Week 5

Hello everyone!

Sorry for posting a little late. My schedule has been completely different since I recently got a job so I've been trying to find a good time to blog. Regardless, several interesting things happened to me this week that I thought I should share with you all.

When I came back to the Mayo Clinic after not being there for a whole week, the cardiologists were happy to see me again. I mention this since they made me feel like I belonged there. It was as if I was a part of their family and I've only been there for a little over a month. It felt truly wonderful to be in a place where I felt truly appreciated just for being there. Dr. Steidley was happy to see me again after spring break and in fact, gave me a packet containing excellent resources from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for applying to medical school. He gave me information on what I needed to do during college, when I needed to do it during, how the test will be different, as well as the profile for the Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota. All of this free knowledge I've been given has encouraged me to be even more proactive when I do go to college. I'm sorry if I'm rambling, but I feel blessed to be given access to all of these resources in medicine and to be able to experience moments that restore humanity.

One of those moments occurred earlier this week where Dr. Steidley and I were walking to the ICU when all of a sudden an alarm rang and on the intercom a nurse said "Code Blue". I found myself running with Dr. Steidley to one of the operating rooms where one patient was thought to be going through cardiac arrest. There were fifteen nurses and three doctors (including Dr. Steidley) who tried to stabilize the patient while monitoring his vital signs. The whole ordeal lasted for about a few minutes, but it felt like someone one would see from "Grey's Anatomy". In the end, it turned out the patient just had a seizure and was going to make it through. Seeing nearly twenty people working in unison to save one life was incredible and in that moment I was not overcome with anxiety but rather relief. I can't explain why, but despite how extreme that situation was I felt as if everything was just going to be alright in the end. It might be just from my association with the people I've encountered at the Mayo Clinic, but their professionalism and calmness in this situation was inspiring. I can say that I can not forget this moment for it perfectly summed up the reason why I wanted to be a doctor.

Now to talk about my project itself.

On Thursday, we sent our final version of our manuscript to THAOS. As proud as I was of our accomplishment, I was dismayed to learn that we would hear back from the committee in five weeks for approval. I found it sad, since by the time we found out my SRP would be over and I wouldn't have had the chance to use the data that we would have received from Pfizer to calculate each patient's MCF. This might be a major roadblock, but Dr. Steidley and Dr. Maurer are trying to speed up the review process from five weeks to one, since THAOS has a monthly meeting where they review sent research proposals. Our fear is that our proposal won't make it in time for this month's review. The worst case scenario is that it doesn't and that I'm going to have to find another way to find the MCF using different data. I don't know what our plan is for now, but as soon as I do I will let you all know.