Let's Talk About My Brand Spanking New Scrubs

Just got everything in the mail today, and now I know why the Grey's Anatomy scrubs cost more... it's because they are amazing. Women will be happy to own these. Not only is the material awesome (oh so soft), but the whole outfit feels tailored for my body. The shirt is fitted so it looks like I have an actual waist-- always a bonus in my book. Secondly, the straight leg pants I ordered as "petite" truly came petite. No hemming needed.

The Cherokee "Flexibles" brand stuff, however.... a little bit of a different story here. The material is nice, but these pants, which I also ordered as petite, are still about 1-2 inches too long for me. I've got to get them hemmed... and I don't like dishing out an extra couple bucks for that. These pants were also supposed to be "straight leg" but I look like something out of the 70s when I put these puppies on. I'm talking about serious bell-bottoms here. I also bought two shirts from the "Flexibles" family and I'm a fan so far. One is pink/navy blue and the other is yellow/black. I like that these shirts are not one complete solid color, but I've started questioning my choices after my dad asked if they were bowling shirts.

The Dickies pants were the cheapest article of clothing for $14 and I like them. They're black, not too long and these are actually straight leg. The material though..... think snow pants... made to be semi-water repellant. And they make that swish swish sound too when walking.

Maybe I should've tried looking for a real store after all?
Nah.


Edit: And you know what this post just reminded me of?
Scrub,
I don't want no scrub
A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me
Hanging from the passenger side of his best friend's ride
trying to holler at me

You may be thinking, oh no she didn't.
But oh yes I did.

Scrub a dub dub. Scrubs!

One of the shirts I ended up buying. Grey's Anatomy brand
is supposed to be more fitted for women than other brands.

Another thing for the packing list. I realized the other day that I'll need to buy my first set of scrubs for anatomy lab.  Since you have to go to lab everyday, some AUC students recommend getting three pairs of scrubs so you can keep you're clothing fresh.  I have no idea where to find scrubs and I'm sure if I asked anybody, I could've found out easily enough, but I did the lazy thing and went online.  I feel like I haven't stepped foot in a store for a year now.

My name is Andrea, and I am an online shopping junkie.

I like the discounts I dig up and I like the wide assortment of merchandise available. I ordered three sets of scrubs and I should be getting my order sometime this week. Here is a link to tons of the scrubs online stores and many corresponding coupon codes to save some cash. Click me.

Some tips if you order online:
1. Use the size charts/ fit guides available to you. This is the best way to estimate your size.
2. Cross check the item you want to purchase with amazon.com so you can get a number of different customer reviews on quality, fit, etc
3. Check return policies as well as shipping policies. Some sites may give you free shipping both ways, if you do decide to return the item. 

What I've gotten out of "Stiff" so far- 75 pages in

Image via Wikipedia

The famous anatomist Knox who was also
 the buyer of Burke and Hares' "fresh" cadavers.

Strange, strange book. That's about all I can say right now and it is somewhat interesting, but I have no clue why people think this book is funny. It's about cadavers and yes, the author tries to make some jokes... but I suppose it's just not my type of humor. Example: in the introduction the author likens cadavers to people on cruise ships because both end up spending the days on their back. ????? Alright, maybe it's just me, but that joke isn't very good. I have yet to even crack a smile at one of her attempts to be funny, and find myself more often than not, put off by the overall repugnance of the subject matter.

I wasn't bad off two chapters ago. The reading was interesting and I was easily flowing through the pages, but I've had some trouble now finishing up this chapter on human decay. Roach, the author, goes to the University of Tennessee (UT) Anthropological Research facility, the only place in the world dedicated to the study of human decay. The lab is pretty much a grove behind the UT medical center where dead bodies are strewn about clothed and naked, in the sun/ under a tree and studied as they decompose. Roach loves nothing more than giving us the disgusting details of all the bodies she sees going through the phases of breakdown. She goes into the maggots feasting on the fat and juices of the stomach, face, and genitals. She goes into the last stage when the body and organs lose shape and turn into a puddle of soup. She goes into the smell of a dead body and the fact that she's stepping in the wet soil saturated with corpse juice and how her shoes, despite all her cleaning, smelled like dead people for months. And on top of all this, she tries to pull bad jokes. Fantastic.

