I am glad that I am able to offer some help to those of you entering medical school next fall…okay, I am going to try and find some of those typical MN foods but I have never seen them where can I get them? the local grocery store? About the weather, it is so freaking cold 
but my husband loves it! we were stationed in Germany for many years so we are familiar with cold weather but this is unreal he he.
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I am glad that I am able to offer some help to those of you entering medical school next fall…okay, I am going to try and find some of those typical MN foods but I have never seen them where can I get them? the local grocery store? About the weather, it is so freaking cold
Uh oh–I thought those things were pretty ubiquitous, but then I realized that they are mostly homemade, and the stores that sell them are small local outfits. So of course I don’t know their names in Rochester. I would say check with any upscale grocery store, and ask if they have krumkake (pronounced croom(stress here)-kah-kah). It lookes like a rolled up waffle cookie. Otherwise I bet there’s a scandinavian gift shop in that mall downtown (the one that also has a Barnes and Noble), and probably a couple others scattered around town. They should be able to direct you to a grocery store that will sell this stuff. Or someone who works at Mayo should know. If you still can’t find it, and are really gung-ho, call up a local lutheran church that’s named after a saint and ask them. Lefse, by the way, should be available all winter! (Pronounced lef-suh). If you find some, serve it with butter and sugar sprinkled on it. However, to be truly the best, it has to be made by someone’s grandma. I can’t really vouch for the stuff in the stores. But it should at least be decent.
If I get around to cooking any of this stuff up this week, I’ll let you know and get your address so I can send you a batch! It’s looking kind of unlikely I’ll make that kind of progress though… I’m behind in every category of life at the moment. But I am kind of hoping to spend a day baking this week.
Ok, good luck! And happy New Year! Oh and yay, it’s gotten a little warmer. Enjoy the break.
Being a foodie, this part of the thread interested me alot, especially since I’m experiencing British food now. Needless to say, the Indian food is no surprise. I saw on UKFood TV tonight where the UK has 3000 curry houses!! I’ve had the meat pies (some good, some not), the Cumberland sausage (good flavor but mealy texture), butr haven’t ventured towards blood sausage! The veggies here are smaller, harder (?) and seem to take forever to cook. The chicken is good, though they leave the leg on past the joint that is the end in the US, meaning I get a scaly stub at the end of each leg, plus they don’t pluck out the down very well. ICK. So, we’re eating more beans and stuff because its cheaper for one thing. THe stores have WHOLE aisles dedicated to “baked beans” (our pork and beans without that little cube of pork) but I’ve not eaten beans on toast. Everything that is take away is served with a MOUNTAIN of fries!! My kids love that. Cheap, greasy, and filling. I went down to Bury Park yesterday, to an Indo Pak market for fresh veggies, spices, and stuff do to my own cooking. I also bought taco and chili makings for my kids. You tend to forget that just because the UK is English speaking and many of Americans ancestry, that they are quite different in the everyday aspects of life.
Gosh I love Indian food so I would be in hog heaven in the UK he he. I hear ya about the difference in foods…specially European food versus what we have here. The food in Spain is just soooo good I sure miss it, and I cannot wait to go back there this summer and pork out on it…
If you want really good krumkake and lefse, and all sorts of other Norweigan foods, try to make it to the Nordic Fest in Decorah, IA next summer. It is 70 miles south of Rochester on Hwy 52. They also have an impressive museum called the Vesterheim and all sorts of shops that you can visit year round. It is THE local place to go for all things Norweigan.
Just thought I’d chime in, since I’m a local.
Thanks Amy! are you in Rochester?
You are going to Spain this summer, Efex? Lucky you! Where in Spain did you used to live? I lived for a little while in Castellon de la Plana. I love Spain!
We have no Spanish food whatsoever to speak of in Minnesota. It’s horrible.
I grew up in Madrid and to some extent in Cuenca (went to boarding school there) and go as often as I can to see my family there. My kids get to go every summer to see grandma (hmmmm, life is rough for these kiddos), but this summer I am also planning on staying there about six weeks. I hear that there is a tapas restaurant in the twin cities…I really want to check it out although nothing compares to the real deal. What did you do in Castellon?
