Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Endoscopy is Cool

Gastroenterology is very procedure-based. I saw one of these today.



Down the esophagus, through the lower esophageal sphincter, through the body of the stomach, down the antrum, and out through the pylorus into the duodenum.

Monday, January 12, 2009

New name!

I think it's about time I rechristened this blog, particularly since I'm no longer living in Waterloo and unlikely to return there that soon (and certainly not to live). It is very wintry in Halifax, though, so I might consider going with "Habitating in Halifax" - nice and alliterative. That's perhaps a bit silly, though, so I might have to think of something else. I might change the template too. We shall see! I'm welcome to any suggestions of course.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Concerning winter air travel...

It's not too fun. In December, flying from Halifax to Toronto necessitated waiting from 8:30am to 3:30pm to find out that our flight was cancelled, and subsequently waiting until after midnight to depart on our rebooked flight. This rebooked flight routed us through Montreal, so we sought and found a quiet area in the departure lounge at Dorval to "sleep" for a bit before our 6:30am flight to YYZ. All in all, we spent about 24 hours from arriving at the Halifax airport to arriving at Pearson. It wasn't *that* bad, and I can't blame the airlines for the weather or icy runways (and unlike WestJet, Air Canada has many more flights on more routes, along with a "secret" reservations line for relatively quick re-bookings), but I'd sooner fly in the summer or, well, at any time of year apart from Dec/Jan.

The trip back was a dream in comparison. I had a brief stopover in Ottawa, whereupon I was called to the gate as I evidently needed to change seats. They put me in executive class and, as ever, the Seinfeld depiction is almost wholly accurate (though my meal was just a light lunch).

Random Stuff

I've been quiet of late, primarily because of being away from the internet (or else focussing on physiology). Next week we delve into the workings of the gastrointestinal system. Exciting, eh? Interestingly, Dr Des Leddin, the head of GI at the QEII here in Halifax (and our intial GI lecturer), appears in this CBC story concerning a study concerning the effectiveness of colonoscopies at detecting cancerous growths. That's suitably random, I think.

Otherwise, the next exam approaches, comprising 80 multiple choice questions with 8 for each week of this unit. I think I have just enough time to study, but we shall see. The other big news is that I have two opportunities for an international elective in the summer - (possibly) Thailand or Austria. I'm really not sure which I prefer at this point, though Thailand might be more of once-in-a-lifetime thing. How often do you get a chance to learn about rural community medicine in Southeast Asia? I'm open to any suggestions there!