Goodbye Blogger: I've moved!

I've moved, find me at my new home at: http://www.danandcarolyn.info

Making a Difference: My Reflection on El Salvador & Kiva.org

Meet Jorge Raul. Jorge has never met me, nor have I ever met him, but I have met and seen many faces of Jorge in my recent trip down to El Salvador on a medical mission with Mayo Clinic and Operation Blessing. When you realize that much of the world has it much worse off than you, suddenly life takes on a new perspective. Take for example my experience working with our doctors examining the many old ladies who came into our free rural clinic in El Salvador complaining of muscle fatigue and bone pain. Muscle fatigue was simple: despite their old age, they were still working hard in the fields in the scorching sun to scratch out a living. The bone pain? Easier to diagnose than to treat. These ladies, despite their best nutrition, were calcium deficient and are developing osteoporosis. "Increase your calcium intake" we advised them, advised them until we realize that their nutrition consisted of only rice and beans, day in and day out.
"milk is too expensive," they told us. Cheese was a fantasy.

Such societal disparity was shocking to me as I worked in the mountain villages of El Salvador where just a short 40 minutes away was the commercialized hub of San Salvador where I had just dined on sushi at Benihana's the night before and was comfortably lodged in our air-conditioned hotel with wifi, a flat screen TV, bottled water, and a daily hot breakfast. Suddenly a knot of guilt tightened across my belly as I tried to swallow the fried chicken, biscuit, and slaw that was being served to me during our lunch break at the rural clinic. "These starving people are so graciously watching me stuff my face with chicken," I thought to myself, "I wonder if these children have even tasted chicken before?"

While we took no measures to provide ourselves with any extravagance on this trip, in contrast we were basking in luxury compared to the lifestyles of these people whom we were serving. Our $26 a night hotels and "U.S. comparatively half-priced" Benihana's dinners suddenly carried a lot more superfluous cost when we learned that these people living in the hills had to buy their bottled water on the few weekly dollars that somehow they generated through their agriculture or industry.

I could go on complaining about the deprave social condition that we as humanity have let ourselves stoop to, that such circumstances that I've described actually exist, but in continuing to do so, I lend my voice to nothing more than the numerous politicians, the bureaucrats, and the institutions that talk the talk of change and do little in effect to make a difference.

So let us talk about making a difference. In 2006 Muhammed Yunus, a Bangladesh economist was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microloan banking. Gambling against human self interest, Yunus took a chance at the novel notion that poor people nonetheless being poor were still good people. These were people who didn't want to remain poor, Yunus thought. They were products of social circumstance and were suspended because of no means of upward economic mobility. So, Yunus thus started the Grameen Bank in which he started loaning outmoney to the indigent that had a need for money - a plan for industry, or an idea to help themselves out, and what he discovered was a phenomenon that is growing globally today.

There are people like Jorge out there who have an idea, who have an industry, who have a means to get themselves out of the poverty that is tethering them down -- but they lack the equity, the first chance, and the gamble of trust that most financial intuitions operate by when they calculate the odds of their institution ever seeing the money they loan again. Here's were you and I and Kiva.org come in.

Kiva, a non-profit organization which works with other global NPO's and NGO's find people like Jorge who have a plan and have a need. In fact Jorge even had a bio:

Jorge is 42 years old and he lives with his wife and children. He has three children that are the ages of 15, 9, and 4 years old. They are all in public school. Jorge sells chicken and his wife sells food, and they used to always have leftovers. They always used to have to pay people to take away the leftovers until Jorge got the idea to raise pigs and to feed the leftovers to the pigs. He now has 180 pigs. Jorge needs $525 to buy live pigs and food for them. Since Jorge has been in the group Finca, he has progressed economically. Also, he has learned to be punctual in making his payments on loans for his business. Jorge’s dream is to buy a truck for his business.

Merging Yunus's microloans ideas with the global reaches of the internet, Kiva has harnessed the individual's capacity to make a difference. Philantropy now crosses all boundaries as individuals can help individuals directly for as little as extending a $25 loan to someone in need. The beauty of this social experiment is that Yunus's gamble paid off. To date, over 98% of his loans are repaid, and Kiva through their affiliate partners boasts similar returns.

Though this is but a small step in the marathon humanity runs against poverty, it's one small step that I've taken to make a difference directly in someone's life. You can choose to donate separately to Kiva if you wish, but Kiva, unlike many other institutions that will skim your donation, assures you that 100% your money is going where you intend it to go.