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I grew up in Madrid and to some extent in Cuenca (went to boarding school there) and go as often as I can to see my family there. My kids get to go every summer to see grandma (hmmmm, life is rough for these kiddos), but this summer I am also planning on staying there about six weeks. I hear that there is a tapas restaurant in the twin cities…I really want to check it out although nothing compares to the real deal. What did you do in Castellon?
I was a high school exchange student in Castellon. I had the best time of my entire life there! I still miss it. I also spent a month in Madrid. Actually, that was the best part of all.
I know that tapas place. It’s on Lyndale and Lake Street, very close to where I live. Some friends of mine have been there, and they said they liked it, but they’ve never been to Spain. I walked by it last week, and one thing that I noticed with concern was that the menu seems to be in Italian! This seriously lowers its credentials as a Spanish restaurant, if you ask me. Also, none of the food sounded familiar to me, although that could be the italian speaking. Still, it did get good reviews I think.
I’ll check it out and report back!
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Thanks Amy! are you in Rochester?
Did you mean “Angie,” or were you refering to someone else? I’m not in Rochester, but in Northeast Iowa. I am up to Mayo quite frequently with my daughter though, so I’m quite familiar with the place.
I meant Angie…sorry! is it pretty “tundra” like also in Iowa? it is so cold here…
Classes started back up on Monday and we are sprinting! started with Pathology which is a continuation from last semester and now we are going into the organ based classes. Cutaneous will only last this week and the final is Friday.
I shadowed during my break…one day I shadowed my family practice preceptor and the following day I shadowed a colon/rectal surgeon. For sure, (of course things do change) I am not headed for primary care! you have to know so much! and there is too much talking and not enough doing for my taste. I think that general practitioners have to be so up to date in a variety of diseases that I would find it hard to stay abreast. I also enjoy getting involved with some hands on and get some type of immediate feedback. I am really enjoying GI (subspecialty of internal medicine) and general surgery. We will see what keeps interesting me as the years go by. This Friday there is a big case going in the OR so I will be headed that way after my final in cutaneous…
Hello guys! well we are done with cutaneous and we all did really well another class down! We started growth and development which is not the most exciting topic IMHO but it is a nice break from break-neck speed classes. We had a quiz for path today and the class did not do so hot…we are just kind of tired and it was a lot of material. Thank goodness the professor is one of the most accomodating and committed individuals that I have ever met so far! he is kind and will go over stuff over and over until we feel comfortable. The final for pathology is on Monday with mostly slides and we will have a computer component with images from the presentations that we had to give. Overall this class is the most fun so far yet it was hard to focus on it due to gross last semester. This is actually not a good thing for the boards are a lot of pathology with hardly any gross. I figure that gross is just a rite of passage but it is sad that it comes at the expense of other things. The good thing is that we have pathophysiology next year and we will go over a lot of the same material that we have already covered. I am planning on shadowing a trauma surgeon this Friday and see what that is all about.
I had a blast following the trauma surgeon and of course it helped that he is in the military. We have completed another course in medical school! pathology and we all passed with flying colors! we have started two new courses growth and development (probably the worst course yet…) and hematology.
Holy cow the weeks are passing by at the speed of light! I just got done teaching my once a week hip-hop/cardio funk class and I am pumped! I love teaching this class and hopefully (although it will be hard to keep doing this during 3rd and 4th year) will be able to teach this for many years to come. We took our mid-term in growth and development and it was not bad at all…we have not received our grades yet but the exam was fair and all the questions were clinical type. We are having our final for hematology next week and that course is really well taught but tons of info! once we are done with hematology we start neurosciences. Once growth and development is done we start intro to patient in the afternoons. This semester is so much more laid back than last semester! I think that gross anatomy was just so time consuming 
I am looking forward to my summer break for six weeks and going home to Spain woohooo! I am applying for a research project with the MN Medical Association…we will see. I am sure that tons of folks apply for this. More later.
