Quickest blog post ever!

I love this style of scalpel <3

I will write more when I am less engaged in other things, but my class has been split into two groups for January and my group had surgical path rotation today. I got to gross my first specimen at Duke! It was exciting and made me realize just how very much I've missed grossing. It was good. It is funny though since so many things are different! It must be like this when a PA moves from one job to another... the basic tools are the same (scalpel, forceps, cassettes) but everything is not what you are used to and you have to let go of the way you have always done things. I am used to yellow cassettes being derm cases but those are stat cases at Duke, pinkish purple being GEs but those are surgicals at Duke, and green being surgicals which may or may not be small biopsies at Duke (it was a long day with a lot of information so forgive me for not remembering offhand). There are other little things like measuring with the top of the ruler instead of the bottom and using a different type of scalpel.

Tomorrow we have a neuroanatomy lab and my group is assigned to autopsy. I'm not hoping that a bunch of people die so that my January is more interesting, but I am hoping that if people are going to die anyway that they do it the days when I am on autopsy rotation.


Meanwhile I'm having a dinner party tomorrow night. I might have seriously underestimated the amount of work involved. I thought it would be fun to try making something I've never cooked before with my classmates and an assortment of med students as guinea pigs. I made a roux last night, I thought I had burned it but it turned out it was actually a pretty good brick roux. Unfortunately I didn't think to google what it was supposed to look like until after I let it cool down into an unappealing sludge in the bottom of my dutch oven. So tonight is my second attempt at making gumbo.

And I've gone insane with the whole cheese plate thing again. I don't think it is normal to have a monthly cheese budget... but I enjoy it so much.

Anyway, I have to go rearrange my living room furniture, make a chicken and andouille gumbo, slice lots of bread, and cut up even more vegetables. I promise to write a real blog entry detailing the awesomeness of this week so far this weekend!