Christmassy!

Take your pick on which shot you like...but this is Henry Street last night!!

So here are a few picts from the runway show...when the real picts and videos go up, I will link up to them!

We all did four walks each
1) Power-dressing
2) Country Wear/Equestrian
3) Day-Wear
4) Little Black Dress
For the amount we practiced, wow the show went by so quickly! It was like each walk was SUPER SUPER fast all of a sudden!

But it was so much fun...It felt almost automatic.

And the after-party was fun too! We all didn't have time to get rid of the run-way model make up, and kept the hair and makeup on...which was pretty cool because that was my first time EVER with this kind of makeup and it was intense!



Harry and I made "SEPTEMBER" in the choc-ball produced RCSI calendar. I'll be bringing some home later for everyone to enjoy if they want :)

Good bye Kilkenny...

Goodbye Kilkenny...Today was my last day at Castle Gardens Surgery in Kilkenny. This week I drove two hours each way to get to Kilkenny in my friend's car. Irish roads are crap. That is a different blog post all together, and has nothing to do with my education so I won't talk about it.

I have decided during my 3 weeks in Castle Gardens, that GPs are awesome. They get all this flack for not being awesome, or doing things medically correct, or not being "helpful," but I realized community family medicine is brilliant.

1) Personal relationships with families
2) Acute and chronic conditions are seen
3) This kind of "closeness" between nurses, pharmacists, doctors, secretaries are NEVER found anywhere else except within the office.
4) The amount of respect given to these GPs for being such wonderfully friendly people are out of this world.

To top it off, my GP was an awesome man. He was so good natured, so friendly, so quiet, so courteous. Dandy, gentleman. He reminds me of a passive, mild version of my grandfather. Gentlemanly, well dressed, graceful, and charming.

When I left I was laden with

a) Fresh, warm loaf of brown bread
b) Fruit Scones
c) Scented Candles
d) Box of chocolates
e) Box of perfume and lotion
f) Two cards
g) Lots of love and warmth in my heart.

Honestly, I've never met a group of people so amazing.

Miss them all already!

Women in Surgery.

Last night I went to a talk hosted by the Surgical Society of our college. The title of the talk was "WOMEN IN SURGERY"

外科医になるのは「Ｉｔｓ　ａ　ｍａｎ’ｓ　ｗｏｒｌｄ」ってよく言われるけれど、昨夜会った女医さん達はみんな「もし本当に外科医になりたいのなら、得る物、失うもの、職のために犠牲にしないといけないもの性別を問わず、みんな同じだ」って…

アイルランド、アメリカ、ヨーロッパではそうかもしれないけれど、日本ではどうなんだろう？

それとも女医としてのコンプレックスなのかな？

The conclusion of the talk was "If you have just as much motivation, just as much adrenaline, and just as much passion to be a surgeon as the next man/woman/person next to you, then you will do well, you will not be discriminated against, and you will find it hard, but you will love it."

All the women I met ranged from being pregnant at their consultant interview 30 years ago, to wearing jimmy choos and doing their hair before going into the OT.

They have never once felt discriminated against, commented against on their gender, and have loved their jobs.

Some took 15 years to be a consultant, others took less.

But what they did, was succeed in their goal.

I get shivers and an adrenaline rush thinking about it.

産婦人科、Obstetrics and Gynaecology-Is a surgical speciality.

That is my #1 choice of a career option. I love the happiness, I love the warmth it gives families. I love the hope involved in the birth process. Although there is death, and although when things go wrong, it is devastating beyond belief...but my month in SGH this summer was something that really made me realize what my calling was.

In my years at RCSI, I have had these moments that has given me the shivers.

1) When Mr. Osbourne passed me the Thyroid gland, straight out of a total thryoidectomy.

2) When a woman at SGH came in with a uterine cyst....and on the table we found that it was 30X30.

3) The minute a head popped out post C-Section.