We completed our hematology course and the whole class did well and we all passed. It is so nice to have this whole year pass/fail and we are keeping our fingers crossed that the second year becomes pass/fail as well. I shadowed Thursday afternoon (after the hematology final we were done) a geriatrician that is very involved with the medical school curriculum. At the end of the day he asked me if the environment was competitive at Mayo. I was thrown back by the question because at this point I did not know about his efforts to make the first year P/F, so I answered absolutely not. He then explained that he was a huge proponent of making sure that we would be P/F for the first year, and hopefully the second year as well. He then explained to me the nature of the team effort in medicine. He explained that many of the professors (mostly M.D and some Ph.D) expressed the need for pass/fail due to the team effort that they would like us to learn early on. In the hospital it is NOT about you and your choices, most of the time it involves a collaborative effort among ALL the health care providers taking care of the patient (nurses, PT, OT, RT, physicians, etc) and that getting away from the “I must get this score or that score” was crucial for us to actually learn what is needed to take care of our patients. He really made it clear to me (although I somewhat understood the need for team effort) on how truly imperative it is to work as a group w/o feeling like you have to be the superstar or not. He said it is all about using each other and honing on individual strengths to bring forth the best possible care for our patients. Our Dean said "patients do not CARE about how much you know but they do care about how much your CARE. I can truly say that the cooperativity in our class and throughout the whole medical school is outstanding and we all care about the whole class passing each and every one course so we can all move along as a team 
So interesting to read about their views on P/F. I think you are very lucky. Our class started out first year P/F, but now in second semester we are H/P/F and honestly all it has done is to bring out the nasty competitive tendencies in my fellow students, with people fussing because they got one extra question wrong on the exam. The more senior students recently voted to maintain H/P/F and perhaps even reinstitute it during first semester of MS1, because they are afraid that they will not be competitive for residency slots if they are only P/F.
Yeah, that worries me. It is so not an issue for residency though…I have spoken with many residency directors here and at other institutions and they have ALL said that the grades that they look at is 3rd and 4th year and USMLE 1 and 2 (this is a trend to look at second board scores now for some residencies). So the point about it makes you more competitive is BS at least for the first two years. I think it is one more tool to either make medicine more or less of a team effort…and we wonder why some cannot play well together in the sand box…
Let’s see it has been a while…we finished our growth and development course and we started neuroanatomy. This course is pretty intense and there is a LOT to learn. The course is pretty rigid meaning you HAVE to go to all classes and small group discussion (which are every day). The small group discussion are a la PBL style with a lot of problem solving led by a faculty member. This PBL is for sure being taught well although I prefer the good 'ol lecture style. The course is pretty good but pretty stressful, specially if you nave zero neuro background. It is starting to make sense though. We have also started intro to patient which is every afternoon except Friday and we learn how to do the physical exam. This course is taugth by excellent faculty and we do all the practical portion of this in the hospital in an area exclusively for the medical student use. They are patient rooms that have all the necessary equipment for us to conduct the physical exam.
Neuro is at the half-way point with three more weeks left out of a total of six. This course is difficult and a ton of information BUT the emphasis is on localization of injury hence mostly clinical. We do cover the physiology and anatomy but by far the largest component is clinical. That is one of the major benefits of attending this school. The emphasis in pretty much every class is clinical. Most of our classes are taught by physicians in practice, I think this is very beneficial because they can give us so much more insight than let’s say a Ph.D that does research only and teach. The Ph.D’s that teach us are heavily involved in clinical research so even the few that we see also give us clinical relevance. We have taken the lab midterm and the lecture midterm. One thing that is hard in medical school is not getting the return that you think you should get from your time investment. Meaning, you may study a tremendous amount and then get a return that makes you go 
but all is well as long as you are passing. It is just so hard to put so much time and then end with something like an 80? this by far is the hardest thing for me to get adjusted to. My class is brilliant and the average scores are always in the high 80’s and 90’s which speaks volumes of the type of colleagues I will have. I am so thankful that the first year is pass/fail this does take a lot of the competition out and we are competitive enough with our own selves. The neuro exams for lab/lecture were challenging but very fair. You had to know your stuff cold and a lot of emphasis was placed on the basic four (where is the lesion in the nervous system? supratentorial, posterior fossa, spinal, peripheral, or multiple. Is this lesion focal (left, right, midline of the neuroaxis, or diffuse) or not? then what type? mass or non-mass or indeterminate, the last but not least is the etiology is this vascular, inflammtory, neoplasm,etc. We are by far learning a lot and I am happy to have passed all the exams with ample room.