Eating Goldfish

I'm eating some goldfish crackers as I type this post.  Goldfish crackers always remind me of my childhood, especially when we lived in our old house.  I've been thinking a lot about my childhood and growing up lately.  I see my nephew and niece (ages 11 and 10) and I'm trying to remember what it was like then.   I can't remember as much as I would like...so I guess I'm trying to hold onto the goldfish cracker memories for as long as I can.

Another week of school has flown by.  I can't think of anything specific about this week that made it stand out.  It was pretty typical, as in similar to college.  Except, I had seven classes with no structured schedule.  I also had my second patient interview this week and it was with a standardized patient.  That experience was pretty cool because the standard patients are trained to give you feedback after you stimulate the interview.  Some positive feedback that I'm really proud about is that I (apparently) have really good interpersonal skills when it comes to talking with patients.  Some things that I need to work on are organization and verbal empathy. 

My standardized patient and I discussed the two forms of empathy that a physician can provide a patient during a visit.  Empathy in a clinical setting can be embodied through body language and through words (verbally).  My body language empathy was all there but I was encouraged to speak more empathetically with my future patients.

I enjoyed the standardized patient interview greatly because it's a reminder of what I have to look forward to after two years of hitting the books.

Other than school work, my life has been going fairly well.  Tomorrow I'm running a 10k!