

By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2008

Dr. John P. Stein, a professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine and an internationally known specialist in urologic cancers and bladder reconstruction, died Friday at a hospital in Naples, Fla. He was 45.

A research scientist and unusually skillful surgeon beloved for his compassionate bedside manner, Stein was a star in his field, who was, according to Keck Dean Carmen A. Puliafito, "what every dean of a medical school wants in a faculty member. He was a dedicated clinician, a state-of-the-art surgeon. He was a great innovator, a scientist . . . a terrific role model," who touched the lives of thousands and saved many lives.

Athletic and robust, Stein became seriously ill while attending a meeting of the American Assn. of Genitourinary Surgeons in Naples and was taken to a local hospital. Although doctors worked furiously to combat what appeared to be a massive infection, he died the next day.

Preliminary signs suggest a form of toxic shock syndrome, but the cause of death awaits the completion of autopsy studies, said Dr. Donald Skinner, a renowned USC urologic cancer surgeon, who trained Stein and helped guide his care at the Florida hospital.

Along with colleagues and patients, Skinner mourned Stein's death as a tragic end to a brilliant career on the cusp of advancement.

"I consider him the finest surgeon I trained, an extension of my own hands, a member of my own family, like a son," said Skinner, who established Keck's prestigious urology department 30 years ago.

Stein, who was born in San Francisco in 1962 and grew up in Walnut Creek, Calif., was a graduate of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., and the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago. He completed his residency under Skinner at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and became a professor of urology and co-director of the center's Genitourinary Cancers Program.

Early in his career, he and three colleagues published a landmark study that helped to identify which patients had more aggressive forms of bladder cancer. Published in 1994 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study found that an alteration in the DNA of bladder cancer cells, called a molecular marker, could help predict who would most benefit from continuing treatment after surgery and who would be more likely to face a relapse.

In another major study, Stein demonstrated the importance of thorough lymph node removal in the successful treatment of bladder cancer, said Dr. Peter T. Scardino, a urologic oncologist and chairman of the department of surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Working with Skinner in the late 1980s, Stein also helped to develop a technique for reconstructing the bladder in patients who had lost the organ to cancer. Building a so-called neo-bladder using part of the patient's intestine was a breakthrough that vastly improved the quality of life for bladder cancer survivors by allowing them to urinate normally. Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer among men and the eighth among women in the United States.

Bladder replacement initially was performed only on men because not enough was known about female urinary anatomy to ensure that women could successfully undergo the procedure. In women with bladder cancer, doctors routinely removed the urethra, where urine drains from the body, to prevent the spread of the cancer. Unconvinced that removing the urethra was necessary, Skinner and Stein studied cancer specimens and found that in women the cancer rarely spread that far. With other doctors, Stein conducted further studies, particularly examining the nerves that affect continence, and concluded that the urethra could be preserved.

"This revolutionized bladder reconstruction in women," Skinner said.

Colleagues said Stein was one of the rare doctors who could conduct basic research and apply it in the operating room.

"He was a marvelous surgeon to watch, quick, highly adept, with extraordinary hands and great understanding not only of the anatomy but of the disease and what needed to be done to remove the cancer and reconstruct the anatomy for the best possible function," Scardino said. "He had a great sense of the organization of an operation, the flow of it. It's like being a very good fighter pilot in a time of war. . . . I never knew anyone better at it than John Stein."

At the relatively young age of 42, Stein was elected to the highly prestigious American Assn. of Genitourinary Surgeons. He also served on the editorial board of four major urologic journals and in 2003 received the Young Investigator Award by the Society of Urology Oncology.

He also earned the adoration of patients, who valued his humanity as much as his expertise. He hugged them, sometimes prayed with them, sat by their side when they cried, and joked with them to relieve their fears.

Said Santa Monica resident Paul Scott, who credits Stein with saving his life after being diagnosed with bladder cancer six years ago: "When you're thinking about dying and your life is just in turmoil, here is this man who takes your hand in his and looks you in the eye and says 'You're going to be OK.' He was just the kindest guy." Now a leader in the electric car movement, a cause he took up after regaining his health, Scott added, "I owe him so much."

While devoted to his patients, Stein also had high ambitions, intent on one day succeeding Skinner as head of USC's urology department. When Skinner announced in 2006 that he would step down from his post the following year, an intensive search began for a replacement. "There was great competition for the job," Puliafito said.

On Friday, after meeting with the urology faculty, Puliafito had reached a decision: He planned to offer the job to Stein. But by then Stein was battling for his life.

Already showing signs of a cold or the flu, he had boarded a plane in Los Angeles early Wednesday and arrived in Florida late that night after delays caused by airline snafus. By the time he showed up at the conference hall Thursday morning, he was so sick he could barely stand. Colleagues rushed him to the hospital.

The local doctors made heroic efforts, aided by USC specialists who were in close contact by phone, but whatever malady had attacked him proved too virulent to be reversed.

Stein, a Pasadena resident, is survived by his wife of 18 years, Randi Goress Stein; four children, John, Joseph, Eleanor and Louisa May; his parents, Dr. Robert and Helen Mary Stein of Walnut Creek; and two brothers, Rob of London and Tom of Riverside, Conn.

A visitation and vigil service will be held at 7 p.m. tonightat the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church, 2640 E. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena. A funeral Mass will be held there at 10 a.m. Friday. The Keck School of Medicine will hold a memorial service at a later date.

