And after the party its the hotel lobby

via Style Me Pretty

 via Anne Bowen

I may still be looking for the perfect wedding dress but I think I've definitely found my after-party outfit, this Anne Bowen dress, giant flower and, of course, martini in hand. 

But, you're too nice to be an Ob/Gyn!

It's the beginning of 4th year, the time in the life of a medical student when a career path must be chosen. The application process for selecting a residency program begins on July 1. Personal statements must be written, residency applications must be filled out, and audition rotations must be scheduled. I consider myself lucky.  I have been passionate about Ob/Gyn since before applying to medical school, so I have escaped the career decision angst that some of my colleagues are experiencing. But that's not to say that that people haven't tried to persuade  me to consider other specialties, especially this past year during my clinical rotations. At the beginning of each rotation, I was inevitably asked, "And what are you planning on doing with your life?" When I replied "Ob/Gyn," the reactions were universally (with the exception of some Ob/Gyn docs) both visceral and negative. Some typical responses:

"Do you want to be miserable your whole life?"
"Why, oh why, would you want to do that?"
"You are going to regret that decision."
"Don't you want to be a real surgeon?"
"Don't do that! Do anything but that!"
"You are going to hate your life."

and my personal favorite,
"But, you're too nice to be an Ob/Gyn!"

According to almost every resident and attending with whom I have worked this year, all of the Ob/Gyn physicians of the world are mean, horrible, miserable people and, apparently, not real surgeons. I know that I'm still in medical school, so maybe I'm naïve; but I refuse to believe that this is true. I've met plenty of amazing, thoughtful, NICE, Ob/Gyns who are satisfied with their careers and are competent in the OR. It has been incredibly frustrating to constantly be on the defensive about my chosen career path while the student standing next to me who is going into radiology gets a "good choice" response and a pat on the back. So to you, Dr.-Urology-attending-who-

felt-the-need-to-sit-me-down-for-an-hour-to-describe-the-horrors-of-Ob/Gyn, I'm going into Ob/Gyn, I'm going to be happy and I'm going to stay a NICE person. So there. And, yes, I'll watch out for the ureters.

Uterus Vase by The Plug & Stéphanie Rollin

Strange yet feminine and inviting. I want this filled with peonies on my desk. Do you think patients would be turned off or intrigued by this vase?

Getting My Learn On

I'll be MIA for a few days due to the fact that I'm in super-intense study mode, gearing up for my final shelf exam of 3rd year. That's right, beginning next week I'm officially a 4th year medical student. Woohoo!! But until then I have some Sugar Free Rockstar and 500 Pretest questions calling my name.

Orthopod Footwear

 dsquared2  via jak & jil

via luisaviaroma

 The perfect shoes for the off-duty, fashion forward orthopaedic surgeon without a fear of heights.

Telemedicine for Choice

 via NYT

Telemedicine is the new buzzword in medical delivery. Innovative technology is being used to fashion creative solutions to problems of access and challenging the conventional ideas of a visit to the doctor. Example: this article recently published in the New York Times describes a physician caring for workers on an oil rig off the coast of Malaysia from the comfort of his office chair in Houston. And now this article about using telemedicine to provide abortion services to women who have no access to providers.  (There is no abortion provider in 87% of all U.S. counties). Pretty amazing. Makes me wonder if I'll be seeing patients from my couch in ten years (hey, a girl can dream)!

(thanks J, the ultimate crusader for reproductive rights, for originally posting this link)

Full Swim

via anthropologie

via dvf 

 Cynthia Rowley via  nymag

swimwear circa 1941

While attempting to study by the pool this weekend my mind drifted to thoughts of swimwear.  Some of the high waisted styles this year stand in sharp juxtaposition to the modern barely-there bikini we're used to seeing. A throwback to the 1940's and 50's, these suits are still attractive in a Bettie Page kind of way and a lot more forgiving for those without Brooklyn Decker's body.

