The year of 2021, while horrific in many ways, actually turned out to be a decent year of reading for me. The combination of a global pandemic and my antisocial tendencies lead to a lot of socially acceptable time with a book and a cup of steaming hot tea. Life at it’s finest!
Again, a common theme in my book selections were fantasy and escapist fiction. Had to maintain my sanity amidst Grady wards in a pandemic somehow!
Continue reading “Books 2021”The days are long but the years are short.
As intern year comes to a close, I find it hard to process that it’s almost over. It seems like just yesterday I sat in some amount of dread anticipating the start, although I could not have asked for an easier first rotation. I started July 1 on a neuroradiology elective (easy because it was half-days and no one expected anything from the intern). I subsequently moved onto wards, where my first big challenge was figuring out how to use a pager. I finished Step 3 in October, before moving onto the harder part of my schedule, which included 1 month of ICU and 4.5 more months of wards (2.5 of which were back-to-back inpatient wards…no weekends…frown) Then, after a seemingly endless amount of time on Grady wards, it suddenly ended. It felt bittersweet, although surprisingly, a little more bitter than I anticipated.
Continue reading “Intern year”I started this year with the goal of reading more non-fiction and did well at incorporating non-fiction at the beginning of the year. However as residency started, I leaned back into my beloved science fiction genre. I enjoyed reading more books by Chinese and East Asian authors this year. Of course, Ken Liu (the OG), makes a prominent appearance in my book list. Additionally, I was delighted to discover Rebecca Kuang’s Poppy War series. The trilogy reinvents Chinese folklore and stories beloved by the Chinese diaspora. It’s not a perfect trilogy, but it’s a story that fearlessly explores the tribulations of modern Chinese history, and for that reason was one of my favorite reads.
Continue reading “Books 2020”
My last handful of residency interviews brought me to the West Coast (UW in Seattle, U of U in SLC, and Tripler in Hawaii). While I was out there, dad, Michelle, and I visited CES 2020. The latest and greatest in consumer electronics? Transparent TV screens, 8K TVs, foldable screens, and “smart” everything. In the healthcare section, there were portable, single-use AEDs and monitors for all sorts of physiological markers (heart rate, BP, EKGs, EEGs, etc.).
After CES, I went to Hawaii for my last interview of the season. I don’t have much to report from Oahu which was a low key stay. I did visit the North shore, highlights which include:
Continue reading “CES 2020 and Maui”Faves in bold
The wide open skies, the diverse ecosystems, the abundance of life prepping for the winter…Alaska in the summer teems with beauty and life.
This will be a short post as there are other things on my mind (*cough* residency apps), but I wanted to drop some notes to clear my head.
We went to Denali National Park before boarding a cruise, which took us along the inside passage, passing by Hubbard Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park, Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan. In Denali, we hiked the Curry Ridge Trail where we saw and ate tons of watermelon berries and wild blueberries. We also hiked the Savage Alpine Trail (mile marker 15), which gave us grand views of Denali, which means “the big one” in Athabaskan. When I come back to Denali, I’d love to hike Hatcher Pass and Matanuska peak.
Continue reading “Alaska”
Mountains, oh, how I love you so!
The last time I visited the Dolomites I was fifteen and focused on music. I was a participant in the Schlern music festival, so my days were filled with piano lessons, violin lessons, practice sessions, master classes, and performances. In between it all, I did enjoy a handful of hikes/walks around Schlern and I think upon that trip fondly. (As a side note, why are classical music festivals in the most beautiful of locations? Aspen music festival, Bravo! Vail, Lucerne music festival…the list goes on and on.)
Continue reading “Dolomites!”Short list and mostly fantasy books as escape from the hospital world. .____. Oops. Will try harder for non-fiction in 2019.
It’s hard to provide a sound bite to the question “how are you?” or “how is school?”
How do I explain the pure joy and exhilaration of catching a baby? Of being the first flesh to touch another human? Of owning the two hands that shepherded another human, or four, into this world?
How do I explain what it feels like to be sitting in front of a man sobbing uncontrollably into his own hands because he just attempted to commit suicide? To look into this man’s eyes, someone my father’s age, and be the first person this man must now face? How do I explain his pleading gaze and the pungency of sorrow that encapsulated my whole being and then sent shivers through my bones lasting for days after?
How do I explain the pride I felt after delicately suturing a 6 inch incision across someone’s neck? Yet it was a half-ashamed pride because the only reason the team decided to suture was because the patient was dying of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma. To leave staples would’ve been an insult to this woman who had days, maybe weeks left. (She had 28 days left.)
How do I explain the exhilaration I felt when the HIV screen that I had ordered (and intern signed) came back positive? That I had successfully diagnosed somebody with HIV? But then terrified when I had to deliver the news to this previously healthy young 22 yo male?
How do I…? How do I…? There were so many more How do I’s from these past 40 weeks that I don’t know how to answer. So instead I wrap each of these experiences and memories up as the little bits of sand that they are in the hourglass of my life, and hope that one day, maybe in a year or 10 or 100, I may look back and find pearls in their stead.
Two days after taking step 1, we left for Whistler to ski. After a week in Whistler, the fam went back to the east coast as I continued to head west to NZ. When I visited NZ two years ago, I traveled around using buses and realized that it was quite inconvenient. This time I decided to rent a car.
Vital Signs 