The Medical Apprentice

Yesterday I had the chance to participate in the Komen Northwest Ohio Race for the Cure.  The program promotes breast cancer awareness and raises money for expanded access to screening and research.  Most importantly, it is a chance for our community to come together and recognize those affected by breast cancer.  I imagine that almost all of us have family or friends who have faced this disease.  My friends and I were part of Team Barb, walking in memory of our friend Megan’s mother who died of breast cancer this past spring.       

In the past I’ve been active in Relay for Life, but this was my first Race for the Cure.  I was amazed by how many people participated!  Over 18,000 ran or walked the 5K course downtown.  Toledo’s is actually one of the largest Race for the Cure events in the country!

It was really cool to see so many people unite with a common goal, and there was a lot of positive energy.  Along the route they had live music and plenty of folks cheering you on.  I’ll have to admit there was one moment that cast a bit of a shadow on the day.  Towards the end we were walking behind a group of people who were smoking cigarettes (my friend Jon nicknamed them the menthols for mammograms team!).  It was odd to see folks actively increasing their risk of getting cancer at a cancer awareness event!  But luckily they didn’t put a damper on our day.  Though we had only walked it, we took a chance at the end to get an exaggerated exhaustion picture. 

It seemed like everyone had a great time.  In the sea of thousands I’m sure there were many from the UT community that participated.  Share your story!  How did the event go for you?  Who were you honoring as you ran or walked?

One of the first groups I got involved in as a med student was Docapella.  It’s a men’s a cappella group on the Health Science Campus.  We have a winter and spring concert each year, and we also perform at other special “gigs.”  For me, Docapella has been a great break from the usual grind of school, and as groups go we’re a rather unlikely fraternity. 

Yesterday we had the privilege of singing the National Anthem at a Toledo Mudhens game.  The weather was great.  By no means was it a sold-out game, but the crowd was plenty boisterous.  Here is the video of us singing.  (They had us make a tight ring around the microphone, so we looked a bit strange!)

And finally…a shameless self promotion.  Docapella and Vocal Remedy (the women’s group) will be having their spring concert next Thursday, April 30^th, at 7 PM in the Center for Creative Education glass atrium on the Health Science Campus.  Free admission and refreshments too.  You’ll hear everything from the Goo Goo Dolls and Simon & Garfunkel to Motown and The Lion King.  For those of you who like to barricade yourselves in Mulford, it makes for a great study break!

During the first two years of medical school, it is sometimes hard to see the forest through the trees.  These are the pre-clinical years, where most of your time is spent in the lecture hall, anatomy lab, or library.  With so much focus placed on muscle insertions and medication binding sites, it becomes quite easy to lose track of the main reason people go to medical school to begin with: to take care of people.  For this reason I quickly became a fan of the Community Care Clinic when I started at UTCOM.  The CCC is a student-run clinic for underserved populations.  It is run through the Mildred Bayer Clinic for the Homeless, which is downtown near the art museum. 

Once a week the medical students “take over” the clinic and run things for the evening.  Two med students pair up and see each patient, one pre-clinical and the other in their clinical years.  After they do their workup, both students talk to the attending physician to figure out the best plan for their patient.  For first and second year students it is not only an opportunity to get out of the classroom and practice interviewing patients, but they also get to learn physical exam skills earlier than the rest of their classmates.  For the third and fourth years, it’s an opportunity to teach.  After you finish medical school and become a resident physician, you are suddenly thrust into the role of supervising and teaching medical students (often with no prior experience beforehand).  So it’s pretty fun to be able to teach a few things to the “newbies”, just like I was helped by the upperclassmen when I was in their shoes. 

Here’s our group from this week’s clinic.  Most of the patients we saw that particular evening were in transitional housing after recently being incarcerated, and had to have physical exams before employment could be arranged.  In addition to the Tuesday night clinics, the med students can also volunteer for weekend clinics at local homeless shelters, and help out with mobile health units at migrant camps over the summer.  When it comes to providing healthcare to underserved populations, you’ll find Toledo has no shortage of people in need.