"Everyone felt he had just begun to come into his own as a leader in the field," Scardino said. "He was just about in position to be a mentor, to guide the next generation of young people who go into this field. He was such a valuable role model. It's a huge loss in that way."

More Human Than Human

2008-04-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a good 4 weeks. I did 2 weeks in cardiology and 2 weeks in nephrology. I've learned a lot and am a lot better prepared to deal with stuff when stuff goes down my intern year.

I decided to call it a day early today. Just got home from a code in the dialysis lab. Nephro patients are really sick. We've had 3 die on our service this week. It's funny. You visit people in the morning and they look great. They're eating, talking, farting, the works. A couple hours later, when you're walking by their room, you hear that they just died...then you cross off their name and move on to the next patient.

What it's like to die in a modern hospital.

Code Blue tower 6. You start seeing people swarm toward the room from all across the hospital. Usually there are 15+ people standing around your bed, staring down at you. If it's a cardiac code, you've got some guy pumping your chest and breaking every rib in your body. People are trying to stick huge ass needles into your legs and arms to get fluid into you. If they have trouble, they're gonna cut ya. There's usually a guy bagging air into your face, then they'll intubate you. You'll be paralyzed and won't be able to scream. If you're lucky, that's where the story goes.

If they get pressors into you with some epi and jump start you, you'll end up in the ICU. There, you'll be stuck on some breathing machine. Unfortunately, the inflammatory process in your body has been sucking the blood out of your veins and into other parts of your body so that you swell like the michelin man. It's called 3rd spacing. To keep you heart pumping blood to your organs, they're pumping fluids furiously into you. A lot of those fluids end up in your lungs, making you feel like you're drowning. You sound like you're gurgling, while the ventilator tries to pump air into your lungs. Eventually your kidneys and heart and everything else starts shutting down. You start getting nasty infections that never really go away. You're usually paralyzed this whole time so that you don't fight the ventilator. In your mind, you wonder, when is this going to end? When does the pain stop? Maybe you'll have another cardiac arrest. Repeat above paragraph. Good times...

Man, I kind of sound down, huh? It's been a rough few weeks, surprisingly. I saw a woman die from a broken heart (caught her hubbie in bed with another lady) - takotsubo. Her heart eventually recovered, but she had taken some meds which wrecked everything else in her body. Got to see a young girl, 23, get into a car wreck. Third spaced, a total wreck. Her arm died due to ischemia, and she needed a bedside amputation, civil war style.

Anyhow, I guess the thing that has been really bothering ms is that last thursday I got a call in the morning from one of my residents down at USC. They told me that Dr. Stein had passed away. He third spaced, fasciotomies, then coded. It basically means he was filleted. This guy is one of my heroes. Legendary work ethic, super nice, rides his residents like crazy, but in the end of the day really cares about you. He believes in what he is doing and he does the research to back it up. It's really rare to find a mentor that inspires you like that. He was the person who recruited me to SC and was the one I wanted to learn how to operate from. They were going to offer him the chairman position the day he passed away. He has young kids in high school. It's a lot of badness. I didn't know him that well and I'm surprised at how shockeded I was to hear about him. I keep picturing the bro getting gutted up. Man, life is rough. Gotta do what you love and love what you do. Keep your friends and family close. Looking forward to this weekend. I'm done.

-bender

dilemma

2008-03-22T19:33:00.001-07:00

yo Joe,

I need some help with my fantasy team. I'm heading into the home stretch and making final tweaks to my team. Had a few changes, like dropping Dwayne Wade that hurt. Anyhow, here's the roster.

I dropped Nate Robinson so that I could pick up shaq. I'm willing to accept losing FT% as long as I can keep it up in rebounds and blocks. Anyhow, with games coming up, I've got too many big men, so I'll have to skip rotations. I need to find a PG/SG. Not sure who to pick up. The bigger problem is, who should I drop?

zach randolph - stupid zeke hasn't been playing him as of late so that the team can head into lottery. When he does get playing time, he scores, rebounds and hits a few threes. I hate Isaiah. Seriously, I hate that fucker.

tyson chandler - This guy hasn't scored all season. He'll probably pick it up. Plus, he is a rebounding monster.

troy murphy = He has been really consistent as of late. getting double-doudbles. Plus, a big man who can hit 3's and has high FT%. What more can you ask for?

samuel dalembeast - the man rebounds and gets me lots of blocks.

charlie villanova = was weak early in the season, but has been a monster since Yi Jianlian went down and he has been getting consistent minutes.

drew gooden - double-double machine since he was traded to chicago.

I'm torn. Any thoughts?

-bender

update - I ended up dropping Charlie Villanova because Yi is back. I picked up Juan Carlos Navarro. I'm still not sure if I should keep shaq. Maybe pick up michael pietrus or ronnie brewer. We'll see. Guys like Jason Williams should be getting more numbers as the season ends down since d wade is down and the matrix is prolly gonna be shut down because of back problems. On the verge of making playoffs...lets hope for the quick return of the Lakers big men.

The Windy City

2008-03-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Chicago,

Ags and I partied it up in Chicago this past weekend. We'll come crash with you and make some new memories in Seatte in April Joe. Looking forward to it. Seriously, you're waking up at 4am to watch fish being thrown at Pike's market with me.