Foregoing a meal at Benihana's today may be a small sacrifice that I make, but with Kiva.org I hope that that sacrifice can make a bigger difference in Jorge's life. I invite you to learn more and make a difference at:

http://www.kiva.org

Happy Holidays!

For us, we celebrated a pseudo-Christmas this year on the 23rd as we'll be heading to Las Vegas for Christmas proper as we trek our way up to Salt Lake City for Carolyn's sister's wedding.

Of the big loot that Mikey hauled for Christmas this year was a giant inflatable ball big that he went bonkers over. Here's Davey and Mikey enjoying it. I've updated pictures of Facebook - if you're not my Facebook friend yet, give me a request (mom that would probably be you).

Anyway, I should go pack, but just wanted to wish everyone: Happy Holidays!

Greenwich: Straddling the Hemispheres

Greenwich is famous for its standard time (GMT) that bisects the world into eastern and western hemispheres at 0 degrees longitude, and also known as the prime meridian (the international dateline is its analog on the otherside, but that zig zags around certain islands). Anyways, Greenwich was a great 20 minute boat detour down the Thames. Picking up a high speed ferry from the Tower of London we headed to this smaller city and its observatory in the park and university that is central to the town. As dusk set, you are able to visualize the prime meridian as a powerful green laser beams its path above the point that I'm bouncing around and over in the picture here. You can see our Greenwich pictures in Europe Gallery allery 6, starting from our ferry ride. It's not everyday that you have a picture that spans two hemispheres, let along having the opportunity of bouncing back and forth between them.

I See London, I See France...

And we might also have seen some underpants (or lack thereof) in one of these galleries documenting our dinner excursion through the Montmarte district of Paris. Rest assured the facade of these buildings including the historic Moulin Rouge was as far as we got as we settled for a nice little Italian bistro over the cabaret that evening. In a whirlwind 8 day trip, our journey spanned over 11,000 miles with over 60 hours of travel and as we straddled Greenwich--even crossing over two hemispheres. I brought along the Canon XSi to break in - so pardon some duplicate series of pictures as I was trying to play with the settings and didn't prune these 3000+ (40GB+) worth of photos yet, everything here was taken as is, minus the videos, and scaled down to smaller size. Just as a reference itinerary, this is what David and I covered in the 8 days that we were gone on our version of The Amazing Race:

1. Sunday November 16, 2008: Travel 350 miles by car from Rochester, MN to Chicago O'Hare, hop on a connector flight to Dulles, Washington D.C., enjoy a three hour layover, jump aboard another plane for an 8-hour flight to London Heathrow, figure out how to use the London Underground system and buy an Oyster card, jump on Monday morning's 7am commute to St. Pancras station.
   
   
2. Monday November 17, 2008: Realizing that we arrived too early for our 1 pm Eurostar train to Paris, we meandered the British Library near St. Pancras, enjoying the Magna Carta and various original texts such as Leonardo Da Vinci's notes, Isaac Newton's letters, and Galileo's sketches. The Eurostar was a lost memory due to sleep deprivation, but after pit-stopping in Paris, we walked the Champ de Mars, and ascended the Eiffel Tower
   
   
3. Tuesday November 18, 2008: Visited the Palace of Versailles, the Hospital Museum (Musée de l'Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris) and walked by Notre Dame Cathedral by night. Ascended the Arc de Triomphe, and ended up in Montmarte for dinner and shopping.
   
   
4. Wednesday November 19, 2008: Revisted and ascended Notre Dame Cathedral (Notre Dame de Paris) proper, saw the museum and crypts of Notre Dame, walked through Hotel Dieu and then saw 2-million skeletons in the Catacombs of Paris. We finished the day blitzing through the Orsay Museum, blistering our feet through the Louvre and finished the day at Place Monge, which ironically enough was not happening at all at 10:30 pm at night, though we managed to sup on escargot outdoors at a cafe that spoke not a speck of English.
   
   
5. Thursday November 20, 2008: 5 am Eurostar trip back to London was equally not the most exciting though we arrived plenty early in London to beat the opening of most places at 10 am. We hit up the British Museum, ate out of the supermarkets where food was actually affordable, and visited the Hunterian Museum of John Hunter (1728–1793) as we came in part to study history of medicine by also reading the biography of John Hunter: The Knife Man. We went by Westminster and Parliament but by 3 pm apparently the sun sets in London so we decided to go crash and recoup from sleep deprivation early.
   
