Dr. MacDonell-Yilmaz

That will be the name on my medical license someday, because Tay and I got engaged!

As I mentioned previously, we spent a lovely Christmas at my family's condominium at Sugarbush, VT, with some presents in the morning and an afternoon of skiing, then a great dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. The following day, for the first run, Tay suggested we ski Sleeper, a very pretty trail with several offshoots that meander through the woods. Suspecting nothing, I followed him down one of these small side trails, and when he stopped on the side, I skied right past him. "Becky, wait! Stop!" he called after me. "Come back here!"

"You want me to hike back up there??" I asked, and when he nodded, I decided that he must have a good reason. There wasn't a great distance between us, and when I arrived, he stepped out of his skis, saying nonchalantly, "Let's take a break." And in that moment, I knew. He stepped in close to me, lifted my goggles from my face up onto my helmet, and as he began talking, I burst into tears. He wiped my face, then got down on one knee in the snow on the side of the trail and asked me to marry him.

After hugs and more tears and a resounding Yes!, I asked him if my parents knew about this. Of course, it turns out that they had all been in cahoots for a few weeks, and the day before, my mom had actually helped Tay scope out the perfect spot for the proposal. As we continued down the trail, there were Mom and Dad, standing off to the side smiling and waiting for us to arrive and share the good news.


My engagement ring is extra special to me because it is a unique setting (the jewelry company was nice enough to make a new mold, altering an existing setting to fit our preferences) and the center stone is a diamond that my late grandmother willed to me. I am still getting used to feeling it on my hand and to looking down and seeing it each day, and I love every minute of the excitement! Here are some pictures:

Although we are in no rush to set a date, I will admit to buying a wedding magazine yesterday and reading just about all of it in one sitting. As many of you know, I am a planner, and I relish the process of investigating different options and taking care of all the details. In any case, I feel incredibly lucky to have found Tay and to be able to share this happiness with my wonderful family and friends. Happy New Year and all the best to everyone in 2009!

1/8 MD!

As of last Friday, I have completed 1/8 of medical school! After lots of preparation and a fair bit of worrying, my finals went well. In fact, yesterday I got kind of an early Christmas present in that my biochemistry grade was posted and I was very happy! I'm still waiting on my final anatomy score, but I know approximately what it will be, and I'm totally satisfied.

It's really amazing how much can change in a few short months. I know this from past experience, and had tried to remind myself earlier in the semester, whenever I got worried and agitated, that eventually I would get used to this whole med school thing and it would seem like old hat. I realized I had reached that point about 2 weeks ago. I had the day off from class, but needed to go to my ICM (Intro to Clinical Medicine) site, where I work with an internal medicine doctor about once or twice a month, learning to do basic patient interviews and exams. I stopped by school to pick up my white coat and stethoscope from my locker, and as I hurried through the halls, I realized that the only thing on my mind at the moment was driving carefully through the rain to get to the site on time - a perfectly normal thing to think about. This was in stark contrast to earlier days when, in addition to normal worries, I had to think about finding my way around the halls of the Health Sciences Center where I go to school. (On the first day of class, after I finally figured out how to get from my car to the right entrance of the building, I had to follow other classmates because I didn't know which way to wind through the seemingly-labyrinthine halls to get to class!) School alone provides enough to worry about, so imagine how much was on my mind when I was still adapting to my new setting! It was like a full-bodied sigh of "Aaaaahh, I'm ok now," to realize that, without knowing when exactly, I had passed through that initial phase. Now my full concentration can be given to school rather than being spread thin between school, navigation, meeting new people, etc.

After finals, I slept past noon for the first two days. I'm starting to feel like a normal person again, re-entering the rest of life and taking care of things like laundry and buying stamps. I'm also starting to work out how I will spend next summer - my last free summer! I'm hoping to do some clinical oncology research (surprise, surprise), but I'm not sure where that will happen yet. I have already applied to one program, and will investigate several others as well.

And now the holidays are in full swing. Tay and I spent Sunday evening with his mom and her boyfriend, Monday evening with his father, stepmother, and little brother who just turned 7, and last night with my parents. We actually had my family's "official" Christmas last night, including a scrumptious meal and many thoughtful gifts, because we are heading up to Vermont today for four days of skiing. (We did save some presents to bring up there; I'm still a little kid and insisted we have something to open on the real Christmas Day.)

With that, I will end and continue cleaning the apartment and packing. I wish everyone happy and healthy holidays!!

Cadaver Dreams

Last night, with only six sessions of dissection to go, I had my first dream about anatomy. In it, Harvey was whole again - organs back in place, skin intact, face no longer marred. I was gathering clothing in order to dress him before he was sent away. I remember feeling very sad that it was time for him to go. At the end, I patted him on the chest and said, "Thank you, Harvey. I will be a better doctor because of you."

Just a quick post to celebrate the election outcome and share some pictures from Halloween. Hoping that Sarah Palin would henceforth disappear from the US political arena and such a costume would never again be relevant, I decided to dress up as her for Halloween, complete with folksy accent and incessant winking. (My pin says "I love Real America.") I admit I was probably channeling Tina Fey as much as the real Palin, but it made for a very entertaining evening and "also too" earned a ton of laughs. Maverick!