-bender

aw man...

2008-03-11T23:34:00.001-07:00

My favorite fantasy basketball blog that I've followed faithfully since I started med school is shutting down.

http://fantasybasketblog.net/

It's been a hell of a run. I won't have time for fantasy bball anymore. It's been a hell of a run...

I guess it's just me and truehoops from now on.

-bender

Wow, has it been that long since my last post??

2008-03-07T17:05:00.000-08:00

So, I'm out here stuck in suburbia, WA. Trying not to get bored to death but its hard since my internet is always broken.

Have you been watching the Pac-10 lately? Dang, UCLA has barely streaked by this past week. Was some crazy stuff this weekend, looks like its going to shape up to be a good tournament next weekend.

Glad to hear the Lakers won the game you went to. They won when I went to see them against the Sonics. Kim and I forgot to bring our camera so we don't got any good pictures to show.

So I have been coming up with some different menu items for my taco truck and catering. You'd think it'd be easy but it's actually a lot more frustrating and complex, in order to save money you need to figure out recipes that utilize the same produce and ingredients to save on costs, yet make it taste fresh so everything doesn't taste the same. When you're up here you're going to have to try some of the items on my catering menu.

Also, would you stop whoring out our blog..

Joe out...

P.S. first stop catering, next stop restaurant...

Finishing up EKG's

2008-03-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

These last two weeks have been awesome. The EKG class has been a blast. I finished writing up my report, printed out my poster, now I'm good to go. I've been having fun hanging out with classmates and just cruising by.

A buddy of mine snagged some Lakers tickets off of a scalper.

Kobe is pretty ridiculous in life. We were getting shredded up by Ron Ron and Kevin Martin, but come crunch time, Kobe stopped messing around and got the job done. It was nice to see Gasol go to work. He runs like a little sissy, but he plays big inside and he hits his free throws. No complaints there.

I must admit, I was a little nervous for a while. The kings were leading by ~10 for most of the game. It was an awesome ending and even if we had lost, it was worth it to see my boys Farmar, Fish and Turiaf. Kobe, Odom and Gasol were cool too.

Kobe and Martin

Our newest addition

Weak sauce Kings fans leaving with over a minute left in the game. They were down by less than 10.

Final score.

It was sad, most of the kings fans were gone long before the game was over. Reggie Miller scored 9 points in 9 seconds. you've gotta believe. At least that's what the Dubs say.

-bender

looking forward to going skiing with the boys tomorrow.

p.s. Bender is whoring out his blog to pay for his ski habit. Joe, you and I aren't allowed to click on the ads on the top of the page, but everyone else should. haha.

Madness

2008-03-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Yo Joe,

You gotta check out this kid, Kenny George. This guy is a monster. He had a little gigantism/acromegaly going on, so he is huge. With shoes he stands at 7' 9" with a shoe size of 25. That's 3 sizes larger than Shaq's. At 360 pounds, he isn't a small fry either. He is a monster on the basketball court. Too bad his knees are a little shaky.

Apparently this inbounds play is more or less unstoppable.

-bender

Man...

2008-02-26T22:56:00.000-08:00

Joe, I can't believe Zach Randolph is one of the best guys on my fantasy basketball team. I'm screwed...

My 2k8 team is all jacked up now. It would've been great ending the season with gasol, odom and kobe on my team, but I'd have to part with them because of the salary limit. I decided to go young. Traded kobe for lebron and big Z to some other team to make finances work. Traded gasol for Dwight Howard. Got rid of odom, and picked up Brandon Roy, Lamarcus Aldrige and some first round picks to make things work out. I miss having kobe and gasol on my team. And btw, Jordan Farmar still sucks in 2k8.

On the brightside, I'm going to the Kings vs. Lakers game on March 3rd. Gonna bust out my lakers gear and signs that say Lakers #1, go Ronny Turiaf. I'm just a little bummed because I haven't been able to find a Ronny Turiaf jersey.

-bender

This is pretty lame

2008-02-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

Way to represent your gender.

10 Things You Don't Know About Women: Jennifer Love Hewitt

The star of The Ghost Whisperer on being lied to and nine other things you don't know about women.

By Jennifer Love Hewitt

1. PMS is not a lame excuse to be able to yell at you. It's a great excuse.

2. We really can pump our own gas. It's just that we've got this fantasy of you as a '30s-era full-service station attendant. You'd look so cute in the hat.

3. We're not complimented when you call your ex a slut. She dated you, too. So what are we?

4. We're smart enough to know that smell is always the dog.

5. Yes, we can dish it out.

6. No, we can't take it.

7. We want to raise children. We just don't want you to be one of them.

8. Women are meant to talk and men to listen. We don't want to be fixed; we want to be heard.

9. When we ask if you've had any work done, it's because we want to know what our kids will really look like.

10. When we ask you how we look, it's okay to lie; when we ask you how she looks, you better lie.

-bender

holy shit

2008-02-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

After reading about the child molester who is the author of my EKG book, I did a quick little search on http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/ to see if I've got any perverts besides myself living nearby. It's kind of scary...I think I'd freak if I were a parent. I've got a guy who lives a block away who forcibly raped a 14 year old kid with a foreign object and over 30 child molesters within 10 blocks of my house. That's pretty freaking disturbing...that's just in my neighborhood. If some guy touched my kid, I'd go urology on his goods (bilateral orchiectomies without anesthesia). It's a sad world we live in.

