April Blog

April: 6
Spring Cumulative: 13 hours

After finishing our NBME final and our last Cell Control Mechanisms exam, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I was very nervous about beginning this program at a new school and moving to New Orleans. I was living even further from home than I have ever been and had to try and make it on my own. When I finished undergrad, I still had reservations about myself, wondering if I have what it takes to become a doctor. This program has helped me regain confidence in myself. I am grateful to have been a part of a program that truly embodies Tulane's mission statement "Non sibi, sed suis". The path to becoming a doctor is a challenging and stressful one, but I did not feel alone. The enormous support from the professors and staff motivated me to keep pushing forward and believing in myself because I felt they believed in me. Even though the program is done, the grind doesn't stop. I have already begun studying for the MCAT again and working on my applications while striving to adopt a healthy lifestyle through it all. 

In November before our Thanksgiving break, my class worked together on a group service project. We made holiday cards for the Louisiana Methodist Children's Home, and so we decided after our last exams to all get together and do it again. It was a lot of fun hanging out with my classmates again in a non-stressful environment. We jammed out to music, joked around, and showed our card-making skills off. 

When I was at LSU, a personal passion of mine was HIV prevention and education where I was the chairman of LSU's Be PrEPared committee. Baton Rouge and New Orleans had the top 5 infection rates in the country. I focused on providing education and testing opportunities for the LSU campus and the surrounding Baton Rouge community. It was challenging finding places in New Orleans that were accepting volunteers especially because COVID was still a prominent factor during the fall semester. However, in line at the pharmacy, a lady had a shirt for Crescent Care, which is a local healthcare clinic in New Orleans, I began talking with her about my past work with HIV and she said I could come volunteer. I was able to actually administer HIV tests and help providers counsel the patients on prevention, testing, and the next steps if they, unfortunately, tested positive. I find working with infectious diseases can be emotional, but the intimate connection you make with a patient and supporting them in what seems to be the darkest point of their lives sometimes is an unbelievably rewarding experience. 

March Blog

March: 1

Spring Cumulative: 7

March has been the fastest month of all. In just four weeks I feel like our schedules have lightened tremendously preparing for our NBME final, yet the more time we have the faster it seemed like this month went. We concluded the Medical Pharmacology course with the psychiatry module. Treating psychiatric disorders is very complex and filled with lots of trial and error most times, due to the unpredictability of a patient's response to the medications. 

In our environmental signaling course, there has been one common theme I have picked up on, the importance of clean water. What many people who live in New Orleans do not know is that the potable water, treated by the sewage and water board, comes from the Mississippi River. One might initially think that is great because there is an endless supply of it. Although there is an endless supply of it, there is a problem. The EPA regulations for clean potable water are very specific for chemical and microbial contaminants. The difficulty is the enormous amount of unregulated contaminants. The Mississippi River is the second-largest drainage system in North America. 10 states directly border the river, and 16 states are known to drain into it. So for miles from the top of the country, enormous amounts of toxins are draining into the river and don't to the Gulf of Mexico where Louisiana is the last state it runs through, so we are getting water from a river where 16 states have already dumped their toxic contaminants into. I have been working on filing forms with Crystal, my class co-representative, to see if chain grocery stores, like Target and Walmart, can donate water filters to local family homes. Hopefully, we get a number of donations and can buy some as well and the class will join Crystal and me in passing them out around the community. 

February Blog

February: 3 hours

Spring Cumulative: 6 hours

February comes to an end and we only have 2 months left of the program. My heart is heavy that this program is coming to an end. I have grown to love my classmates and every one of my professors. Stress has also been building up. Next month we have multiple meetings with different Dean of Admissions to medical schools so we can get advice on building our application, so this is exciting! This month we had 2 modules on reproduction and another on neurological diseases and pain management. Incorporated with the neurology module we had another SIM session like we did in the fall for the cardiovascular system. I really like when we do these outside exercises, not only because they are fun, but they help you with active recall and get a glimpse of a real-world scenario when treating a patient. 

Our patient was Mr. Thobodeaux who was shot in his left leg and complained of right eye pain from possible shards of glass in his eye. So as "physicians" we had to choose medications to treat his pain without causing other complications somewhere else. It was very informative and helped tremendously in applying and differentiating between the various opioids and other pain management medications. 

