Man, I haven't posted in over two years!  Since many of you knew today was the day I found out my fate, I'm putting this up so people don't have to feel awkward about asking me if I matched or not.

A little background info: "Match Day" in medicine is held every year on the third Thursday of March.  It is the day when pretty much every medical student in the country learns where they will spend the next several years as resident-physicians.  For me, however, "match day" was today. 

Some of the surgical specialties (ophthalmology, neurosurgery, plastics, urology) are weird and have an "early" match.  Since I decided on Ophthalmology at the end of my third year (which is a relatively difficult position to match into because of the combination of lifestyle and the guaranteed hot biddies that you get), I knew in the back of my mind that there was a good chance that I may not match.  Compounded by the fact that there were 9 students in my class applying this year, and the majority of them wanted to stay in the Einstein system.  Obviously, training is very important to me and I would have happily gone to Louisiana (well, maybe not happily), but that was the risk I was willing to take. 

So for the past month and a half, I have been interviewing all over the country (13 programs to be exact).  7 in NYC and 6 in random places that I’ve never heard of (Texas, Florida, Maryland, Louisiana x 3).  Soooooo....to make a long story short, my dean called me this morning and told me I matched!!  At my #1 choice!!!!  Einstein/Montefiore.  So basically, today was an AWESOME day for me.  NYC for lyfe!  Let the party begin...............at least till internship starts in July. 

tonight was my first breast/pelvic/gynecological exam.  the patient i performed the exam on is a paid volunteer who guided me step by step through the procedure.  (i don't know anyone in their right mind who would want to do this, no matter how much they paid)!

breast exam-part I:

this was a breeze.  the only icky part was examining the axillary lymph nodes with no gloves on since my patient was a little hairy & sweaty up there...if you know what i mean.  the most important thing that i learned about the breast exam is that you have to use proper medical terminology.  for instance, i can not begin by saying, "now i will feel your boobies for anything weird."  it would be more apt to say, "now i will palpate your breasts for any masses."

pelvic exam-part II:

this exam is a bit more complicated than the breast exam.  a pelvic exam, for those who don't know (soon) is basically checking the female organs first manually then with a speculum to exam the vaginal lining, cervical os and to try to palpate the ovaries.  The speculum slides right in and looks a little like a duck's bill and allows the cervix to be seen clearly.  of the many somewhat awkward moments of the night, one stands out in particular.  during the bimanual exam, i was elbow deep inside her..."you know"...eagerly waiting for the next direction when one of the doctors knocks on the door and comes in to talk with my patient.  so they're chit chatting away for what seemed like days...and i'm like "HELLO...can't you see i'm 'literally' in the middle of something!"  so the million dollar question is....do i pull out or just leave my hands in there??  i decided to do the latter and just waited patiently while they casually finished their conversation.  i played it off nonchalantly like it didn’t bother me the slightest bit.  the icing on the cake was that my patient was nearing the end of her period so when i took my hand out..............well, i'll just leave it at that.

anyway, this is just a brief encounter of my first breast/pelvic exam and it was an unforgettable experience. i knew i always wanted to be an ob/gyn, and this just reaffirms my lifelong dream (yeahhhhhhhhhhhh right!).  but i do know one thing...i’m definitely an expert at it now, so if any of you ladies out there need me to check out yo tatas or pelvic area...holla back @ me!  i'll give you a 50% discount as long as your name isn't byoung.

anybody who knows me well knows that i sweat like a madman.  however, i always wondered why i don't smell or have that "BO" that i thought was concomitant with sweating.  i never used deodorant in my life!  so anyway, i'm taking endocrinology right now and i learn an interesting tidbit and did some further research.  asians, specifically Koreans (word) have no body odor because they have fewer apocrine glands than any other race.  For the scientifically illiterate (soon), people have two main types of sweat glands, apocrine and eccrine.  read on for the details...

"Apocrine glands, which produce scents that we commonly refer to as
body odor, vary widely among the races. Asians have an extremely low
distribution of apocrines (Koreans are among the least odor-producing
people on Earth--50% of them have no apocrine glands at all). With
regard to other races, blacks have a slightly higher distribution of
apocrine glands than whites."

Source: -THE ORIGIN OF "RACES"-
by: Bert Thompson, Ph.D.

"It's not that Asians don't have sweat glands under their arms; the
difference is that they have markedly fewer apocrine glands than black
or white people. That doesn't mean they sweat less--eccrine glands,
the other main type of sweat gland, are a thousand times more numerous
on most bodies, and Asians have plenty of them. But apocrine glands
are the kind that make you stink."

Source: - Straight Dope -

"...Men have more androgen and bigger apocrine glands, and they stink
more. Unless they are Asian men. Asians have few apocrine glands. In
Japan, B.O. is considered a medical problem--enough, in the past, to
merit exemption from the military."

Source: - The Armspit Website-

ps. i have also come to another conclusion that chinese people are not included in this "asian" category cuz god knows that they smell horribly.  maybe it's simply due to the fact that they shower once every other week (jeff). 

on a side note: i have thursday/friday off this week, two weeks from now and columbus day weekend due to jewish holidays.  rosh hashanah, succoth and shimini atzeret/simchat torah.  what a great perk!

Shana Tova u'Metuka (Have a Sweet and Good Year),

Hyung

this morning, i woke up at 7 AM because i signed up to participate in NYC's 1st ever "Colon Cancer Challenge" run in central park sponsored by my medical school.  It was either the half marathon (13.1 miles) or the 4 mile run.  had to go with the four miles since the longest i've EVER run in my life without stopping is one mile back in middle school when i was trying to get the presidential physical fitness award.  it was a pretty cool experience though...being sandwiched in between madd people sweating profusely....definitely my idea of a good time at 8 AM in the morning.  my time ended up being 30:35.  thought it was pretty respectable until i found out i came in 541st place overall and 86th place in my age group.  oh well, no more running for fun for the rest of my life...ever...

in other news, i just drove back home from helen's place.  i was trying to beat my record time of 23 minutes flat and i was ridiculously close in the final stretch....all i had to do was to make this last traffic light on eastchester road (the road that my school is on).  so it kind of turned red for like two seconds and i zoomed by it anyway...cuz my time was like 21 minutes at that point, if i didn't make that light i was done.  as i'm turning, i see a police car waiting at the other side of the intersection.  it was too late for me to stop and i knew a ticket was inevitable...

officer: you know why i pulled you over.
me: yes sir.
officer: i have to give you a ticket.
me: i'm so sorry officer, but i'm in a rush...i'm REALLY late for something.
officer: where are you going?
me: i'm going to einstein...i'm a medical student there.
officer: show me some id.
me: (pulling out my einstein id) here you go sir.
officer: alright.  hurry up and get going then.

technically, i wasn't really lying.
1. i was in a rush....(i had to beat my time)
2. i was really late for something (beating my record time home)
3. i was going to einstein (dorms...not the hospital)
4. i am a medical student (albeit a stupid one)

i'm feeling lucky this week...