-bender

bring on the hurt...

2008-02-25T20:01:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the year, I signed up for a scholarly project option offered at school. It basically entails a year of research, which culminates in a publishable paper and a poster presentation at the end of the year...end of the year, or so I thought. I've spent the greater part of the year running experiments, none of which have worked thus far. For the most part, I've kind of put everything off. It turns out that my report with all of my data and analysis was due to my adviser on Feb 15 and the that my final report is due to my oversee committee this Saturday. The problem is, I haven't started yet. Currently, I'm putting off doing my paper by trying to figure out how to do the homework assignment for my EKG course using a book that the instructor literally said was worthless and should be burnt.*(see note) The next few days are gonna be painful, until the weekend when I get my ski on. Oh well, C'est la vie. Fuck it...

-bender

*dale dubin is the author of rapid interpretation of EKG's. He is not an ophthalmologist, he is a plastic surgeon who was arrested for making kiddie porn after he drugged up some kids and got them to sleep with him at his nudist colony condo. The girls were 16 and 17, but that's still illegal and I wouldn't let my daughters hang out with this guy.

Back in LA

2008-02-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

So I'm back in LA this weekend for a college buddy's wedding/bachelor's party. It isn't really because he got married in Korea. Pretty standard issue stuff, a brazilian bbq to stuff our faces and a little poker + jack and coke. It was a $20 lesson that I should not be playing poker. Anyhow, I gave up alcohol for lent, so it wasn't that exciting. The closest thing to strippers was the sports illustrated swimsuit edition photo shoot on HDTV.

I've gotta say, I've still got a little bit of LA in me. We spent hours talking about the Lakers, Mbenga getting posterized by shaq, the three way trade between cleveland/seattle/chicago, the kidd trade, gasol, the works. Everything was spoken in relation to the Lakers. It was awesome! Played some basketball this morning until I was on the floor gasping for air...it was a short game. One of the guys broke his foot while we were playing. Same metatarsal fracture as Ariza. It was weird having everyone looking to me for answers. It wasn't an ankle sprain, he stepped funny and heard something crack. He couldn't bear weight at all, but ottawa doesn't really apply since it wasn't a sprain. Anyhow, for all you med folks, I told him to stop bearing weight, kept his shoes on tight to prevent further damage and keep the swelling down, had em keep it elevated and shuffled him off to the ER. I hope I did the right thing. Sadly, the nearest hospital was LA county, but I told them to drive to torrance (his hometown) so that he wouldn't have to wait 7 hours in pain to get seen. Glowing rec for my future employer.

The day looked up after that. Got some awesome carnitas, then we hit up the LA gun center or something like that. Firing a gun accurately is ridiculously difficult. In addition, those things are obscenely loud. For kicks, we basically got hand canons. .50 caliber revolvers and slug shooting shotguns. My paper thug didn't have a scratch on him. Even worse, I blew off the head of my paper hostage woman. I don't think I'm cut out for that kind of stuff. Definitely should not have one in my house, but I don't care if you have a rifle/firearms at your place joe. Maybe we can shoot some cans or something one day. But I digress, it's been an interesting weekend.

Joe, it's weird not having you here to hit up. Sad to come down here without having you around, but I know that you're at a good place in Seattle.

On a sidenote, you've been watching a lot of scrubs. I'm feeling like a JD, trying to be a turk when I think about going into surgery. Intern year is going to be fun.

-bender

Good times

2008-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks for your advice joe and lonecoyote. The weekend ended up being awesome. Ags' parents are super chill and funny. For the most part, all we did laugh at each other all weekend and eat buttloads of food at the buffets in Vegas. Seriously...no more buffets. I don't even think my poor intestines had a chance to do their thing...overload.

Anyhow, it was good times. Got to sweat it out going to Catholic mass with the family, lost $1 on the slots and watched Mystere. To top it all off, I watched the highlights of kobe beating up on marion and his new team with dad. Freakin' sweet.

-bender

Dethklok

2008-02-08T00:54:00.000-08:00

Seriously... I am addicted to Scrubs and Metalocalypse.

Bender you should check it out sometime. The scary thing is, the music is catchy and I've actually went out and splurged on the cd.

So.. I am not sure about the strawberry thing, it's kinda gay... even for your standards. A bottle of wine would be good, but since her father gave it up, that's not a good idea. Why not get em tickets to see Wayne Newton or something. Hmm or if they golf you could get them a good tee time on one of the courses out there. Or reservations at one of the nice restaurants. Hmm.. also it depends on what kind of people they are, like upper class, upper middle class... ghetto like us. I mean think about it, you and I are from montebello, so if some guy brings us some strawberries when he comes meet us, we're gonna rag on him. But if we were from the west side, we'd be all excited and stuff, talking about how fresh they are and how some mexican got arthritis while picking them and stuff. It's all on them, basically, find out from ags. I mean in my situation, kim's rent's were big coffee and wine drinkers, so I brought them some beans that came from my cousins farm. Fresher than anything they could possibly get, and a bottle of wine.

Sorry if I'm not helpful, but its one of those things that just depends on the type of person. Besides, they'll love you man. Your sweet, nice,adore there daughter, and your gonna be a penis doctor. It's not like your a cook or anything lame like that... wait... aww crap....

