One down...two to go

I just got done with one interview for an internship/residency slot just outside of Cleveland and I'm camped out at a Panera south of Clevelend in a town called Masillon, just two exits off where the NFL hall of fame is located. It was suprisingly a very relaxing interview, but getting to the place was a whole different story. My goal was to leave yesterday and cut out of surgery around noon, unfortunately that ended up not being until 4:30 before I could take off. The time wasn't too bad, because from Grand Blanc it's only 3 and a half hours to Clevelend. But with my luck and traveling, something always has to go wrong. 45 minutes out of town and I get stuck on a two-lane freeway, moving a whole 100ft in over an hour. There was no where to pull off, and everyone around had no clue as to what was going on except they were all just pissed. I called up Jeremy, my old roomate who's also out in MI, and he passed on the news that a semi had overturned on that freeway spilling gravel everywhere. After 2 hrs and the tow-truck came as well as the clean up crew, I was finally on my way. Total time: 6hrs to destination. Horrendous.

Bastard Driver

When I finally got into town and checked into the good ole Comfort Inn, I couldn't stop laughing at the room that i got. The room had a king sized bed, a small couch, and really old appliances everywhere, but the kicker is how it was arranged. I have never seen anything like this, but from the bathroom you could walk through the tiny bath tub (or "jacuzzi") through a octagonal window into the living room. It's hard to explain, so below are some pictures (maybe someday I'll get a condo like this....what a great idea):

The Octagonal window can be accessed either from the bathroom or the living room (basically, I brushed my teeth in the bathroom--> rolled into the shower to bathe myself--> rolled myself out the other window onto the couch to dry myself off--> and then rolled over the nightstand onto the bed never once touching the floor)

This tub was made for midgets

Midgets with style, but midgets nonetheless

I felt like I should've put on some disco music, got into my bath robe, broken out some champagne and invited hookers over for a shin-digg...I dunno, maybe that's just me.

So for the whole interview process, I arrived there at 7:00 for the morning fracture conference (presentations were done by the students and the attendings discussed some x-rays from the past week), we ate some breakfast, got a tour of the hospital and then had our interviews. We got interviewed by the program director who was an orthopedic surgeon and the medical education department head at the same time and then after we had to decipher a case presentation that the chief resident presented. The case wasn't too difficult, and my thought process was correct, but I still managed to screw up part of the analysis...but I think he got a good sense of how I think, which was basically the purpose of the case.

There were three other students that interviewed today; they are doing a large first round of interviews of 30+ students, and then narrowing it down to 8 for the second round which they will then axe the rest down to the two available spots. An aside random note...I asked one of the other students about what he did inbetween college and medical school because he told me that he had taken 7 yrs "off." Oh...nothing big...just a little MLB baseball...well sorta, he was drafted by the Yankees in the 3rd round in 1995 and played a lot of minor league ball for several years, not quite sure if he ever played much in the majors. Anyways, I got bored and looked him up...here's the only baseball card I could find of him:


So now I'm waiting to check into my "apartment" they gave me for the night for my interview tommorrow morning. After that, depending on what time it gets done tommorrow, I might go check out the Hall of Fame and then drive back to the Detroit area. I have one interview around those parts Saturday morning, and after I should be completely burned out of interviewing....so the next logical step is...to drink. If it finishes early, I'm going to head down to Ann Arbor to watch the Michigan vs. Iowa game, Debbie is from Iowa and I had promised her a few months back that I would go down there to try to get tickets with her. Hopefully I won't get beat up in the process at "the Big House" since she'll be wearing all Iowa gear and rooting for her team. On Sunday the goal is to go down to Comerica and try to scalp tickets...although I might have to sell my kidney for one. If we can't get tickets, we're just going to go watch the game at a nearby bar. I got one week left in MI, and then back to KC for the weekend, where I"ll be watching the Chiefs and Seahawks with Shader, Kenny and his dad.