Another six hours of interviews...

If today is Thursday or Friday between the hours of 8 AM and 2 PM, as you are reading this I am interview for med school. On Thursday I interview at Midwestern in Glendale and on Friday I'm at AT Still in Mesa. Your prayers are appreciated. As usual, I'm a little nervous and a lot excited.

For the nerds

This is a fairly long video, about 15 minutes. Sorry. I didn't make it. Don't be mad at me. This guy talks about some of his inventions. The first one is pretty amazing. If you aren't much of a nerd, you can turn it off around minute 4 or so. Otherwise, the whole 14 minutes is pretty fun.

Become a groupie

Those of you who are especially observant will note the new gadget I have placed on the right side of the screen. Now with just a few clicks of the mouse, you too can become a groupie. It's just like back in the day when you followed around the Grateful Dead and sang along with Jerry Garcia (You Deadheads out there know who you are, don't be ashamed). Anyway, now you can be a Be Radical groupie, or as I like to call you, Roupies. Clever, wouldn't you say?

The dumb and the dangerous

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On Saturday I worked a 21 hour shift. It was glorious. I got paged in at 12:30 in the morning, just after I fell asleep. I spent the next 14 hours in Sierra Vista. It was like going to another country. I could see Mexico from the hospital where we recovered. We used to fly down there, back in the day, but now we hire a driver. This is still nice because it allows us to sleep on the way. Somehow we made it down there in just over two-and-a-half hours.Since I was sleeping, I'm not entirely sure of all the laws that were broken to accomplish this amazing feat, but I was grateful all same.

As soon as I made it back to the office, I had two cases waiting for me. We recovered the first in about four hours before we had to head to the medical examiner's office to recover the second. At the M.E.'s our donor was a large 390 pounds! Even though our policies limit us to 350 pounds, we were told to proceed. I voiced my dissent, my team leader voiced her dissent, the other cutter voiced her dissent, and yet we were over-ruled by a higher-up who was sitting at home, completely unaware of the situation and the possible danger it posed. I became a little angry. 

Working on a donor who is approaching 400 pounds is both dangerous and difficult. First, we have to move the donor onto the exam table. Dead weight, despite what physics tells us, is heavier than live weight. This is dangerous for us to do. Not only do we have to move four hundred pounds very delicately and figure out all the nuances involved with that, but if we drop the body, it will be nearly impossible for the four of us on the team to pick the body back up. Then, once we start recovery, working inside a four hundred pound person is rather difficult because of all the fat. It was just a bad situation all around.

There was so much fat that we would cut out large chunks of it (5x5x2 inch sections) just so we could find the muscles and bones. It was absolutely disgusting. We had a dickens of a time disarticulating the femur because the adipose tissue overwhelmed the pelvis. We could barely see anything. It was so frustrating to do this case.

I am in no way try to insult any who is overweight. I am grumbling about a ridiculous decision made by a superior who was unaware of the situation and who chose to put four people into a dangerous situation for no good reason. We have policies for a reason and this person made a poor decision. 

After twenty-one hours on the job, I finally got to go home around 9:45 that night. I can't wait until I can go to med-school so I can get some sleep...

Youtube is funny

Here's the deal: I haven't listened to the sound on this video, so I don't know what it's like. I watched the whole thing on mute. But it's a pretty amazing trick this guy does. And just when you think he has done the impossible, it gets better.

First impressions

I have been teaching full time for just over a week now and I have to be completely honest: I love it. Working with 4th-6th graders all day is a blast. I was talking with my brother last night and we came to the conclusion that teaching is in our blood. Our grandpa teaches, our uncle teaches, our dad teaches, and our mom teaches. We can't help wanting to be teachers ourselves. Maybe, if you're lucky, one day your kids will be taught by the brothers Ihms and thus become the smartest kids in the world.

Another critical update? How is this possible?

I just realized that I haven't updated what is going on in my life for too long. Many things have changed in the past month alone, so hopefully this won't take too long.

I started a new job. Starting in January, I became a full time elementary teacher. I love it. The school I work for is called Bios Christian Academy. It's a pretty new school with only about 40 students. Right now it is first grade through tenth but next year it should be K-12. I still work with the high school students and math sometimes, but officially I teach elementary. More on Bios next week.

With the new job have come changes to the old one. I still work with Donor Network, but I have cut my shifts from five to three a week and I have crammed all three into the weekend. It hasn't been too bad so far, but I spend 24 hours in a 40 hour period on call every weekend. This could end up being pretty tiring, but for now it is working well. Working for Donor Network has been good for me because they have always been so kind to me as far as giving me exactly what I want for a schedule. It has been a great experience.

Finally a quick update on med schools. I have interviewed with two schools so far but have not heard anything back, good or bad. I spent some time shadowing the provost of one of the schools I applied to and he said he would put in a good word for me. And that's about it there. I am still hoping to know something definite by late February or early March.

Eeeek

Med school interview today in Tucson. Nervous and excited. Both make me jittery. Pray. Pray hard.

New Year's Cliche

I have decided to do the typical New Year's post. Lame. I understand. But more will be forthcoming this year. More great posts that knock your socks off, not more lame posts. I have a brief 15 minute break in my day which should allow for more frequent posting. So, if all goes according to plan, you should start seeing consistent posting on a daily basis.

Which brings us to the resolutions section.

Resolution 1

Write on blog at least 4 times a week. I'm sure this will fade quickly, but with any luck, I might keep this one until April...

Resolution 2

Start a Bible study for married couples. Jamie and I really see a need for this in our community and in our own lives. We have at least 7 married couples we can think of that we would like to meet with and possibly more. Hopefully we can get on this and get it started soon.

Resolution 3

Read the Bible. My plan is to read through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice. Right now I'm going at it the way the US hopes to get out Iraq - no real plan, just me and the Bible and a goal.

Resolution 4

Go camping with my wife at least once this year. We have the camping stuff, we probably have the time, I just don't have the motivation. Here it is. I'm resolved to do this.

Resolution 5

Lose weight. Just kidding.

Resolution 6

Get into med school? Can I resolve to do this? I don't really have much control over this, but this is my goal for this year - to start med school.

Resolution 7

Come up with a better list of resolutions for next year.