Well, I hope you have a good time with them. If you get the chance.... 15 bucks on the number 21 or 20..

And watch metalocalypse if you get the chance.

Joe out...

a little help here joe

2008-02-07T23:12:00.000-08:00

First thing, happy birthday to my buddy rabbit.

Second, I'm flying out to Vegas this weekend to meet my girl's folks. I'm sure that they'll be awesome and we'll have a blast hanging out. This being my first time out, I think I'd really rather be a lot more comfortable if I brought them a gift. I've been having a hard time picking a gift. I played with the idea of getting them an electronic picture frame since they travel a bit and take lots of pictures. I also like the idea of getting them a fruit basket or a wine basket kind of thing. The only problem is, dad may have given up alcohol for lent and my girl just gave up chocolate. It seems like it'd be a cruel joke to bring them chocolate covered strawberries, only to have them offer it to ags and not have her be able to eat it. Cruel and unusual. I've got to say though, they've got some pretty neat stuff out there. The most popular one in sac seems to be a place called sharri's berries, where they sell a dozen strawberries, some easily over $100. Here's an example of the fun stuff they do. Joe, cream puff boy, take notes. Anyhow, leave any ideas you may have. I've got til noon on saturday.

-bender

haha. poor kwame...

2008-02-04T21:54:00.000-08:00

hey joe, this is an awesome article on kwame and his relationship with phil.

Cake Love: L.A. & Kwame

Now that the Kwame Brown Era has officially come to an end in Los Angeles, I thought that I should ask Lakers Coach Phil Jackson what this latest trade to Memphis says about the former Washington Wizards No. 1 pick. Surprisingly, Jackson didn't kill him.

"The reality is, Kwame has a game," Jackson said yesterday. "We're going to miss part of the game he gave to us, which was keeping people away from the basket, knocking people around with his big body. The things he could do when he could run well."

No. He told Kwame what? Yeah, Pau. I'm not kidding - meow. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Jackson is known for his brutal honesty and the 2 ½ year experiment with Brown was filled with the Hall of Fame Coach's classically crass comments about him.

Two months into his Lakers tenure, Jackson questioned Brown's toughness and his inability to recover from a strained right hamstring. "I'm not putting pressure other than just call him (a sissy) every time I see him in the locker room," Jackson said. Jackson accented his accessment by making cat-like "meow" sounds as Brown walked past him. Later, Jackson walked into the locker room, pointed to a brown mink coat stashed on top of the coat rack and started laughing hysterically. "See that's Kwame's," he said.

After a triple-overtime loss to the Charlotte Bobcats in December of last season - in which Kobe Bryant scored 58 points - Jackson put the blame on Brown, who had three turnovers down the stretch. "We're going to feed him Butterfingers on the flight home just so he can feel the effects of it."

A few months later, when the Lakers visited Washington, Jackson skipped the morning shootaround and took his team on a tour of the monuments. He didn't waste the opportunity to take another dig at Brown. "I think we had other guys who'd never seen them, like Kwame Brown," Jackson said. "I hear he came here but I don't think he ever did that."

Yesterday, Jackson basically blamed most of Brown's struggles on injuries that have robbed him of his explosiveness and quickness. Then, he added, "Kwame still has an upside that people haven't seen. He's going to get better opportunities than he did here."

That might be news to Memphis General Manager Chris Wallace, who explained his reasoning for making the Pau Gasol deal by stating, "Brown was the largest expiring contact we could find." Ouch. He didn't even waste any time trying to make anyone believe that the Grizzlies expected anything from Brown, who might not be around long enough to get booed out of Memphis, like he did in Washington and Los Angeles.

"He had as bad an outing as I've ever seen a player have," Jackson said of Brown's seven turnover, boo-sparking performance in a nationally televised game against Phoenix almost two weeks ago. "It was embarrassing for him, but his teammates supported him. His teammates really loved him."

We love ya, Kwame. But see that guy back there? The one with the ball? Yeah, we need him to win, man. You gotta go. (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

Brown's teammates really enjoyed having him around, since he was often the life of the party. Everybody in D.C. knows how much Brown loved to have a good time. Even through he struggled on the court, he always found an escape; usually managed to keep a smile. Forward Lamar Odom said losing Brown, was "like losing a brother."

"All these guys, you start off not knowing them, then you get to be close as brothers. Of course, that hurt," Odom said. "For the most part, you lose a friend and a brother to gain a friend and a brother. You hate to see a friend go, but you make a new friend. Basketball wise, you have to move on. It's part of our business."

When Mitch Kupchak addressed the media after acquiring Gasol, he said the players were happy but upset to see their teammates leave. "But I also know that they want to win games and I think this will help us win games," Kupchak said.

Ronny Turiaf was one of Brown's best friends on the team. When I asked Turiaf to give me his favorite Brown memories, he mentioned Brown's dunk over Chicago's Andres Nocioni and of-course, Brown's most endearing Laker legacy - as the cake chucker.

"The cake was hilarious," Turiaf said, laughing. "It was very, very, very silly."

Kwame wins. Hands down.