Lemon Baby

 via cloth mother

I'm so excited to hang out with one of my dearest college friends this weekend. She is the first of my friends to become pregnant. As you can imagine, I love hearing everything and anything about how the pregnancy is going both as a friend and as a future Ob. This week, at 14 weeks, Little A is the size of a lemon - so cute! I am so using fruit analogies with my prenatal patients when I'm a doc.

Happy Friday!

Green Wedding Dress

Oscar de la Renta Resort 2011

These days I'm constantly on the look out for a possible wedding dress, so essentially any dress I see is fair game. After catching a glimpse of this amazing emerald green dress from Oscar de la Renta, I'm thinking there can't be anything wrong with not wearing white on your wedding day if it looks as good as this.

The Clog: Circa 3653 B.C.

Archaeologists in Armenia have discovered the original fashionista's footwear, a size 7 leather shoe estimated to have been worn by a "high-status" woman 5,500 years ago.

Chanel Spring 2010

 The clog as it's worn today by society's "high-status" woman. I imagine it would be difficult to forage for berries in Chanel's version but I still want a pair.

Happy Birthday Mama!

Today's my amazing mother's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you Mom! Thanks for being the most incredible role model, for always supporting me and my dreams and for just generally being awesome in every way. Love you xo.

Dream

Can this Zac Posen dress be my wedding dress? Please, pretty, pretty, please??

The First Dance

On jezebel today there was a post about the the evolution of the viral video wedding dance and it got me thinking about our first dance. The boy is not a dancer, well, at least not without a few drinks in him. I, on the other hand, love, love, love, LOVE, LOVE to dance. He would like there to be no official first dance period. His compromise - have it be super short and everyone else joins in partly through the song. The idea of our friends and family watching us dance is not his idea of romantic fun. I partially agree. Watching a couple two-step their first dance is really boring after the first twenty seconds. It's even worse when you can tell the couple attended three dance lessons and are awkwardly trying to remember steps. Don't get me wrong, I think the first dance is a really special moment for the newlyweds, I just don't think everyone else needs to watch. But a tiny part of me still secretly wishes we could choreograph a ridiculously spectacular YouTube worthy dance routine that will become the next viral video craze.

Reason #392 Ob/Gyn is Awesome

I love reading case reports, whether it's in the New England Journal of Medicine or New York Magazine. The latter has a great series in this month's issue called "My Toughest Case." As the name implies, physicians from different specialties recall their "toughest case."  Dr. Abu-Rustum, a Gyn-Onc at Sloan-Kettering, described the time that he operated on a pregnant woman with cervical cancer. So yup, ob/gyn is awesome.

Turban with a Twist

via jak & jil

via hanneli

New take on the turban trend. Admittedly not easy to pull off, but really what turban is?

UWorld, Uworld and more UWorld

 via garance dore

I'm in the midst of studying for step 2 of my medical licensing boards. When I studied for step 1, at the completion of my 2nd year of medical school, I had a month to devote purely to studying. Now, I have to balance studying for step 2 along with my other course work and research endeavors. On the other hand, my score on step 2 is not nearly as important as my step 1 score for residency applications. The step 1 score is used as an initial screening tool at a lot of programs in deciding if they even want to read the rest of your application. For certain competitive specialties, the step 1 score essentially determines if you will even have a chance of matching into that field. Aside from the stressing about the enormous weight the score of one test, that you take on one day of your life, holds, I actually thought studying for step 1 was fun. It's a cumulative exam of everything learned during the first two years of med school. Reviewing all of that material, now that I finally had all of the puzzle pieces to fully understand what I was reading, was actually awesome. I realized how much I had learned in only two years - all of the basic principles of medicine. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

Step 2 tests the diagnosis and treatment, rather than the basic science and pathophysiology of disease. Again, as I go through Usmleworld questions*, I surprise myself with the knowledge I've accumulated in three short years. Specifically, my ability to see a patient, have an idea of what is going to with them, know what diagnostic tests need to be ordered and know how to treat them - kinda like a real doctor! It's scary that I'll have MD after my name in less than a year but I'm starting to think I might be able to handle it.