Towards the end of the month, we celebrated Mardi Gras, which was my first one here in New Orleans. "Laissez less bons temps rouler" (let the good times roll) was filled all weekend during our Mardi Gras celebration. I got to spend it with lots of my friends I've made in the program who were also experiencing their first Mardi Gras as well. It was the best experience so far. 

Prior to Our break for Mardi Gras, it was fitting for our neurology module, we learned the most frequent and common injuries during the span of Mardi Gras are head traumas. Which is also noted to increase the incidence of other neurological diseases like Parkinson's Disease or even Alzheimer's Disease. Nevertheless, every bit I have learned so far is easily applicable to everyday life. 

This month I went back to Covenant House and helped organize the donation room again. They have recently bought a new building to expand their mission in helping young children and adolescents who are homeless or victims of trafficking or even abuse and things alike. I will be going a couple weekends in March to help with cleaning up and reconstructing the new space so Covenant House will be able to provide more services to the greater New Orleans area. 

January Blog

January: 3 hours
Spring Cumulative: 3 hours

After a two-week break, I am ready to get back on the study grind. The first month back in the swing of my school routine flew by. Already, we are through January and I can already feel May approaching so quickly. I was a little anxious starting this semester. Remembering how much we had to do in the fall, the spring was awaiting more hours than the fall, along with MCAT prep and getting my applications ready to apply for this upcoming medical school admissions cycle. So far, I really like how the semester is set up. For instance, we are able to take electives that help further our endeavors in research so we can better guide our patients as future physicians. Ironically, one of the courses is on endocrine pharmacology, which will teach us how to look at stress and essentially make it our friend. On the road ahead, I and many of my classmates will continuously face stressful circumstances and even after our education is complete, life will be stressful. With the help of the endocrine pharmacology course, I will be able to look at stress from a new angle and hopefully make stress my friend, knowing that it is my body's way of preparing for the task ahead. It will also be beneficial in helping my future patients with their own health. 

With the program nearing its end, we have had to start thinking about what is next. For me, it is applying to medical school. Thinking about this tends to get me stressed out even more. I think I did fairly well last semester, but I second guess myself and fear it may not be good enough to get into medical school. I am fortunate to have a strong support system from my family and friends, who are always cheering me on. Their support helps keep my head clear and motivates me to keep working hard. 

This month, I went back to the crescent city farmers market again and was happy to see familiar faces. One of the vendors told me about awesome live music festivals and of course what is to come for Mardi Gras, which is right around the corner. I am trying to make the best of what might be my last semester in NOLA. 

December Blog: Time Flies

December: 7 hours
Fall Cumulative: 13.5 hours

This month I volunteered at our local farmers market. I was able to assist in marking spots for the vendors and assist with setting up each booth. A few vendors had unique homemade products they were selling and others had produce that was incredibly fresh and vibrant. Better than anything I have seen in a grocery store! Some were selling mushroom products; they had raw mushrooms, ingestible oils, and substrate blocks for people to grow their own at home. I read their flyers claiming the products had immune boosts, anticancer properties, and many other health benefits. It brought me back to our autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular module which had a section on cholinergics that included muscarine from mushrooms. I started asking about the different ingredients in the vials of mushroom oil the vendors were selling, and thinking back on what I have been learning for our upcoming test on GI and Neoplasia. We didn't discuss any anticancer properties of mushrooms, but we did learn several other vegetables like cruciferous vegetables that have been shown to have antitumor properties.

I am very fortunate to be a part of a school that emphasizes community involvement. This is something I have thought a lot about growing up in my hometown, and I am proud of the volunteering I have done in New Orleans. I hope to find even more ways to positively impact the community next semester. The push for community service has really helped me embrace Tulane's motto, "Non sibi, sed suis", which means not for oneself but for one's own. 

I cannot believe the semester is already over. In just a few months, I have learned so much about pharmaceutical drugs, their kinetics, their dynamics, and the human body. I got to celebrate Hanukkah with friends for the first time and meet new students in the other master's programs at a BMSSA social for Tulane. So far this program has challenged me with tough material in the classroom, but I feel confident it is conditioning me for success in medical school and as a future physician. One thing I hoped as I started the semester was to maintain a steady routine of studying, working out, eating, and socializing. I still have a lot of work to do on because as the semester progressed it got more challenging to maintain this routine. Unwinding on this much-needed winter break, I am looking forward to what is to come this next semester, and working hard on time management, fitness, proper sleep, and studying. 