If you don't recall. Brown had gone out to celebrate Turiaf's birthday at an L.A. night spot, when a man carrying a $190 cake approached Turiaf for a picture. Thinking that the cake was a gift for Turiaf, Brown grabbed the cake from the fan and tossed it at Turiaf's face. He missed. "Actually, he got me in the back of my head. I had to wash my hair a little bit," Turiaf said with a laugh.

Jackson's initial reaction to the incident was equally hilarious. He said it was "natural" that the cake slipped from Brown's hands. The saddest part of the Brown trade might be the end of Jackson's one-liners.

-bender

Is it true?

2008-02-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

Pau Gasol.. for Kwame, Crittenton, and the 1st draft pick of 08 and 10.

Will this help?

damn nights...

2008-01-27T04:01:00.000-08:00

Messing with my sleeping schedule...want to fall asleep.

On a sidenote, I think it's high time that I start taking it easy with the diet coke and the coke plus. There's an article in the nytimes health section about cola beverages increasing the incidence of chronic kidney disease. It's based off of this recent article from Epidemiology.

1: Epidemiology. 2007 Jul;18(4):501-6

Carbonated beverages and chronic kidney disease.

Saldana TM, Basso O, Darden R, Sandler DP.

Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH, DHHS, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA.

BACKGROUND: Carbonated beverage consumption has been linked with diabetes, hypertension, and kidney stones, all risk factors for chronic kidney disease. Cola beverages, in particular, contain phosphoric acid and have been associated with urinary changes that promote kidney stones. METHODS: We examined the relationship between carbonated beverages (including cola) and chronic kidney disease, using data from 465 patients with newly diagnosed chronic kidney disease and 467 community controls recruited in North Carolina between 1980 and 1982. RESULTS: Drinking 2 or more colas per day was associated with increased risk of chronic kidney disease (adjusted odds ratio = 2.3; 95% confidence interval = 1.4-3.7). Results were the same for regular colas (2.1; 1.3-3.4) and artificially sweetened colas (2.1; 0.7-2.5). Noncola carbonated beverages were not associated with chronic kidney disease (0.94; 0.4-2.2). CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary results suggest that cola consumption may increase the risk of chronic kidney disease.

PMID: 17525693 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I'm not sure that I buy this study. I haven't seen the design of the study yet...I'm thinking that maybe I don't want to give up my coke.

-bender

Nothing new to report....

2008-01-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

Don't have too much to update on, been interviewing at bigger places for more pay and skoo is coo. I think when you drink with coworkers and watch WWE together it makes for some hilarious times. Nothing like indian curry, pizza hut, and body slams.

I never realized how much of big kids we are. My coworkers kids refer to me as the guy who plays xbox360 with them and they always want me to come over. It's kinda funny as when I go over I find myself drinking and chilling with my friends 50% of the time and busting alien ass with his boys 50% of the time. I guess it just shows ya that I'm still a youngen. Or at least I keep telling myself that to feel better.

I know I want kids but I guess only if it means I don't have to grow up. My biggest concern is that I am too much a friend to my kids and not enough of a parent. Cuz I think we all know the parents who are your parents and that's it. Then we know the parents who are too much of a friend to their childs so they get out of hand. I always wonder what makes a good parent, is it just in them, or did they learn it?

Meh, Nature, nurture... well I know I don't believe you can learn it from a book, but I think it can be learned, through life lessons. I also sometimes think some peeps are just born with it, I mean... those damn people you envy who have that damn picket fence two kids, bah... makes me puke.

Well... I don't know where this is going, but Halo 3 is sooooooo different from when I played Halo, too much like CS now.

Joe is out, like a Space Marine who got his ass fragged from behind by an invisible enemy...

It's official...I'm gonna be a schlongologist

2008-01-21T10:13:00.001-08:00

-bender

just a few more hours...

2008-01-20T20:44:00.000-08:00

turns out Jan 21st is the most depressing day of the year.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1704887,00.html?cnn=yes

shit. oh well. haha.

-bender

Chillin'

2008-01-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

4th year of med school is kind of weird. I guess it all depends on what you're made of. Some med students are studs...an oro-maxillary facial surgeon (sp?) classmate of mine is now working as an away anesthesia resident in the surgical suite. He puts me to shame. I on the other hand am goofing off and wasting time. I thought I was a better student than that...that I'd use all of my free time to study and prepare for my real first day on the job as a doctor. I guess I'm pretty weak sauce.

I've been taking night call with one of the urology residents who is working on the SICU with me. My time is divided between checking on my fantasy basketball team, reading blogs, checking my email, hanging out with the nurses and getting late night eats at the cafeteria. Every morning, we've been celebrating all of our hard work by getting pretty plastered at a few local bars where we've gotten to know the owners a little too well. Bloody Marys and Irish coffees in the morning are fantastic. Got a little night skiing in last weekend and this coming weekend will be a great outing in san francisco to check out my brother's new pad in marin.

I finally got my scores back from step 2. I passed...whew. I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but I shouldn't have expected too much after all 5 days that I put into prepping for the test. I'm not sure if I'm burned out, just don't give a damn, too lazy, or a combination of all of the above. I don't know...it's just gotten hard to get out of bed these days. I'll be matching on Monday morning, but trust me, I won't be waking up at 6 am to check where I matched.

