Update... It has been a while!

Well, I must say, after the toughest quarter of school in my life, I think I am slowly adjusting to this chaotic lifestyle. The more I try to stay ahead of the game, the more I feel I get behind. What happens now.... I RACE TO CATCH UP UNTIL THE END OF THE QUARTER AND THEN GASP... I won't let this happen again next quarter. Unfortunately, I am almost positive this WILL indeed happen again next quarter. I feel medical school is a never ending game of catch up. Eventually you just have to throw in the towel and call it, get rest, take your exams, and start studying for your next exam. I think it will be this way for the next few years. I tell you what though, I can't wait until third year when I get to roam the halls of hospitals and be even more clueless than I already am.

I am looking forward to residency opportunities day coming up on Tuesday though. I think this is a great opportunity for the first year medical students to start networking with different hospitals in the area and out of state. This will allow for us to get an idea of what programs are out there, what they are looking for, and if there would be any opportunities at these locations during the summer for a medical student. I am not quite sure what I am going to do this summer as of yet, but I have a few ideas. I don't think I am going to do the research route, I think I am going to push for my clinical skills. I am hoping that will help me stand out third year as I practice, tweak, and get better at those skills.

I don't even want to tell you how much time I have spent tying surgical knots to get better at them. I am using hemostats to tie my knots now so that I can eventually move on to fishing line to get master knot tying techniques.

It is now 3:10 AM, I have been stuyding anatomy (almost) all day. I think it's time to hit the sack, but I felt it was time to blog something and what was going on in the beginning of the hardest few weeks of first year of medical school. EEK!

White Coat Ceremony

(picture courtesy: Michael Debo, MS I)
Today was the White Coat ceremony. This was a tradition started in the early 90's by The University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. It was a pretty awesome event! It was held at Midwestern University's new auditorium. This was the first event in that Auditorium, we got a sneak peak at it a day before the ceremonies and I was taken away by how large and beautiful it was! My parents, wife, brother and sister made their way down to the event and it was a memorable day! I am sure that is the same for many of us medical students here at AZCOM!

New Auditorium At School

Summary of The First Quarter of Medical School

In the words of my counselor... don't take anatomy here at the U of A, wait for it at medical school because they will teach you anatomy the way they want you to learn it.

THE BIGGEST F'in MISTAKE DURING MY UNDERGRAD WAS NOT TAKING ANATOMY!

I paid the price for that this quarter, although, I am sure there were people that did just fine in anatomy without taking anatomy before, but I am not one of those! I made it through, but damn that was really hard and I feel it took me twice as long to learn it. As a result of spending more time in that class, I got behind in others, and it just turned into a huge cascade of getting behind.

Regardless, that was definitely the toughest 10 weeks of my academic career. I certainly started to feel like I got into the groove about half way through the quarter and I am looking to take those improvements and move them into the next quarter to hopefully do a little better.

I still thoroughly enjoy the student government stuff, along with doing other things outside of class. I enjoy the company of my peers in medical school and that definitely makes things easier!

I look forward to the next quarter and what it brings! :)

Mansoor Jatoi, MS I

Doctors transplant windpipe with stem cells

I read this amazing article today on the internet and thought I would share it with everyone. I will be posting a nice little summary of the last 5 weeks of medical school in the coming days. Check back for the update!

Mansoor Jatoi, MS I

LONDON - Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. "This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.

If successful, the procedure could become a new standard of treatment, said Genden, who was not involved in the research.

The results were published online Wednesday in the medical journal, The Lancet.

The transplant was given to Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two living in Barcelona, suffered from tuberculosis for years. After a severe collapse of her left lung in March, Castillo needed regular hospital visits to clear her airways and was unable to take care of her children.

Doctors initially thought the only solution was to remove the entire left lung. But Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, head of thoracic surgery at Barcelona's Hospital Clinic, proposed a windpipe transplant instead.

Once doctors had a donor windpipe, scientists at Italy's University of Padua stripped off all its cells, leaving only a tube of connective tissue.

Meanwhile, doctors at the University of Bristol took a sample of Castillo's bone marrow from her hip. They used the bone marrow's stem cells to create millions of cartilage and tissue cells to cover and line the windpipe.

Experts at the University of Milan then used a device to put the new cartilage and tissue onto the windpipe. The new windpipe was transplanted into Castillo in June.

"They have created a functional, biological structure that can't be rejected," said Dr. Allan Kirk of the American Society of Transplantation. "It's an important advance, but constructing an entire organ is still a long way off."

So far, Castillo has shown no signs of rejection and is not taking any immune-suppressing drugs, which can cause side effects like high blood pressure, kidney failure and cancer.

"I was scared at the beginning," Castillo said in a press statement. "I am now enjoying life and am very happy that my illness has been cured."

Her doctors say she is now able to take care of her children, and can walk reasonable distances without becoming out of breath. Castillo even reported dancing all night at a club in Barcelona recently.

Genden said that Castillo's progress needed to be closely monitored. "Time will tell if this lasts," he said. Genden added that it can take up to three years to know if the windpipe's cartilage structure is solid and won't fall apart.

People who might benefit include children born with defective airways, people with scars or tumours in their windpipes, and those with collapsed windpipes.

Martin Birchall, who grew Castillo's cells at the University of Bristol, said that the technique might even be adapted to other organs.

"Patients engineering their own tissues is the key way forward," said Dr. Patrick Warnke, a surgeon at the University of Kiel in Germany. Warnke is also growing patients' tissues from stem cells for transplants.

Warnke predicted that doctors might one day be able to produce organs in the laboratory from patients' own stem cells. "That is still years away, but we need pioneering approaches like this to solve the problem," he said.

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By MARIA CHENG AP Medical Writer

Class Council President!

I forgot to blog that this week was the Class Council elections. I am happy to inform everyone that I have been elected the Class Council President for AZCOM Class of 2012! I am very honored to be in the position to help my fellow classmates. We have already started on a few tasks and hope to be in full swing in the coming week or two!

I will keep you updated!

Mansoor Jatoi, MS I
Class Council President

Anatomy.. Histology... Embryology... Practical... Written... EXAMS!

The studying continues, the sleep cycle lessens...

The funny thing is a upperclassmen told me, it's like barely keeping afloat. You begin to sink, lose your breath, then somehow you manage to take a gasp of air to continue the struggle. You will begin to become so stressed and tired that you will begin to ditch classes at the expense of learning to catch up in others.

He was right got damnit.

I like to use the quicksand analogy. The more I move / struggle / try ... the more I SINK, as a result, I move more to try to get out of the quicksand trap and it ONLY GETS WORSE.

Our professors told us not to tunnel vision on one subject or the next exam without continuously keeping up with the other classes or we will start a vicious cycle that is almost impossible to recover from.

They were right got damnit.

Now... for the good news? We will get through it... it will be hard, we will modify our study habits, but I don't think anyone who isn't in this type of setting can understand how incredibly difficult it is to maintain your study balance, while balancing life, and not losing your dang mind!

Another day I watch the sun rise as I go back to the lonely depths of my apartment, to awaken the next morning to depart to study the whole day again. *7 days a week* I look forward to the comfort of my wife, family, dogs, and family. I look forward to the comfort of a vacation NOVEMBER 15th!

Hats off to all medical students in the country, we are all sinking in the quicksand together! However, what we don't know is that at the bottom of the quicksand pit is FREEDOM. It's a portal, a right of passage, an entry into THIRD YEAR OF MEDICAL SCHOOL (clinical medicine)!

Mansoor Jatoi, MS I