   
6. Friday November 21, 2008: London Bridge (Tower Bridge), and the Tower of London started off our day, and effectively ended the daylight too since there was only about five hour's worth. We took a boat to Greenwich and straddled the Prime Meridian with a foot in each hemisphere. A walk through Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square ended our evening.
   
   
7. Saturday November 22, 2008: More walking. More blisters and bursitis. Buckingham Palace probably had a changing of the guard, but we were too pooped to wait and find out, so we walked onwards and across the Thames from Parliament and Big Ben and Westmister Abbey, in fact we walked all the way to the Imperial War Museum where we stayed longer than we expected, and ended up skipping St. Paul's Cathedral, though we walked in and looked around without paying its hefty entrance fee. Finishing the night in Oxford Circus we supped on fish and chips in an English Pub, and nearly died on the late-night tube back to London Heathrow Airport (but that's a story you'll have to ask either David or me)
   
   
8. Sunday November 23, 2008: After a night slouched in the Heathrow airport, reverse Sunday November 16, 2008th itinerary from Heathrow, add 1 hour of lost luggage in Chicago, and we've made it back home from our week of too much fun which was catalyzed by the two of us discovering $48 round trip tickets to London from Chicago.
   

So in the end David and I left our families behind for a week, squandered their wealth, studied some history of medicine, had a great time, came home bearing gifts, and now our trip is yours to enjoy vicariously in these many galleries! (Click the links below to enter each respective gallery which are arranged by 500 images each in chronological order)

Europe 1	Europe 2
Europe 3	Europe 4
Europe 5	Europe 6
Europe 7

Trick-or-Treating for the First Time in 10 Years!

So I had a Remy the Rat & Our Pea in a Pod for our first year as a family to go trick-or-treating with some friends and Mikey absolutely loved it! Carolyn got us some chef hats from the local restaurant supply store, so we took them around and Mikey went door to door with his "trick-or-treat" [then helps himself to handfuls of candy] "teet-you" ('thank you'), and then "next one!" Mikey has watched Ratatouille probably 20 times now, so this was a fitting costume and continues the animal trend from last year's dog costume. Someone did say "what a cute elephant you are!" though. For this person's reference:

This is a rat:

and this is an elephant:

Compare as you dare.

Davey At 2 Months

Davey as of 10/26 hit his 2 month mark, and boy has he filled out. To celebrate we subjected him to the camera and brought Mikey out to fly a kite. Here's an overblown picture for you, think of it as one of those internet speed test downloads, hit the link - and to think this is one fifth of the original file's size.

Every Olympian's Dream

If you watched the Olympics this year, you saw it, I saw it, everyone worldwide saw it: Every Olympian's Dream - One world, one place: A Chicken sandwich for breakfast: The Southern McChicken Sandwich only at McDonald's. For the multiple millions of dollars that McDonald's burned to promote the sandwich, one would think this would be on the magnitude of say the hot dog meeting the bun, new world tomatoes finding old world cheesy bread, or the ice cream getting its cone. Well, in the three sleepless weeks of surgery rotation I just finished I succumbed to marketing hype and picked up one of these in the middle of the night. What a waste of $3. This thing was just about the sickest thing I've ever seen. McD's should be ashamed to market this crap as should we be for eating this garbage! A picture speaks a thousand words, so let these speak to you:

In case you missed the propaganda, I dug it up on Youtube:

Announcing David Michael Chan!

Well it's due time that I blogged about the latest addition to our family, David Michael Chan born August 26, 2008. In the fanfare of the early wee morning hours, Carolyn's labor and delivery was more than uneventful, in fact in retrospect it was quite bizarre!

As the typical labor goes the night cramps started early on the 25th and our trip to the hospital was sometime in the early morning of the 26th. After checking for a false alarm because Carolyn had had her membranes stripped the day before, they admitted her when in fact she was dilated. Fast forward to 8:00 am and conveniently on the shift change. Now post-epidural and into some regular contractions our nurse was pretty confident that Baby David was ready to come out. To the contrary opinion however, the chief resident felt that there was still some time left and left with the attending to round on other patients. No sooner than this occurred and with a subsequent push, sure enough David's head came popping out. Quite about the same time, a fellow Mayo third year medical student (Cara Alexander -- she'll make a great family/OB doc!) came and quite literally caught David as he came popping out! Of course the nurse at this point was off to call the team back and I was standing bedside quite dumbfounded that the whole ordeal unraveled into utter randomness. All's well that ends well, though I can hardly justify the $2700 billed for David's delivery (in addition to the other $14,000 bill that came with the $1500 a night rooms - oh my! Next child or new car? is the eventual discussion that we'll have for Number 3).