Change of Perspective

In the movie "21," which chronicles the adventures of a bunch of MIT students counting blackjack cards in Vegas, the instigating professor presents a probability problem to his class. It goes something like this:

Professor: I have 3 doors. A car is behind one of them. Pick one.
Student: I pick Door 1.
Professor: OK, what if I tell you that the car is not behind Door 3? Do you want to keep Door 1 or switch your answer to Door 2?
Student: I'll switch to Door 2.
Professor (clearly impressed): Why?
Student: When I first picked, I had a 33% chance of being right. Once you took away one option, the odds changed....

My understanding of the math gets fuzzy right around there, but I've been thinking about that scene lately and how getting a piece of new information can change how you think or feel about something. Two recent situations have illustrated this.

A week and a half ago, I took my Biochemistry and Anatomy midterms. I was somewhat terrified going in, convinced that no amount of studying would make me feel fully prepared, and aware that, given my proclivity for sleeping, eating, and exercising on a fairly regular basis, I didn't have time for unending cram sessions anyway. I entered the tests feeling that I had prepared to the best of my ability and reminding myself that all I really needed to do was pass.

Last week as I walked to my mailbox to get my graded anatomy exam, I repeated my mantra: "All I need is a 65; I'll be happy with that" over and over. I took one look at my grade (safely above a 65) and thought, "Crap! I want to do better than that!" Once I had that assurance that I was passing, my goals changed. In the end, I scored above average on both tests. That knowledge has made me enjoy my subsequent studying even more; some of the fear of failure has been replaced by fascination with the information I'm studying, which I think is a healthy switch.

The second instance of a change in perspective occurred last Friday in Anatomy lecture. As we study the branches of the facial nerve, we learn about Bell's Palsy, in which a nerve injury leads to symptoms such as a drooping of one corner of the eye and mouth. We also saw pictures of people who have just one nerve injured, and saw that an injury to the marginal mandibular nerve results in the bottom lip being paralyzed on one side, making it look like the other side droops. This injury can occur when a person has surgery on their submandibular glands for cancer, and indeed, the person in the picture has sort of an indentation right under his jaw.

Suddenly my mind flashed to my 9th grade Earth Science teacher, Mr. Pearlmutter, with his asymmetrically drooping lip and what looked like a strange indentation in his upper neck. This man who we ignorant teenagers had made fun of had most likely suffered a nerve injury during a surgery (possibly for cancer)! I felt really terrible and want to apologize to him, wherever is he is now. I'm so sorry Mr. Pearlmutter!

Loving the Jewish Holidays

I haven't set foot in anatomy lab for 3 whole days, which is a new record. I also slept until almost 9:30 this morning (gasp!). These luxuries are thanks to the fact that Stony Brook shuts down in observance of Rosh Hashanah. This extra time has let me [start to] catch up in my studies and begin preparing for midterms, which are only 2 weeks away.

Here's a quick (maybe) synopsis of the goings-on since my last post:

We had a fantastic guest lecture last week delivered by a gynecologic oncologist - in other words, someone who does exactly what I hope to someday! It was so much fun to hear her describe the surgeries that she does, and when she started using terminology that I've been learning, it was sort of a lightbulb-going-on-over-my-head moment, as in, "Hey wait! I know that! I'm learning some of the EXACT things that I will need someday when I practice medicine for real!"

I've been ruminating quite a bit lately about how different medical school is compared to college in that everything I'm learning is directly related to, and vital for, what I will be doing later. Even after I declared my French major, I didn't look at what I learned in my classes in terms of its application to my future studies - there were no thoughts of, "Hmm, I'll definitely use this verb tense or cite this piece of literature in my senior thesis!" Here, however, it's a different story. There's a lot of pressure that comes the knowledge that this actual information may be important for my career, but it's also a great source of motivation when there seems to be no end in sight to the amount of information to cover.

Back to the guest lecturer, though. I had actually met this doctor years ago when I was doing an internship at Stony Brook with one of her colleagues (who no longer practices here, unfortunately), so I introduced myself to her afterwards and told her of my interest in gyn onc. In inquired as to how I might get involved in the department's research, and she told me whom to contact. Yay!

Some classmates and I spent almost 8 hours in lab on Saturday "pinning" several bodies. One aspect of our exmas will involve identifying different organs/nerves/blood vessels that are marked in the bodies using pins, so we decided it would be good review to pin everything we have studied so far - about 175 structures - and then test ourselves. It was very helpful and fun, especially with our break for pizza. Long hours in lab never fail to make me hungry.

Finally, I had a personal training session at my new gym on Sunday, and the girl worked me so hard I've been hobbling around for a few days with extremely tight muscles. At least I have some new moves to do at the gym once I recover!

Looks like I've been verbose once again. There's just one more thought that I want to share, as well as to document it so I will remember it in the future. I was talking to the medical school's learning specialist (who offered some really great tips as to how I can study even more efficiently), and she told me that, although everyone will tell you something different regarding how much grades, board scores, and where you do your residency matter, it's important never to forget that it's a privilege to even have the opportunity to study medicine.

Missing the Big Green

I just read that Dartmouth's convocation was today, officially beginning the new school year. I know that the point of going there was to learn things that would prepare me to go out into the big, wide world, but sometimes I really miss being safely nestled up there in the mountains and trees.