Aquarium Update

Here are some of the latest additions to my obsession/hobby:



The tank is a 37 gallon tank with 110 watts of light at 6700K from a homemade fixture. It's CO2 injected with a paintball cylinder, regulator and pH monitor. The plants are Anubias nana and barteri, some green crypts, java moss, baby tears, purple cacomba, dwarf hairgrass, amazon swords and red leaf ludwigia. I'm still working on cultivating the plants and adding more to the tank. I regularly dose fertilizers (nitrate, potassium, phosphate, CSM+B) and maintain the tank at pH of 6.8 with 6 degrees of KH.





Bosemani Rainbow. The male is more brightly colored than the female. I have a juvenile male that is kind of intermediate between these two color wise but he is kind of shy with this dominant male around



Kribensis dwarf cichlid (complete with a nice string of poop)/ I tried to get rid of this fish because it seems a bit territorial but I was never able to catch it so its just chillin for now. I can't believe how fast it is when it wants to be. It seems to just putt around the tank very slowly most of the time. It took out most of my juvenile shrimp and also seems to snack on young Ramshorn snails.




TRUE siamese algae eater. This fish earns its keep. It eats hair algae like there's no tomorrow. I highly recommend this fish for a planted tank but make sure it is not a false siamensis or a flying fox. Do your homework so you know what to get. It seems to be a bit territorial around chow time with my Cory's which is atypical for this species but it hasn't done any harm so I think its just trying to be social. I purchased it when it was about 2 inches long and it has at least doubled in size. The girls call this one 'the Mommy fish' because its the biggest one in the tank right now.



Corydoras sterbai. I really like this fish and it's a great scavenger of leftover food. They get harassed by my SAE and the Kribensis but so far no major problems. It kind of reminds me of a mouse and occasionally rolls its eyes which makes it look like it's winking. This female occasionally lays eggs but none have ever been fertilized. I have a pair of these and it is pretty much the only fish I have left from my original setup. (See below) I lost some of my fish to infection and traded in a lot of the originals. Since I added a sterilizer, I have not had any problems with fish loss unless they were in poor shape on arrival.



Cardinal Tetra. I have about four of these left over from my attempt to acclimate a small school to my tank. Its hard to find a well handled group from the local fish stores but they make a great addition once they survive. They get a little bigger than Neon tetras and are much more colorful.



Olive Nerite snail. I had a horrible time with brown and green algae on my driftwood and plants and finally discovered these guys on eBay. I bought 5 and they cleared my whole tank of algae in about a month. They also clean my filter intakes and heaters. The only drawback is that they lay little white eggs everywhere. (white dots on the snail itself and see the driftwood pic above) They can't hatch in freshwater but they are a nuisance and attach tightly to everything, including other snails. I'm hoping the egg laying will slow down in a few months but for now I can put up with these better than algae.

Pediatric Surgery

I finished up Psychiatry and Neurology last month and moved on to 'The Big One' : my surgery rotation. I am currently on the pediatric surgery rotation at Nationwide Children's hospital and am loving every minute of it. I have seen a lot of really cool things this week. Yesterday I spent about 12 hours in the OR and then took call overnight and got to scrub into an emergent perforated duodenal ulcer repair. I have seen repairs for kids whose insides were on their outsides because their abdominal walls didn't form correctly (Gastoschisis), bowel resections, splenectomies, skin grafting, appendectomies, incision and drainage of abcsesses, feeding tube placements and takedowns and a variety of other procedures. Surgery at the student level consists of a lot of retracting, cutting and tying off sutures which may seem pretty menial to most of the other students but I love every minute of it.

Last night we were performing an exploratory laparotomy, which is just a large open midline incision and exploration of the abdominal cavity and organs, on a poor little kid who was pretty sick. The kid's CT showed free air in the abdomen which is a sign that there is a hole in the GI tract somewhere. This can be a life threatening condition so we operated in the middle of the night. The surgeon's found and patched a perforated ulcer in the patient's duodenum. At one point the surgeon asked me to stick my left hand inside the abdomen and check for adhesions around the liver and asked me if I felt anything. It was nice and smooth. "You're a surgeon now." he joked.

The surgeons at Children's are great. They are all very friendly, remember my name and try to teach me new things even at 4:00am when I'm sure they would rather just hurry as fast as they can and go back to bed. The patients are great, too. We have operated on kids from 6 months to 20 years old so far.

I think the most incredible thing about pediatric surgery is the hope that these people can provide to these patients and their families. I can imagine nothing more nerve racking or devastating than finding out that your child has a major birth defect or has been severely injured and needs a major operation. Wonderful advancements in surgical technology have turned potentially catastrophic problems into manageable conditions, many of which have very good outcomes.