Incidentally David has become quite the palindromic baby. We couldn't come up with middle names that we agreed with, so we decided to systematically eliminate the need for formulating one by daisy chaining the boys names together, hence: Michael Daniel, then David Michael - so not only do they have that level of reciprocity, but their birthdates ended up palindromic too: Mikey 6/28/2006, and then Davey with 8/26/2008. I thought that was kind of neat.

It obviously has been over 4 weeks since Davey's delivery and aside from a bug that's come down on the entire family (that I probably dragged in from clinic), everyone's doing well. In fact, we were insane enough to take some time to appreciate the fall colors in a family campout and snagged some pictures for you to enjoy, check them out of facebook as blogger is giving too much grief uploading more here.

Dinner Fusion: Thai Green Curry

This post has been mirrored from the original post at Dinner Fusion

Many of my inspirations come from overpaid dinners at restaurants where I sample the fare and think "I bet I can make this at home." Such it is with the Thai Chili Pepper, a little ma and pop restaurant snuggled in Provo, Utah and the source of Thai cultural cuisine during my college years. Sure this recipe comes at their expense, but with the ease and the simplicity of bringing this recipe from the restaurant into the home, it's little wonder why this recipe is now a family favorite.

Thai Green Curry
Serve with: Steamed jasmine or sticky rice

Ingredients:
1 green pepper julienned (cut into thin strips)
1 red pepper julienned
1 can sliced bamboo shoots
1 can coconut milk
1/2 Jar green curry paste to taste
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 lb raw shrimp (peeled and de-veined) or raw chicken breast (diced)

Directions: (Preparation time 15 minutes)
1. In a saucepan combine coconut milk, green curry paste, brown sugar, shrimp or chicken breast bring to a boil over medium heat and then reduce to low and continue to simmer until shrimp turns color or chicken cooks through (5-10 minutes)
2. Add peppers to mixture and continue to simmer for (5-10 minutes). Keep an eye on the green peppers so that they don't change into a mushy mess. They shouldn't be crispy but they should retain their nice green color still
3. Serve over jasmine or sticky rice and enjoy!

Variations: You can try adding mushrooms, water chestnuts, thai chili peppers, and potatoes for different variations. Also you can try red and yellow curry pastes on this recipe as well.

Dan

Dinner Fusion: Lavosh Margarita Pizza

This post has been mirrored from the original post at Dinner Fusion

So the story goes that the first Margarita pizza was presented in the 1500's to Queen Margarite, an Italian monarch indulging on the first tomato-based pizza, a new innovation stemming from the tomato's recent maiden voyage back to the Old World from the New. Today the Margarita pizza is still on menus everywhere featuring a simple recipe of tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and basil. With a slight Armenian twist, I've adapted my own version of the Margarita pizza that puts old world tastes with a fusion of new. Credit goes to Chester's, a new restaurant in our little town of Rochester, MN that I mimicked this recipe from. If you're ever there try to Lavash Portabella and Chicken Pizza that reflects some of the basis of this recipe

Lavosh Margarita Pizza
Ingredients:
1 Large Lavosh Cracker (Dry)
3-5 Large Vine Ripened Tomatoes
1 Large Ball of fresh Mozzarella Cheese
Fresh Sweet Basil

Directions: (Preparation time 30 minutes)
1. Cut tomatoes to smaller pieces skin on, blend in blender until pureed
2. Transfer into a sauce pan and simmer tomato puree until thickened (about 1/2 the volume)
3. Spread the tomato puree evenly over the dry Lavosh cracker
4. Slice the mozzarella thinly and place on Lavosh
5. Chop fresh sweet basil leaves and sprinkle over the mozzarella
6. Broil in the oven until the mozzarella is slightly browned (about 10 minutes)

Variations: Try other toppings for more variety, or substitute shredded cheese or cheese blends for more American flavors.

Enjoy!