Med school is a lot about self discovery. I'm slacking off because it kind of doesn't matter. I don't really get to take care of the really sick patients and all we do is the same stuff every day - tranfuse if low, check cultures - give antibiotics if sick, give fluids if they're not peeing, and mess with their vent settings. It's really all the same ole shit. One of the reasons I did so well down in LA is because I was seriously running on fear 100% of the time, ready to shit my pants at any given moment. That's the environment in which I'm most miserable, but am at my best. I don't know how the match will end up, but honestly, I'll be a little surprised if I don't end up there. hmm...I guess I had always hoped that I'd be one of those self learners. Sometimes I think to myself what would AO do? He is a badass med student in my class from Iowa. Whatever. Joe, I think it's time for a real vacation...a few days on the slopes or something. If you want to come down during ski season, I'd love to have you. $15 friday skiiing at boreal. Let me know.

-bender

Round we go

2008-01-10T14:52:00.000-08:00

So, I'm getting closer to my goal. Sure I've had to change my plans, but when it comes down to it... I'm gonna be working for myself. Whether I start small and expand or start small and stay small... I'm gonna call my own shots, and make money off myself, not have others make money off of me. I'm very excited and have already started my paperwork with the counties up here in washington and will hopefully get approved within the next 6 months or so...

WOOT!!

on a sad note, I know no one reads comics nowadays... but this past year has been the saddest yet most intriguing ever... Captain America dies, and Peter Parker loses his marriage and daughter... BAM!!!

Oh well.. I'm a nerd, so what..

Joe Out...

whittling my time away

2008-01-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

On my surgical ICU rotation. Surprisingly, it's super chill. I spend a lot of time watching my resident do work...write orders, walk around and get x-rays read, that kind of stuff. I'm really well protected by the residents, so my hours are chill, no call and I get weekends off. Get to see some interesting cases though...a near 100 year old lady who broke her neck after racing around in her hot rod, and a 40 something guy who broke his jaw after getting hit in the face by a ballistic frozen chicken. I'm spending most of my free time reading harry potter. All in all, life is pretty good. Can't complain.

-bender

Reasons to Love Washington

2007-12-31T15:29:00.000-08:00

Fred Meyers... nuff said...

Only true one stop shop ever. This place is like Walmart only if they weren't the evil empire and have cheap shit. This place has great quality, great prices. I can't believe Kim could leave WA knowing there was no FM in Cali. I don't think I could survive without this store. Kim and I shopped everywhere for her DS and Brain Age, the whole time I kept saying, it's ok we'll check FM. After Best Buy, 2 Gamestops, Sears, and Game Krazy... we went to FM... and found everything we were looking for, for cheaper. Along with PSU for the Ps2 on clearance. Along with everything else we've gotten at FM, I don't think anyplace in the World Compares to FM. You can keep your Galleria, Montebello Mall, and Walmart... I'll be happy with my FM. Oh yeah... and you can get a refund hasslefree... in CASH.... takes like 20 seconds.

Costco.... nuff said...

Seriously... this is where Costco originated... can't get any better. Along with the fact that Kim and I went on a Sunday afternoon and waited... oh... 4 minutes in line (because I told her to go to a different line but she didn't), seriously.... 4 minutes... IT'S GREAT!!

Joe out...

Sick and Sicker

2007-12-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

Damn, got a nasty bug or something. Can't breathe for shit and spitting up phlegm, and blowing my nose about every 2 minutes. Think this weekend is gonna suck since I have to work a big wedding tomorrow.

Oh yeah, just a side rant... never fly united dammit, flight got cancelled, then they moved me to an impossible flight to catch on the other side of the airport with 40 minutes til the plane leaves and I have to go through TSA. Missed the flight and had to be waitlisted for the flight after that. Didn't get home until about midnight, so yeah... I'm very angry at the airports right now. I spent about 20 hours in them this past holiday, FOR DIRECT FLIGHTS!!! Add that to my 5 hours in the air... that totals to an entire day.... I hate this crap, remind me to stay home next year this time.

New comics come out today, so I guess I'm in good spirits since it's also pay day... WOOT!!!

Other than travelling, this christmas was a nice one, got to see bender and my family and watch AVP:R which was a helluva lot better than the first AVP. Nothing like watching little kids get rocked by aliens in the first five minutes of a movie.

Joe out...

CS

2007-12-27T16:28:00.000-08:00

I took my step 2 CS today, so I'm on my way to becoming a doctor, I guess. It was cool to run into 3 of my classmates at the test. It definitely was not as painful as CK was last week.

Signs that I'm getting old. Losing control of the ole sphincter. I farted in front of my standardized patients. I heard it through the stethoscope in my ear, so I'm pretty sure that my patient heard it. I tried not to laugh, and she had her eyes closed and didn't flinch. Maybe she didn't notice. whatever.

-bender

Steppin' to step 2

2007-12-21T19:06:00.000-08:00

haha. Sorry about the cheesy title. I finally took the multiple choice portion, ck, for step 2 of my boards. Taking the boards is definitely not as bad as working all day under the sun doing manual labor, but it's pretty bad. It's like playing a really bad bopper/slasher game. Like a really bad teenage mutant ninja turtles game, where you just go around beating people up by pushing one button. It actually feels a lot like that. The only catch is you can't stop playing until you beat the game, i.e. 9 hours is up. It's pretty mind numbing and I'm glad it's over.

