Bad Weekend

Two rescues. A lot of time on skis, with avy probes and shovels out. One fatality- he didn't see anything coming and did nothing wrong. One survivor- a knowledgeable skier in a spot no knowledgeable person should have been.

Maybe I'll write about it later...

The medical school students I'm teaching sure saw what a lot of SAR is about this weekend.

New Blog and Some Motivated Students

EE pointed me towards a blog co-written by a psych resident and an ER resident. It *almost* makes me want to go back to working in an ER. But then I think about playing with helicopters and all those silly feeling go away. Anyway, check it out: http://serenitynowhospital.blogspot.com/

I started teaching our annual Wilderness Medical rotation for the 4th year medical school students today. Needless to say it'll probably be their easiest rotation, but I'm hoping we can make it a lot of fun. I did get a call from the Dean of their medical school this morning:

Dean: "I'm a little nervous about a lowly EMT teaching a med school class, what makes you certified"
Me: "(All of the BS letters behind my name, blah, blah, blah) and I think I have enough experience to be able to introduce them to real life wilderness medicine.
Dean: "Oh, well, ok. They'll be writing evaluations on you though. So be warned. I don't want this to be a 2 week vacation for them. Med school can't be fun..."
**paraphrased slightly... and over exagerated

To be honest, I'm really excited. All of the students are motivated and learn quickly. Traits lacking from 99% of my undergraduate students. I guess that's why they're in medical school.

If you're a medical school student interested in a fun rotation leave me a message on here and I'll get in touch with you. Topics we're covering:
-Search and Rescue basics
-Patient Packaging
-Patient transport decisions
-WMS approved wilderness medicine curriculum (same stuff we teach the docs)
-Basic Rope skills (raising, lowering, low angle evacuations)
-Helicopter operations
-A few practice rescues

Plus, you'll get too do some rotations with the docs on ski patrol (assuming you can ski or board) and any call out I go on while you're in my class you get to tag along on.

Enough shameless plugging. Back to writing lectures on acute abdomens:

Its the little things

I have the best girlfriend known... I swear. Why? Because this is what I woke up too: Click Me

Except in a tuperware and in my back pack. What'd you think I was going to link you too?
On the morning before a big mutha of an OChem exam it really is the small things in life. And a lot of Red Bull. And some trashy pop to keep me awake.

Ouck FChem

I have yet to hear a logical argument as too why I have to take organic chemistry to be a good physician. The pre-med requirements don't even require anatomy...which is something that I would actually use on a daily basis.

Case in point. My mentor has a graduate degree in organic chemistry. He says it was the most pointless piece of bullshit he's ever undertaken. No medical school student I've meet (and I teach them, I've meet quite a few) has claimed that Organic Chemistry has helped them at all in any class.

As a final piece of argument I cut and pasted multiple questions from my honors physiology, honors anatomy (two classes... our college doesn't do the BS combined crap), general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics classes into an exam and had 20 medical school students, residents, and attendings I know take it for fun. These are folks who are in the top of their class, chief residents in internal medicine, and residency directors in multiple fields (oncology, radiology, surgery) respectively.

The questions they got right were all from the Physiology and Anatomy sections.
Not a single person answered a general chemistry, organic chemistry, or physics question right.

Hence, it is proven that you need none of this bull shit to practice medicine. Want us to prove* we're intelligent? Have us take something that matters.

*Intelligence is not an A in Ochem.... which is no way proves you will be a good doctor.

Power Point Hell...

I teach A LOT of classes. From advanced first aid to Basic and Advanced Wilderness Life Support to a 4th year medical school student rotation.

While I like to spend as little time in a classroom and as much time outdoors as possible (that's where you learn it all anyway) some lecture time is a necessity. This often means power point and
I
Hate
Powerpoint

At least most of the ones I have to sit through as a student. The slides have too much info on them, they're boring and when the professor just reads off them I wonder why I even came to class.

I'd rather make mine, simple, to the point and interesting. This may be my favorite site to help with the last aspect:
Free Medicine PowerPoint Templates

I'm teaching a diabetes lecture tomorrow, I think I'll use this one:

Struggling

I've been struggling with what I want to write on here.

I'd love to recount stories of SAR callouts, and I have for some one the more interesting ones, but I've found that for the most part 90% of them follow the same basic outline:

-Hiker/Skier/Snowmobiler is TLS (Tired/Lonely (or lost)/Scared) and calls us
-We usually have a good idea where he/she is
-We hike in
-We hike them out (yes, if they can hike out they weren't that hurt in the first place...)

There have been some interesting ones but they've been few and far between (and I've written about most of them).

So, what should I write about? I'd love to talk some about how I see technology helping and hurting our search and rescue team. Or, even the general attitudes in EMS and medicine. Any other ideas?

Fuck it all

My parents are some of the healthiest people in their mid fifties I've ever meet. Between the two of them they've:

• Ridden bikes from one side of our home state to the other
• Kayaked the ENTIRE Missouri river from Montana to St. Louis
  
• Hiked the entire Ozark Trail
• Spent weeks in Banff, Yellowstone, Glacier, Zion, Arches, Colorado, and god knows how many other places backpacking

They eat right, sleep lots, exercise a ton (in a healthy, no obsessive way), and live outside the city.

And in the past six months they've both been diagnosed with cancer.

What
The
Fuck