Dan

Weeks 47-51: Summer Vacation and China Trip

Well I'm hopelessly behind in my blog, and out of time to do much updating as my 5 weeks of summer has wound down. But needless to say I had a great summer, 2 weeks of which I spent with a classmate David, and his wife Meghan in China all over the place. I'll fill in the details as I revise this post eventually, but in the mean time I wanted to include the pictures (note I'm still filling in captions so eventually they'll be all updated) that I took for everyone to get an early look at prior to my eventual detail filling. Enjoy!

Weeks 39-40: Research Selective

I spent the greater part of this selective learning about clinical research as I've started a project studying atrial arrhythmia's in patients undergoing hip surgery. We've met with statisticians and our work is in progress and I will report more on this as it is presented and published.

Weeks 33-38: Microbiology & Pharmacology

In a whirlwind of six weeks we discovered the most pertinent medical microbes from bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites that can drop you dead in hours or bloat you up for years full of worms (as pictured, Ascaris lumbricoides removed from the small intestine)

I've always been a fan of "dark biology" and read The Hot Zone when I was only 12 years old and fell enchanted by Ebola and its deadly 90% mortality rate and by its secret stateside escape in Washington within my lifetime! The sensationalism of The X-Files that introduced me to Hanta virus and it just got more interesting from there. One of my favorite books is still The Demon in the Freezer which puts into perspective the danger of not only dark biology in medicine, but also in the context of biowarfare.

To top it all off, I will admit that Outbreak is also one of my favorite movies. All this hollywood sensationalism sure didn't sway me from electrical engineering though, but let's see if it makes a redux in my career choices in the near future.

Microbiology to me was a realization that this sensationalism was not so sensational at all and as we progressively learned the greater part of the infectious disease medical spectrum I became deeply enthralled by the intricacies of each organism and how they subtly invade the body and counter attack our defense mechanisms, and even our drugs that we throw at it. Now granted that I did a stint in a microbiology lab during undergraduate years, I don't think I truly appreciated the nature of just how cool these microbes are!

I mean take for example our friend bacillus cereus, who doesn't do much than give you an upset stomach but is frequently associated with reheated fried rice? I mean how cool is that to be asking a patient about obscure details such as what they ordered for take out the night before? This is borderline crazy - but crazy in a really cool way that might cater to my attention and fascination to detail.

Needless to say there's a lot to remember and a lot to relearn, but I really enjoyed microbiology and thought that it was fascinating, and for now it seems to be bubbling up my list.

Weeks 31-32: Surgery Sective - Fresh Frozen Virtual Living Pigs?

I guess I really need to be less meticulous when it come to life, take blog writing as an example. The current date is September 30, 2008 and this article is pre-dated back to April, that's a good 5 months behind, but I guess this call-it-what-you-may "attentions for detail" helps me out in at least considering surgery as an option.

We spent a week this selective learning and practicing some basic skills on tissue, on simulation, and then I real live pigs! It was pretty interesting as we learned some of the ins and outs of suturing, knot-tying, making incisions as we worked on day one on some fresh frozen tissues next to some ENT residents who were also working on their skills on dismembered heads. Despite being acclimated to this type of environment I still find it very surreal and disturbing that yes indeed there is much 'practice' in medicine, and sometimes in the most morbid of circumstances to say the least. I mean no disrespect in saying so though as I am extremely grateful for the donors who are willing to help in medical education -- it just seems so primative though for how far along we've come, I would've thought that an entire anatomy dissection would have been in full 3D high definition tacticle reproduction right now - I guess I'm realizing that I just don't have the greatest stomach for gross (in all of meanings) anatomy and perhaps that I'm lowering pathology and radiology from my list of possible career choices.

Strangely enough I find surgery fascinating though and I guess the 'gross' factor dissipates a little more in 'real life.' I shadowed an orthopod doing hand and shoulder surgery this week and saw a rotator cuff repair as well as a procedure that removed some bones in the hand. We also had a session in Mayo's Sim Center where we did virtual colonoscopies, endoscopies, knot tying and sutures with instruments, and even a gallbladder removal that we ended up performing on a living though anesthetized pig! The good news? We got the gallbladder out without the pig crashing. The bad news? Wilbur's prognosis despite the fact was still terminal as they don't wake him up from that sleep again. I guess you can think of it as a better cause than $14.99 in your butcher's case though. Poor pig.