November Blog

November: 3.5 hours

Fall Cumulative: 6.5 hours

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to you! I hope everyone reading this had an amazing holiday and had a chance to eat lots of food. I was fortunate to get a week off of school after our Renal and Pulmonology exam the Monday before thanksgiving. It was a much-needed break and I was happy to go spend some time with my family and take some cute holiday pictures on my family's property. 

November was definitely a busy month with school even though the lectures were spaced out more to give us time to retain and understand the dense material. The first week of November we were wrapping up our in-depth Cardiovascular System module. Compared to the previous module dealing more with the autonomic nervous system and its effects on the cardiovascular system, this module focused on treating cardiovascular diseases and comorbidities which are common conditions most physicians will see in their practice. Needless to say, this module was extremely important. We had a really cool simulation exercise to end the week, where Dr. Ledoux, a cardiologist at Tulane, guided us on caring for our patient Mr. Boudreaux who presented to the Emergency Department with chest pain. Dr. Ledoux surprised me when she called me up to Mr. Boudreaux first, to try and get more information about his chest pain but I was so nervous I couldn't think! Participating in the simulation helped everything we had been learning about the cardiovascular system come full circle and really make sense. We were able to look at "real-time" ECG recordings and how Mr. Boudreaux responded to different medications we administered. I especially liked how Dr. Ledoux would call a "time out" during different time points and ask us questions to keep us engaged. The simulation exercise definitely gave me insight into how quickly things move in a clinical setting while also exhibiting how fundamental pharmacology is in treating a patient. Even though Mr. Boudroux wasn't a live human patient, it definitely helped me appreciate the intricacies of pharmacology because I will soon be in a position where I am the one prescribing/administering medications to my patient and Dr. Ledoux will not be there to call a "time-out" and help. It will be ONLY me! A scary but also exhilarating thought.

The week before our Thanksgiving break, I worked with my class co-representative in facilitating a holiday card-making event as a class service project. I was extremely appreciative of the idea from a fellow classmate and almost everyone in my class participated. We had a great time listening to Christmas carols and crafting cards that will be delivered to the Louisiana Methodist Children's Home, whose goal is to provide services "of strengthening individual, family, and community life". It was fun bonding with everyone and having a small amount of time where we were not stressing out. 

After returning to New Orleans after my thanksgiving break, I volunteered at Covenant House New Orleans. Over the break, Covenant House got a lot of large bags of donated clothes that needed to be unpacked and sorted through. As I was working, I had a chance to visit with the executive director Mrs. Rheneisha and she explained how these donations, which are majority clothes, help the kids feel more confident in themselves and when they go for job interviews. Even some kids at Covenant House have children of their own, and with the help of Covenant House, they are able to care for their own kids, get the medical care they need, and counseling in areas like tutoring for school, job counseling, trauma therapy, etc. 

This semester has flown by and I cannot believe there are just two weeks left. I feel like it was just a couple weeks ago that we were on zoom with everyone having our first meet and greet. 

 

October Blog

 I spent my afternoon volunteering at Second Harvest Food Bank. I helped unload pallets of canned goods so we can package them for families. Of course, I can never forget labeling a can of diced rotel tomatoes and out of nowhere they turned on the radio and I left there with a song from Alvin and the Chipmunks stuck in my head, "I told the witch doctor, I was in love with you; Doh, doh, doh, doh; And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do; He told me; Ooh ee ooh ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang". Needless to say, it was a fun and rewarding experience helping out the organization and learning its mission. I never knew 1 in 5 households were at risk for hunger so, Second Harvest Food Bank plays a big role in helping households overcome this burden. 

This month felt so short. It seemed like time was escaping from me especially with studying. This last module was on the autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular system. Compared to the beginning of the semester, I can tell I need to adjust some study habits. After talking with a friend that went through the program a few years ago, she advised me the best way to be successful, now that the material is becoming more dense and critical to understanding in your success as a future physician, is by thinking of yourself already in medical school and seeing a patient. She said this helped focus on imagining as if she was applying the material clinically which helped it click. All in all, I feel like coming to Tulane has been an amazing experience so far. I don't think I could have asked to be around better classmates and also professors and faculty who always lift you up and keep encouraging you. Hopefully, things keep going smoothly now that we approach the holidays in Novemeber. 

Community Service Hours: 3 (11:30am - 2:30pm)