Pediatric surgery is a 2 year fellowship which is completed after a 5-6 year general surgery fellowship. It is extremely competitive to get into and most fellows have taken time off for research. Essentially, most fellows have around 10 years of training after medical school by the time they are done with pediatric surgery training.

Update: At this point I am planning my 4th year courses to prepare to apply to General Surgery residency. I will blog more about my decision in a little while.

Baby Catching

This Last month I have been on my OB-GYN rotation at St. Anne's hospital in Columbus. I know what you are thinking: "So how did THAT go?"

Actually I liked it quite a bit. I got to participate in a lot of neat surgery, procedures, and deliveries.

My first night on call I met a couple in Labor and Delivery getting ready to push out the latest addition to their family. I introduced myself as a 3rd year medical student and they asked me if I had caught any babies yet. I replied I hadn't and much to my surprise they asked me if I wanted to catch theirs. "You gotta start somewhere." they said. I was honored to start with their baby. (I didn't drop her either.) Mom and baby did great.

Catching babies is warm, wet, slippery, cheesy, bloody and awesome. Cesarean sections are essentially the same but with more sharp things. It is probably one of the bloodiest surgeries I have seen so far. I now have mad skills when it comes to bladder retraction, cutting suture strands, suctioning smoke from the cautery device and amniotic fluid, and stapling abdomens back together. (The few things they actually let a med student do. Sigh)I did get to be the first assistant in a few cases which was great.

Gyn surgery is very interesting also. I saw abdominal, vaginal and laparoscopic hysterectomies, cyst and fibroid removals, tubal ligations, D&C's (nope its not just a book of scripture) and hysteroscopy. One of the more interesting surgeries that I saw was a laparoscopic fibroid removal. Fibroids are basically benign tumors consisting of smooth muscle cells and fibrous connective tissue. They tend to be found in the uterine wall. They are the most common reason for hysterectomy but in some situations a woman may opt for a myomectomy, removal of the fibroid from the uterine wall, rather than a full on hysterectomy. This is possible because fibroids are well encapsualted and can usually be pulled out in one big round chunky yellow mass. It is extremely satisfying when they yank one out -kind of like the feeling you get after you pop a nice ripe zit. Gross I know, but that's the only way I can describe it.

There is a lot about this specialty I really like: a good percentage of the patients are young and healthy, there is a good mix of surgery and clinic, you have to be well rounded as an OB-GYN can sometimes be the only doc that some of these patients see. This is the only specialty where people come to the hospital for a happy reason and its only av4 year residency program. I also felt like I got along well with the residents and attending physicians. I was much more comfortable around them than some of the other surgeons I have shadowed. Another interesting thing is that 80% of the applicants to OB-GYN are now female and males are in high demand. A male applicant with good grades and board scores can potentially go wherever he wants.

The subject material of OB-GYN can be very sensitive most if not all of the time but I found that I really enjoyed talking to and interacting with patients in this setting. As long as one can be empathetic and understanding, I have heard that most women don't care if they have a male or a female for their OB-GYN.

New Post... Finally

Coming Soon or Maybe Not!

Fish!

There is a fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." -Dave Barry

I thought I would post a few picks of my latest (and only) hobby. It's is a small 28 gallon fish tank with 6 glo-fish, 1 powder blue dwarf gourami, 2 bronze corydoras catfish, 1 Corydoras sterbai catfish, a clown plecostomus (I think he is still in there somewhere) and a small colony of red cherry shrimp (If I can't eat em' anymore, I'll raise them.)

The glofish are green (yellow under normal lights), orange and red. They are actually zebra danios that have bee genetically modified with flourescent proteins isolated from jellyfish. The gene is now a part of their DNA so they can actually pass it on to their offspring. I believe they are the first genetically modified pet.




I built some moon lights for the tank out of some blue LED's. They make the glofish really, well... glow. It makes for a cool camera effect.





The gourami is kind of the bully of the tank. I have to turn out the lights comletely at night so the catfish can eat their sinking wafers without getting harrased by him. And man can this fish can poop!




The bronze catfish are kind of ugly but fun to watch. Along with the Sterba cory they help keep the bottom clean. They actually kind of look like mice.
The spotted one is the Corydoras Sterbai catfish. He swims pretty well with the others but I think I would like to get him/her/it a companion or two. My tank is pretty maxed out and I'll either have to get rid of the plecostomus or build a sump, which expands the water volume of a tank.