4) As I held a woman's hand as she screamed through the birth of her first son. And her husband was there on the other side, tears streaming down his face....and wouldn't take his eyes off of his wife, even after she had given birth...the love he had for his wife...the hope that was in their faces for their family.

5) Doing a resp exam on a CF child in the ward in waterford...

* I gotta take a breath...thinking about these moments really make me so overwhelmed with emotions...*

And I realize, that all my happy moments are 1) in Surgery 2) in Ob/Gyn 3) Paeds

What does that say to me?

It says....I love Ob/Gyn...but I also love Paeds...

= I still don't know what I want to do as of yet; it's not set in stone, I like to keep my options open, but the choices are starting to narrow down. And I'm loving it.

XXXRieXXX

Kilkenny...General Practice=開業医？

Sometimes when you look out the train window from Dublin-Kilkenny, you get the sunrise just right....

I tried to capture it, but I've only been semi-successful so far.

Leaving my house at 6.45 is a chore; its always pitch dark and seems like 3am....but when I watch the Irish countryside fly by me during the 2 hour train ride and the sun comes up, it makes me feel refreshed.

Me=TOTALLY A MORNING PERSON!! Hehe.



General Practice = 開業医？

Family Medicine/Community Medicine is what it is called in The US/Canada, but GP is not really a specialty in Japan.

It's something like that doctor's office you go to in your neighbor. 西岡先生, the doctor I always go to in Japan is actually a Gastro-guy, who also did 内科。胃腸科だったのかな？

まぁ、内科＝Internal Medicine
胃腸科＝Gastroenterologist.

でも開業して、結局毎日診る患者さんは
１）風邪
２）腰痛
３）その他などなど

＝GPじゃないん？

All I can say is, I dont think I could be a GP.

毎日同じオフィスで座って、動き回らないのって、結構BORINGかも…

But I gotta admit, there is something new everyday.....

Which is what keeps everyone going, I suppose....

A Brown Thomas Christmas.....

Brown Thomas totally outdid themself this year...

I will post more pictures..But their theme this year was "Peace to the world"

They did Europe, South-Asia, East-Asia, and the Americas as their different window display sections, and pimpled/glammed it up.

Nov 15th marked the opening of Cartier and Tiffany in Brown Thomas...so it's all glitz and glam in there as well....These are a few of the pictures..until my camera conked out and I couldnt get more.. :(

XXX-Rie

Kilkenny

I've been in Kilkenny for the past week....Keeping the story short and simple, I had a breakdown at the B&B because the place was SHIET.

So I'm commuting every morning to Kilkenny. It takes about 2 hours each morning, but I think about the Kyoto-jin who used to commute to CA every morning (and the Himeji chick *wink wink* Alisa!), and myself; (who didnt commute as much as the ppl mentioned above..but still had a commute...) it makes me think "wow, well, I guess I can start commuting again! Its only three weeks!"

The clinical practice manager thinks I'm crazy but hey, I'm enjoying it!!

But the GP surgery is fabulous, and the teaching is great. My day consists of drawing bloods, doing BPs, Urine Dipstick, giving vaccinations. Its very hands-on and the Dr. Lee is awesome!

My GP is super *Kawaii!* Today i saw him bicycling down the streets of Kilkenny out to lunch it was SO CUTE!

In other news, I have a three day weekend! Wahoo!

XXX-Rie

Roll Your Own Sushi Night!!

We had "Roll your own sushi night" in my apartment this friday....I provided sushi rice and seaweed as well as the wasabi, shoyu..and my fab roomies supplied the following: Cucumber, Red/Yellow Peppers, Salmon, Cream Cheese, and Avocado....It was awesome.. Oh ya! We had Tuna too!!


I really had a great time cuz Krystina came out as well and it was soo much fun!

It was an awesome roomie bonding session. I started to like one of my roomies a lot more than I thought I did initially, which was a PLUS PLUS PLUS!

