Last Friday I went out with my close high school friends to watch Iron Man 2. I’ve never actually seen Iron Man 1 – I heard it was pretty good though, so I was excited to see this nonetheless (on a side note, I’ve seen Dark Knight but not Batman Begins – movie catch up this summer?). Don’t want to give much away, except that I thought that I loved the Tony Stark character (Iron Man’s real name for those who don’t know. I guess I just find the cocky, funny, sarcastic character-type entertaining) and the first half or so of the movie was very entertaining. Unfortunately, I thought that the ending was pretty bad.

To me it felt like the film team made 2 hours of the movie, and then realized “oh no, we only have 10 minutes left, so we better find some way to end it!”. At first it boggled my mind that people who are really good at making movies and do it for a living could make an ending so bad (yah yah I guess this is debatable…). But then I started to wonder whether they actually cared (if most movie goers will be pleased and the film rakes in the bucks, which is does, how much do they really care…).

My Left Pinky

So as you guys know, I had an X-ray done for my left pinky. As it turns out, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. On the results that imaging clinic sent to my family doctor, the radiologist says he “suspects” that it is an old fracture that healed improperly. So basically I fractured my left pinky and didn’t even realize it, and it healed in a somewhat deformed position (basically my pinky can’t hyperextend and is constantly dipped).

The good news is that my pinky is completely functionally fine except that it’s can’t completely extend. My doctor tells me that the only concern would be aesthetics, and that a plastic surgeon may or may not be able to fix it. No one I know even noticed it except my dad, and it’s not bothering me, so I’m just going to leave it for now. If it starts bothering me then maybe I’ll get it looked at, but for now, it’s really not a big deal.

Last Month of School

So the school year is winding down. I have four exams coming up: Brain and Behaviour Final, Clinical Skills OSCEs, Community Health Final, and Pharmacology. The last two exams should be pretty easy, so I just need to get past the next week and a half and I think it’ll be a relative breeze. My final exam is on May 31 (Monday). Our class voted to have the final exam on May 31 as opposed to Friday May 28 (to have more studying time), but I really regret voting that way now, because I don’t think having the extra weekend will really affect how much I would end up studying.

It’s crazy how fast this year has gone. I guess that happens every year though. School always seems to fly by really fast. It’s also strange to think that I’ll be mostly done with class in a bit more than a year when I start clerkship. That will be the next big transition. I’m actually trying to not think too much about it and just enjoy where I am in my training.

Healthcare Innovation

As I have sort of reflected on before, I feel like healthcare innovation is where I see myself being most in medicine in the long run. I have always believed in the “if you know what you want, why wait?” mentality. And yet I wasn’t really following that for a long time. After some thinking and thanks to support/encouragement from close family and friends, I started taking some steps to make this a part of my life starting now.

I don’t really want to disclose details until I get the ball rolling, but I’m currently in the progress of getting involved with a group that does the very things that interest me in the hospital setting. Finding new and innovative ways to reduce wait times, improve communication within the health care team, reduce medical error, etc. etc. – they do exactly these things, and then work on getting them implemented in major hospitals. Very cool stuff and very close to what I want to do long term. I finally feel like I’m going where I need to go. 😀