Well that was a taste of surgery for me, another step into a confusing realm of seemingly endless prospects to my intial urge to "want to help people." Now I just need to figure out how.

Weeks 26-30: Pathology, Immunology, Allergy

Pathology wound up to be a quick overview of all the pathology that we won't be really covering in organ systems in second year and focused mainly on inflammation, cancer, and some of the hallmark signs and symptoms of histology that all seems more like a blur. Our teacher, Dr. Grande, also our dean in the medical school did a great job accommodating our needs and taught the block exceptionally well with the help of some upper class men that helped us review and study from resources such as typed lectures, video recorded lectures, and even review podcasts to listen to. It was resource overload, but I appreciated the abundance of resources as opposed to a dearth thereof.

Immunology on the had was a little bit fresh in its organization. Three teacher taught the new course for the first time and they did a great job despite some quirks in the integration of all the materials. The medical school provided us with a textbook that ended up much too elementary and the board review books ended up to be my main text for the class although I wish I had read an immunology textbook proper for the block as it would have solidified my understanding a little better. Immunology was interesting in the sense that there is still so much unknown about the human immune system and in another sense so fascinating that our bodies have such intricate defense systems against the tiniest of organisms - some of which as I found in later in microbiology will drop you dead.

Allergy really was an extension of immunology with IgE and histamine release as the central focus. Interesting how allergy spins off clinically as such a vital differentiation from immunology, but the basic concepts were the same. Clinically I think a lot more people will see allergy as something they have experienced first hand as opposed to immunology that for the most part is passive and less acute than say the rash you got after eating the crab you just got (true story of my 9 year old crabbing experience... I think it was less the crab and more the industrial waste absorbed in the crab that I was allergic to).

The block ended in a most eventful way with a catastrophic internet failure Mayo network wide the day of our NBME (online) shelf exam final. So far our class has had the worst luck with test administration ranging from computer failures, mac incompatibilities, to now this. Who could complain with Dr. Grande though who waived the final and gave us the chance to take it electively after our selective? This was the most refreshing and low stress didactic block by far.

A Tale of Three Wii's

Finishing another block pushes me another six weeks behind on the blog, but it suffices me to say that all's well that ends well, and so it was with microbiology and pharmacology. Actually microbiology was really interesting and hopefully on my week by week recap I'll be able to highlight some of my favorite microbes for your entertainment.

Pharmacology on the other hand was not one of the most organized classes we've had here (thankfully microbiology was one of the best), so sometimes lectures went long and tangential. One day in the middle of the block I was slouched over, daydreaming, and more or less catatonic when all of a sudden in a cacophony of forgotten-to-be-muted rings and chimes I was startled back into reality as my phone started ringing, notifying me of a new text message, a new voicemail, an email, and an instant message--it was a wiialert! I didn't have a moment's time to lose as I knew that I had to act fast. Faster than an orderly running for a crash cart on a coding patient I was at Amazon.com within seconds checking out with 3 Nintendo Wii's for a pricey $750. They sold out again within a minute's notice but my order which I had attempted many times prior had finally gone through.

So the story ensues with 42 of my classmates + 1 world renown lecturer looking in my direction as I pursued the three elusive Wii's. I had postings up on Craigslist and the Mayo Classifieds within minutes, and within minutes I had two calls from people who were already interested in buying them. There was just one problem: I didn't have any of them in hand yet. One of the callers however decided to stick with me and he became Wii #1 starting my story of the three Wii's.

Wii #1 went to a man who's wife went in for surgery at Mayo and needed something to keep her entertained while she would be recovering for the next few weeks. He showed up in leathers looking like he was ready to kill, I thought he might be with Hell's Angels as he unrolled a wad of cash and gave me a cool $300. I was waiting for the ATF and FBI to jump me at any moment and I think I still am.

Wii #2 "Hi this is so and so from Luther Midelfort Northland am I speaking to Dan?" is what I heard when I picked up the phone. Confused and swearing that I heard that so and so was from Dunder Mifflen I was bracing to retaliate against this unsolicited sales call on my donotcall.gov phone number. I was pleasantly surprised however when the individual on the line inquired about the Nintendo Wii and I was even more impressed that they turned out to be a Mayo department. "Umm sure I can take a corporate check, and send it through the Mayo intraclinic courier system... or I could drop it off to you..., wait, you're in North Wisconsin!?" Wii #2 is pending a Mayo Clinic billing department corporate check. I sold a Nintendo Wii to the Mayo Clinic!