After that, a few of us went to see the Christmas Display at Brown Thomas. It was fabulous. And worth it..I'll be posting more Christmass-y things online later!! So all those pictures are for tomorrow okay :)

XXXRieXXXX

Life Updates After Being Away For So LONG!

Hey Everyone....so I haven't uploaded anything or posted for quite a long time. I had my Paediatrics FINAL and PAPER which went really well (Yeeey!) and I was so consumed in life that I totally dropped off the face of the earth.

My parents came to visit for one week and I DEFINITELY didnt want to blog during then. I wanted to spend all my time with them, and only them. It was so painful having to tear myself away from them to go to class...

I swear, when they left, I was shattered. Inconsolable. My roomies saw me catatonic on the couch and just said "uh-oh..."


I guess I've been busy as well. News other than Paeds is that I'm learning how to "WALK THE RUNWAY" with a bunch of other girls and guys in my college to raise money for a charity Fashion Show/ Chocolate Ball. The theme is HIGH FASHION. Think Couture. Fabulous? YES.

Here are some more of my fav shots of my friends as well;


There is one boy who is always in all the shots...I think it's because not enough boys came out to volunteer their time for this..which is unfortunate, because they will get to wear some AWESOME STUFF!!


When my mother saw some of these shots, I think she was expecting a "smarter look". She kept on telling me to be more 知的。 Yah, maybe my photo pictures are just stupid-looking. Sorry mom. I tried.



FYI, these are all med students..who would've thought!!






In other news, LAST NIGHT I went to a Herbie Hancock concert. So Herbie Hancock. You can google the man, but Miles Davis=God of Trumpet/Horn in Jazz? Herbie Hancock=god of keyboard/jazz piano.

Do the math. I was in euphoria. I didn't know what to do. I thought I was going to just erupt into happiness and dancing and Oh my god...I cant even describe to you how life felt.

So now my next rotation is GP. I'll be in Kilkenny which is supposed to be the prettiest place in Ireland. So expect lots of landscape photos!!

XX
-Rie

Waterford!!

Pictures in order are: Out the window on the way to Waterford, Tina studying on the train, and the entrance of our aparments upon arrival in Waterford....

Ardkeen Woods is a complex of apartments located RIGHT OPPOSITE Waterford Regional Hospital. It's only a 5 minute walk to the hospital, and a 10 minute walk to TESCO (which is open 24 hours!!...AND ITS HUGE!! LIKE COSTCO!!)

The apartments are great; two bedroom, two bathrooms, with a huge living room, full kitchen and full fridge. I can't complain at all. The heating is great and the showers are on demand hot water. (Which is hard to find in Ireland...I am too used to not having to boost!)

The hospital is great. Everyone is super nice and I've been able to take lots of histories as well as do a few physical exams. My goals for this week are:

1) Average of one full history a day
2) Average of one system physical exam a day.

Yesterday I met a girl with Cystic Fibrosis. She seemed upset because her mother wasn't there to visit her, and I was lucky enough to be able to befriend her.

So today I took half her history and tomorrow I'm taking the other half. She has so many things going on with her body that I wasnt so sure if she enjoyed talking about all of it in one go, so I decided to take it slow.

Sometimes I think....is being a doctor really suited for me? I like to take my time, and talk to patients, get to know them as people, rather than sick people. I guess that rules out Emergency Medicine for me...

I sometimes think that maybe I am not a good enough med student because of my inability to get info out of patients as quickly as my peers....

まっ、マイペースでいいのかな？って思う時もあるけど、周りの人と全然違うやり方で患者さんと接してる自分が間違っているのかどうか判らなくなったりする時が多い。

「自分が患者さんだったらこんな接し方をしてほしいなぁー」って思いながら接しているつもりなんだけれど、もしかして的ハズレだったりして…

I do realize questioning myself ｉｓ not especially good for my confidence....but I guess it's something I will never know for sure until I become a doctor...

The CUPCAKES...