-bender

Heed the lessons of pre-clinical years

2007-12-19T13:40:00.000-08:00

So I've got this earwax thing going on. Pretty bad. Word on the street is that colace works wonders in removing waxy buildup from your ears. I scored some colace from the peds nurses when I was on EM. Anyhow, the colace had been sitting out for a while, so it was really cold. No matter.

I got a 1mL pipet and got to work flushing out my right ear. I immediately started to get really nauseous and remembered, it's not a great idea to put cold liquid in your ear. I thought, hey, maybe it'll get better once I put it in my other ear. Bad idea. I got super sick and almost yakked all over ma girl's bathroom. There was red strawberry flavored colace all over the sink and I was drowning my head in warm water to try to counteract whatever had occurred in my vistibulatory centers.

Yea. wow. Once you mess with your balance centers, things don't go back normally for a while. I lied around in bed for 3 hours feeling nauseous, said screw it and drove down to LA overnight once I realized that it wasn't going away. I took some tylenol. I still have a headache.

-bender

Game Over

2007-12-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

16 christmas parties, in 13 days... that is my very definition of tired.

So on my second days rest in a row, I only slept for 14 hours. Damn, it was the sweetest thing in the world, ever...

I don't know what I hate the most about the holidays, the nagging from family or the presents. As a child I loved the presents, as an adult I hate them, they cost too damn much, take too much time to find, and basically a month after giving them, the person forgets and tosses it to the side. Seriously the stupidest investment ever. I think next year I'm donating money in everyones name that way it's going to a good cause, not the garage or closet in a month or two.

So I'm going home for the holidays, 4 days to be exact, and it's going to be the most tiring affair ever cuz I have to make sure to see both sides of the familia, and if I don't spend enough time, that means I don't love them, blah blah... seriously, it's like I tell Kim, I fucking hate this time of the year cuz it's not even close to what it was supposed to be. I feel like charlie brown right now.

Joe out...

El Pollo Loco

2007-12-16T22:33:00.000-08:00

I had my first taste of el pollo loco in San Diego, a couple of weeks ago when I got a drumstick to stave off my hunger. It was mind blowingly good. I dragged ma gal out by the airport yesterday to get some of that zesty limey chicken with the awesome salsas and tortillas. Wow, it was awesome. I can't believed I went all these years without it. Joe, how come you never took me to this place? It's been one day and I'm already craving it. Mouth-watering chicken goodness...tasty.

-bender

p.s. So Joe, we watching alien vs. predator 2 for christmas was it? We should get some el pollo loco, or get that peruvian chicken that you're always talking about.

I love craigslist

2007-12-15T14:30:00.001-08:00

I really should be studying for my boards, but...

To the Man in the Motorized Wheelchair

Date: 2007-11-27, 6:45PM PST

You have restored my faith in humanity.

Lamentably, I work in the Lloyd District, and the largest assortment of food offerings in one place is, in fact, that true testament to the Portland Ghetto zeitgeist, The Lloyd Centre Mall. As I was walking toward the down escalator near the cinemas, having procured my foodstuffs, I noted a group of kids in front of me that should, undoubtedly, have been sitting in class in their middle school and were probably reveling in their shared truancy. As they walked, you came zipping around into their path in a motorized wheelchair like the place was the Portland International Raceway.

The quartet of young punks either did not notice or did not care enough to cede the right of way. That did not seem to phase you. No—you plowed right into the middle of them slammed to a stop, and grouchily shouted something akin to, ‘Jesus Christ! Move, motherfucker!’ out of your toothless maw.

I assure you that the profanity was utterly delicious.

Then you shoved down on that chair’s joystick and took off at a speed that indicated that the world had damned well better move for you.

The kids looked on in disbelief. I think on some level they were too flabbergasted to be offended.

Is it wrong that the cockles of my dark little heart just warmed at you schooling those young punks? And is it wrong that I then thought of myself in my old age shouting at kids to get off my lawn? There is hope. There are young punks a-plenty, and it is my most fervent wish that I get to plow down as many as my heart desires when I’m flying around the mall, my colostomy bag blazing like a standard.

Sir, I salute you. Huzzah!

-bender

This is what it all comes down to...

2007-12-12T11:21:00.001-08:00

I finished my last interview at UC Davis. It was nice to see a lot of familiar faces. I love the residents at UC Davis, one of the greatest bunch of guys that I have ever worked with. There is one that is slightly odd, but even the one that I thought was shafting me for my research...he turned out to be the man. He was having some serious disputes with some faculty and he was trying to shield me from the fights - shield me from his opinions of the faculty and save me from association with him. He is gonna put my name on two of his papers from his research period. I really had a nice time out with the guys last night. Now it's time to struggle with my match year and sweat it out until Jan 22. Anyhow, this year has treated me very well. People have hooked me up with great advice, info, research, etc. Lots of thanks to everyone who has supported me through this process. Ma familia, ags, joe, rabbit, hibiscusfire, lonecoyote, and everyone else. y'all have always had my back. A couple quick specific shoutouts...

Dr. Joan Hartnell at the VA. During my family practice medicine, she warned me not to go into primary care and literally dragged me by the hand to the urology office of Dr. Lars Ellison. All dick all the time. My intro to urology.

Lonecoyote - if if weren't for your phone call/advice to switch up my 3rd year schedule to do surgery early, I wouldn't have had enough time to plan out my year, research, letters, make contacts, etc. Thanks y'alls.

-bender