I'm not sure how many shrimp I have and I am about to have some more. I have at least seven that I have been able to count at any given time. I noticed one of them was carrying eggs the other day. They are prolific breeders. I am going to put them in a smaller tank and start breeding them. I might be able to make enough money off them to pay for the rest of my hobby. The picture below is a juvenile female. As they mature, the females turn a deep cherry red color. You can see a light colored "saddle" on this one which is actually the developing ovaries.



The clown plecostomus is a recluse. He only comes out at night. But he is pretty cool/ugly looking. He reminds me of the monk fish from Pike's Market in Seattle -the one they use to scare the customers with. I don't have a pic but you can see one here.

Ah the good old days!!!

I wish we could go back to the good old days when this country was first founded and hold our elections like the first ones when the runner up became the VP. Washington/Adams, Adams/Jefferson. Wouldn't that be awesome? Just picture it...Obama/Palin or Palin/Obama! Oh wait... whats that you say? John McCain is running for president?

Take the Summer challenge

Happy Anniversary Honey!
The Summer Quiz

1. Summer’s favorite color is:
a.Pumpernickel
b.Fuscia
c.Periwinkle
d.Clear

2.Which of the following are among Summer’s least favorite foods?
a.Bananas
b.Pasta
c.Fish
d.Chocolate
e.a and c

3. Summer’s talents include
a. Blogging
b. Singing
c. Photography
d. Digital retouching
e. Digital scrapbooking
f. Baby juggling
g. Drawing
h. All of the above

4. Summer’s husband is
a. Tall dark and handsome
b. Slightly shorter and younger but still handsome
c. A lizard

5. What complete series of teeny bopper books does Summer have stashed in her closet:
a. The Hardy Boys
b. The Babysitter’s Club
c. Goosebumps
d. Bram Stoker’s “My Little Pony” series

6. What language(s) does Summer speak?
a. Italian
b. English
c. Cebuano
d. Hindi
e. a and b

7. How many Gigabytes worth of pictures that she has taken does Summer have stored on her hardrive?
a. 20 GB
b. 40GB
c. 100GB
d. 160GB

8. How much money did summer win in a sales competition when she worked at 1-800-contacts?
a. $200
b. $4000
c. $50
d. $999
e. $500

9. Which of the following fast food joints did Summer work at as a teenager?
a. Goliath burger (Sandy mall)
b. The Hungry Mosquito
c. Hot dog on a stick
d. Big B’s
e. The Chum Bucket
f. a,c,d
g. a,d
h. b,e

10. What Disney Princess is Summer most like:
a. Ariel
b. Pocahontas
c. Mulan
d. Belle
e. Aurora

11. Summer has a very cute birthmark at the base of which toe of her right foot?
a. The big one
b. Number 2
c. Number 3
d. Number 4
e. The Pinky

12. True/False Summer has free hanging earlobes?

13. Summer’s favorite animals include:
a. Bunnies
b. Minks
c. Wolverines
d. Cats
e. NOT dogs!!!!
f. a, c, d,
g. a,d,e

14. What beverage does Summer have with every meal?
a. Apple martini
b. Baby formula
c. Skim milk
d. Kool-aid
e. Water
f. Fire water

15. What is missing from Summer’s arms?
a. Elbows
b. A baby
c. Any hair whatsoever
d. The ‘Gun’ show

16. How many blankets does Summer sleep with no matter what time of year?
a. None
b. 3
c. A billion

17. What does Summer call her shoulder blade?
a. The thingy
b. The scapula
c. Her chicken bone
d. Ouch

18. Summer has perfect eyebrows.

19. What did Summer lose down the shower drain in Sicily
a. Her Book of Mormon
b. A 14 karat gold CTR ring
c. Soapy water
d. A shoe
e. b and c
f. All of the above

20. How many pieces are there to Summer’s wedding ring (which she still has all of)?
a. What ring? Zach is a cheapskate
b. 2
c. 3
d. 4

21. What car did Summer used to drive?
a. A VW beetle
b. Dodge Neon
c. A Gremlin
d. A Smart Car

22. What is Summer’s favorite musical?
a. The Phantom of The Opera
b. West Side Story
c. 7 Brides for Seven Brothers
d. The Scarlett Pimpernel

23. What is the best thing about Summer?
a. Very Funny
b. Incredible writer
c. Wonderful Mother
d. Super Intelligent
e. Makes everything she does beautiful
f. She is a knockout
g. All of the above

Answers

1. D
2. E (They do sound gross together)
3. H
4. B (C is not correct but good try)
5. B (and I mean all of them)
6. E
7. E
8. B
9. G
10. B (That one is in her blog on Friday July 11th)
11. D
12. True
13. G
14. C
15. C
16. B
17. C (I will also take D)
18. True
19. E
20. D (It came like that)
21. B
22. B
23. G