Maybe this is a low point of the book and it will pick up in the next chapter, but before that, I was actually enjoying the reading. The first chapter is dedicated to what I and many other first year medical students will be doing-- dissecting cadavers. Roach's central objective in the opening chapter is to highlight the importance of being respectful and thankful to those who have willingly donated their bodies to the teaching and advancement of medicine. She opens her book in a seminar for plastic surgeons. The plastic surgeons are at this workshop using the cadavers to hone their skills and to ultimately become better at what they do. And while they are working on the bodies, they are careful to be gentle and mindful of how they treat their subjects. After this scene, Roach takes readers to a memorial service at the University of California- San Francisco Medical School. We soon find out this three hour affair complete with student tributes, a capella  renditions of "Time of Your Life", and folk ballads is for none other than the 20 dissected cadavers of the anatomy lab. Talk about gratitude and respect.

You may be thinking, why all this talk about being thankful for getting to cut into bodies? For the first time in history (as Roach will have us know) we have a surplus of "fresh" bodies available, and people no longer have to dig up graves of the recently dead, or murder anyone to be able to dissect a body...  hence the subject matter of the second chapter! Roach briefly examines the history of human dissection and she ends up taking a great deal of time discussing the grave-digging and "body-snatching" epidemic that hit England in the 18th and 19th centuries. It seems that anatomists were so desperate for bodies, they would pay common thugs a good deal of money to go dig up graves and steal the bodies from them. There was even one duo that went as far as murdering customers from their "flop-house" (motel, I suppose) and sell the bodies to a well-known and respected anatomist in Edinburgh. The two men went by the names of William Burke and William Hare and eventually Burke was brought to justice and hung for his crimes, while Hare received immunity. I don't understand that one...

The Packing/Shopping List

It's never too early to start thinking about what to pack on my extended trip to St. Maarten, right?
Wrong.
It's still far too early. Well, at least for me anyway.
There's still another month and half and I've got Thanksgiving and Christmas to worry about, people!
And if you've been reading my blog, you know by now that I'm completely jobless and spend most of my days doing nothing productive. Therefore I can start the packing and shopping for my trip a week or two before I actually have to leave because I will have all the hours of the day to do this, right?
But, nooooo, I don't get the luxury to procrastinate.

Due to the unfortunate circumstance that I live at home with my OCD-driven, semi-neurotic mother, I haven't heard the end of "Make a list! Make a list!"for two weeks now.  So here it goes and let me first state clearly: this is solely to placate my mother's incessant demands of my making a list.

The List:
Clothing/Footwear/Accessories 
Jeans
Shorts
Skirts
Shirts
Couple of dresses
Bras
Socks
Undies
Sandals
Sneakers
Heels
Rain Boots
Rain Coat
Umbrella
Select Jewelry
Sunglasses
Belts
Red Sox Hat

Hygiene/Beauty-Related Objects
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Floss
Mouth Wash
Contact Lenses
Shampoo/Conditioner
Razor and blades
Deodorant
CK1 Perfume
Lotion
Hair Brush
Hair Straightener
Hair elastics
Makeup

Kitchen Things
Pan
Pot
Silverware
Plates
Bowls
Sponges

Misc.
Shower curtain and rings (dorms do not come with these!!!)
Ethernet Cable
Flash Drive
Alarm/Clock Radio battery powered
MacBook Pro and adapter
iPod
Bug Poison (I'm on the first floor and supposedly my dorm may have ants!)
Towels


Edit: I will be adding more to this list as I think of more things I'm going to need



Related articles

• Scrub-a-Dub Dub Scrubs! (medschoolcaribstyle.com) 

Apparently I've got Required Reading

Ah yes. This brings back fond memories of summertime in high school.  Somehow we were always supposed to read like 4 books, fill out that huge packet of math problems and even write a short essay or two by the time school resumed in September. August was never a fun month for me.  But required reading in medical school when peeps haven't even set foot in a classroom in years? That's tough. I've been out of school for a year and half now and I can't even imagine what it's like for those people who are like 30, married with kids coming to the island who currently have a full-time job.... and... yea... I feel like a jackass.  After writing that last sentence, I realize I shouldn't even be complaining.

