moxie

my physiology professor is awesome. dr. norton is old school. he rocks the chalkboard, and explains things like they're supposed to be explained. he uses clinical applications, and makes sure that the obscure stuff we're learning about sodium or potassium applies to that whole business of us wanting to be doctors. he also really likes moxie. the first ten minutes of our first class served as an introduction, not to physiology, but to moxie. we listed carefully as he explained the process of moxie offending your taste buds so much that you end up liking it. you might also be interested in knowing that moxie is the official state soft drink of maine. does your state have an official soft drink? i didn't think so. the picture above was on the overhead (mmhmm that's right, dr. n don't mess with no powerpoints) for this 10 minute introduction, and the moxie was cracked open half way through class. but dr norton, REALLY likes moxie. during our next class he put this picture up again, this time with his face superimposed onto the moxie guy. he has enjoyed a moxie during every class since then.

a word on the title

on the first day of class dr. koester explained that every two students would be given a bone box, complete with one half of a human skeleton courtesy of india's bone trade circa 1950. the way he explained it, bodies were taken out of alleys in india, boned (or de-boned?) and sold to medical schools. now if that wasn't unethical enough, according to this article, the bone industry was so lucrative and out of control that bodies were taken out of graves? come on now. either way, the indian government has since outlawed the export of human remains, meaning that we must take particular care with our fifties themed carpet trimmed box o' bones.

Sue and I have made a point of enjoying the lovely beach weather and taking our bone boxes (she's got a right, i've got a left) out to the sand of our very own, hills beach. The neighbors love it, and just in case we didn't already have nerd stamped on our forehead, it's written in our bones now.

back at it

As much as I love to write, I never thought I’d be getting into this blog writing business. But after an exuberant response to ye ole, Bratwurst on Pyramids, I thought, why stop? Because medical education and the medical world are so incredibly over the top and foreign to so many, I thought it might be interesting to take it down a notch, and chronicle these next four transformative (hopefully: I mean, if becoming a doctor ain’t transformative, I don’t know what is) years. In my mind, I was going to get it together enough to have this truly start on day 1 (I know, what a joke)…instead, I’ll have to reflect a little on the last week, and then dive in. Oh, and just as a disclaimer, considering my workload (yes, I have a bone box, and yes, I need to learn every notch and every grove on every bone in human body) and my lack of fantastical photographs (no polish beer, no irish landscape) these posts will be much sparser. Regardless, enjoy.