* Usmleworld is a giant question bank of questions that are very similar to those appearing on the official medical board exams. It's amazing and a must-have for step 1. An upper year passed along this tidbit: buy the step 2 Qbank early in 2nd year and use it to study for all the shelf exams. I thought that was great advice. So now at this point, I'm doing all the questions (>2,000) for the second time. I highly recommend using the UW step 2 Qbank all of 2nd year.   

Thick is the New Thin

... well for eyebrows at least. I go through a I'm-going-to-grow-my-eyebrows-out-to-look-like-Hilary-Rhoda phase at least once a year but then chicken out and start plucking away. I'm resolved this time, well, at least for this week.

To VBAC or not-to-VBAC

Vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) is a hot topic in the OB world right now. The June issue of Obestetrics & Gynecology has a review article attempting to determine the maternal and neonatal outcomes associated with VBAC. Their conclusion:

"Overall the best evidence suggests that VBAC is a reasonable choice for the majority of women. Adverse outcomes were rare for both elective repeat cesarean delivery and trial of labor. Definitive studies are lacking to identify patients who are at greatest risk for adverse outcomes."

Translation - we still don't know how safe/risky a VBAC is for mom and baby. I get asked for my opinion on this all of the time. I used to be all for the VBAC. I thought that I understood the benefits of avoiding repeat cesareans and that the risk of uterine rupture is there, but very rare. However, I also only have one year of clinical experience, and only six weeks of experience in ob/gyn, and really only two of those six weeks was experience on the labor and delivery floor, i.e. I haven't seen much yet. I'm not on an ob/gyn rotation currently but the other day there was a VBAC uterine rupture in the hospital where I'm working. The infant was flown to a tertiary care hospital and the prognosis was looking dim. The mom ended up in the ICU. Suddenly, my loud-mouth, inexperienced, opinion that VBACs were great and everyone should undergo a trial of labor changed. If it was my sister, would I counsel her to VBAC? Would I want to VBAC? I know that medical decisions shouldn't be made for emotional reasons, but without the evidence to back up our decision making, what do you tell a patient who asks about VBAC when you just sent the last VBAC to the ICU?

 

Yummy Black Beans and Rice

Rice is my all-time favorite food. Even when I was young, and all the other kids loved pizza and ice cream, I stuck with my rice. My Grammie used to joke that I should have been born somewhere in Asia. She would always cook me a pot of rice when I stayed home sick from school.

I definitely will be making this for dinner next week. Well, maybe the fiance will make it for me, he's the real chef in the house. But I will definitely sit in the kitchen and pseudostudy while this is made.

Panama, the summer hat

via lookbook.nu

via hanneli

via jcrew

I'm craving a Panama hat for this summer. The only problem is that I can't seem to find a cheap one that doesn't look cheap. I can't justify splurging, considering I may only be outside of the hospital while the summer sun is shining a grand total of 10 days this summer. Would it be overkill to buy a Panama Hat and wear it all 10 days? 

Homeopathic spider webs

Today, while I was examining a six month old infant, his mother casually told me that he had a bad yeast infection last week. But, not to worry, because she cured it by putting spider webs in his diaper. Not the spider, she assured me (because that would be crazy!), just the webs. When I told my attending about this mother's natural remedies, the attending replied, "I always thought she was a witch."

Wedding Dress

via stylemepretty

I'm not the type of girl that has dreamed about a fairy tale wedding since I'm five. I definitely tend to be attracted to the more non-traditional wedding aesthetic, like this dress - completely non-traditional but absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

Proscrastination

I'm a procrastinator. I'm in medical school. Unfortunately, these two things don't always go together but I've somehow managed to make it through three years of medical school, procrastination and all. I've decided to start this blog to further feed my procrastination habit. If I'm going to waste my precious study time reading blogs, I might as well contribute to the blogosphere, right? 

So, here it is, my first post. I'm just beginning my 4th and final year of medical school. I have wanted to be an ob/gyn since forever and soon I will be beginning the process if applying for residency.  I love medicine and everything about caring for women. I also love fashion and design. In my free time I'm planning my wedding, meaning, we've been engaged for almost a year and there is no plan. So I guess this blog will be about that - medicine, women's health, fashion, wedding planning and my attempt to balance it all.