Wii #3 Went out the door this morning. I had just come in from playing with Mikey outside in the 1/16th of a inch of snow we received last night when I got a call from a desperate women on the other end of the line. "Are you Dan? Do you still have your Wii available?" I told her I did and was immediately barraged with "Thank you thank you thank you thank you - you are my hero - thank you! Can I buy it from you right now and can we meet half way?" Considering the notion that I would need to get ready and go somewhere I was caught off gaurd on this lazy Saturday morning and mustered up little better than a prolonged "Ummmm..." "Well you see, my best friend is having a wedding and it is right now, and I'm the bridesmaid, and I didn't know these damn Wii's were so damn hard to find in the whole city (try the whole country I thought to myself), and now I'm late and I need one to give to them because that's what they wanted and I've been looking all morning." *Sigh* fine, I can get ready I thought to myself, heck I can even dig up a gift bag for it, but what frightened me was what she asked next: "So how much does a Wii usually cost? Is there anything wrong with the one that you are selling? Can you promise me that it will work?" This is an example of a very bad buying situation for the buyer, had I been a malicious salesperson I could've probably exploited this situation pretty badly and left the buyer out of money and out of luck. But being the nice guy that I think I am I only scooped her for the $50 commission and now in turn have christened a wedding with a Wii.

So there really wasn't much of a point to this post. Sure pharmacology was probably the worst of times, and this wii alert in class that day probably was the best of times, but the real enjoyment that I had from the sale of these three Wii's wasn't the fact that I could pay our utilities for three more weeks, but rather the three little crazy vignettes that I otherwise never would have acquired. So the moral of the story is: if you ever stumble upon a stash of Wii's one day, maybe try picking one up and if not to play, list it for sale and see what comes your way.

Week 25: Pathology, Immunology, Allergy Begins

So initially I thought we were done for in this block - to say that we were going to learn pathology, immunology, and allergy in six weeks? I would've told you that that was preposterous, until we met Dr. Grande. Dr. Grande is our dean of academic affairs, and I think the wheels and cogs behind our Mayo Medical School six week block curriculum. If there was someone who understood this new teaching paradigm and how it is supposed to be taught it was him. Dr. Grande is also a renal pathologist here and thus chaired not only this block, but also taught us most of the pathology we learned this block. To say the least (retrospectively) this block turned out to be the least stressful and most enjoyable of all our blocks thus far (well the ones in which we were learning some basic science), and it proved to be an effective demonstration of how medical school can be relatively stress-free while you actually learned something! The good news as we learned early on was that the six weeks spent now were only covering general pathology and that the organ specific pathology would be revisited throughout the next year as we move into organ system blocks starting block VII. Another nice change to our curriculum that was intended initially in our heavily didactic blocks was the availability of a free afternoon in which we could actually go study rather than sit in another class until 5:00pm. Dr. Grande made sure that at least three of the five days of the week this block were open, a much needed model that we could've used in histology and anatomy when days went 8 am-5pm (or later) upwards to four out of five days of the week. Since didactic blocks really aren't the most exciting things to blog about (I could just link you to our textbook and have you read it if you really are interested), I'll spend some of the ensuing five more weeks of this block focusing a tad about how each of the pathology, immunology, and allergy components went these six weeks, and a bit about the health behavior and introduction to the patient course that winded up more or less this block with our ability to complete a full physical exam.

Week 23-24: Winter Break

Well my mom came up from Salt Lake City, Utah to visit our family and she really enjoyed spending time with Michael in particular. We decided to take this two week holiday to go and explore some of northern Minnesota so we took a drive up to Duluth, MN to see the North Shore area of Lake Superior. We swung by Split Rock Lighthouse State Park and Mikey loved the water that we saw and wanted to play in it despite the sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures that we were in. Here's a collage of pictures over the break that I hope you enjoy!

Family Snowmen	Our Christmas Tree
Christmas Morning	Mikey & Grandma
Giant Microbes	New Paint Pents
Sledding	Ice 'Skating'
Mikey & Gramdma	Duluth. MN
Winter Swimming	The Beach
Mikey & Grandma	Lake Superior
Split Rock Lighthouse	Shoreline
Winter Hiking	Ellingson Island
Rock Sitting	Stuffing Face
Camera Shy	Balls!