I stopped working and now I spend my free-time obsessing over fantasy football and go on TV marathons of 24 with my boyfriend. Yea... clearly far too busy to read one book spanning 304 pages. Nothing I can't get done in 2 months.

Cover via Amazon                                 

The book we have to read is called "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach and it looks like it has a lot of great reviews and is "uproariously funny." The author describes the productive roles cadavers have been used for and even includes a chapter examining cannibalism. Mmmm yummy.

Why require us to read this book? In conjunction with the anatomy department, the Student Judiciary Committee (SJC) believes this is a good way to help us get into the mindset of becoming medical school students. For many of us, this will be our  first encounter with a cadaver and the SJC hopes this book will be an enjoyable introduction to the privilege of dissecting a human body. Once classes begin, we will be broken down into small groups to discuss this book and participation will constitute a whopping 1% of our first block lab grade.

Related articles

• What I've gotten out of "Stiff" so far- 75 pages in (medschoolcaribstyle.com)

"Required" Textbooks

Summer days are slowly drawing to a close, but the impending move to St. Maarten is not exactly looming in my mind. I sometimes even forget that I'm going to medical school all together, let alone in four months, but today I remember and today I decide to look over the required reading material for first semester students. 


The courses I'll be taking in Semester 1 include:
Anatomy/Embryology
Histology
Molecular and Cell Biology I


Total cost of books and other supplies: a whopping $737.73!


Naturally there is no way in hell I'm about to drop that much money for a single semester, so like any other intelligent and conscientious person, I defer to the knowledge and experience of my elders-- the basic science veterans on valuemd. After a quick post on what are the ACTUAL books needed to successfully pass first semester, I receive a number of replies all suggesting I invest in Netter's Atlas of Anatomy and/or BRS Anatomy. And THAT'S IT! Suddenly my ~$750 pricetag (who knows with shipping?) becomes a much more manageable $74 thanks to the used books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com.


Woo la, magic.
~Andrea

Should I Pre-Study for Medical School?

I searched the boards of valuemd.com and came away with pretty much one answer: a resounding no.
I figured because I had four more months until med school it would probably be a good idea to get a jump on the extensive material. I have a lot of time on my hands and I'm not doing anything useful, but after reading the responses of many current and past AUC students, I realize I should just spend the remainder of my free time doing the things that I enjoy. It appears that once classes begin, there isn't much time for anything but studying and some people make the excellent point that if I start "prestudying" now, I will probably be burnt out from the material midway through block exams.

I'm going to AUC

After a three week trip to Portugal and Lebanon, I'm back and with good news. I've been accepted to the American University of the Caribbean in St. Maarten! yay!

I was also offered an interview at St. George's University in Grenada, however at SGU they wanted me to go into the Charter Program. I considered it for about 4 seconds and respectfully declined their offer. I just sent out my $1600 deposit yesterday to hold a seat for AUC's Jan 2011 class  and I cannot be more excited to begin this long road to becoming a doctor.

Along with the deposit, I sent a housing request form to live on campus. Apparently it is slightly difficult to get a room on campus, but if you apply and get in early, you probably won't have too much trouble securing a room. Another thing to consider is that the January class is much smaller than the September class. Around 200 students begin in September and perhaps 100 or less begin in January and I think it's even less for the May start date. Anyway, I'm hoping I can get a single dorm room to minimize distractions... but if it turns out I do get a double, it will still be nice to have a roommate to go through all the hardships with. Maybe I'll be more inclined to study long hours if I have a roommate who is ready to study her ass off. I'll see what happens in the coming weeks.