Zach's Blog

Monday : Zoey woke up from a nap with Flock of Seagulls hair We had some super fun lectures on confounding factors in study designs and how we get towards assuming causation. Basically, if you read any article that claims some some sort of finding was proven from research you should only assume that their claim might be right. Never assume any findings are correct. We then spent 1-5 working on patient interviews with standardized patients. Tuesday : We finished our last two purely biostatistic lectures. Some fun talk about linear, poisson, and logistic regression. We then got in our small groups and did some technology and resources stuff. We basically practiced finding resources on various case studies so that when we are inevitably confronted with a case we don't understand we can quickly find more information. I then had a PubMed quiz in which I had to demonstrate that I was able to use PubMed efficiently to find information on stuff. Wednesday : We learned about modi...

Monday : We reviewed different types of study designs and the lecturer confused us all by jumping back and forth between different topics. We finished a PBL session about STDs. One student tried to argue that AIDS isn't that bad. That got some interesting looks from the PBL facilitators. We got grades back for our first homework assignments. I went to a review for the content during lunch and people were surprisingly uppity about the grades they got. I'm not sure why so many people were worried because we were all told that we got passing grades and it's a pass fail course. Maybe they're planning to do really poorly on the final. We finished the day off with 2-3 hours of standardized patients while I tried to stay awake (Addie hasn't been sleeping lately). I then wrote some flash cards for the exam I have Wednesday morning. Tuesday : Two quick lectures on cohort studies and a technology and resources group meeting. The advisory deans have been having one on one ...

Monday : We had a problem based learning (PBL) case that was meant to exercise our public health and disease prevention knowledge. Besides that most of classes were just introduction to various topics and what's expected of us. After all of our classes were over we had the opportunity to sign up for special interest groups that occasionally meet and teach about various specialties and service opportunities during lunch. I signed up for several and got to do an ultrasound on some guys arm. He showed me what his artery looked like on the machine. I thoght it was pretty darn cool. Tuesday : Classes technically ended at 12:00, although I didn't get home until about 4:00.  We learned a little bit about statistics used for screening for diseases in our first lecture. In our second lecture a fourth year medical student taught us about societal determinants of health. As one student put it, "He talked so fast he sounded like Eminem." We then spent the remaining time in sm...

It was registration week and oh what a week it was! We started off the week by doing some exciting orientation. While we did do some fun activities involving paper work and training for N95 masks the majority of activities culminated in me meeting a bunch of new people, learning their names, and immediately forgetting their names because so much was going on. But that only covers Monday. Tuesday involved lots of set up for passwords and iPads (One of the mandatory tools for us to have is an iPad. Unfortunately, we aren't using them to play games.) Besides that most of the day was just listening to people go over resources available to medical students.  We did do an interesting mindfulness activity directed by the counseling center. We each got a box of raisins and spent five minutes using all five senses to "experience" the raisins. When we were invited to comment about our individual experiences throughout this activity I decided to restrain myself and not mention how...

Recently we moved to Rochester New York and brought an entire tribe with us to help us move in (AKA my family and Lexi's family). We went to Niagara falls where Addie was scared of the water and Zoey tried to lick the water. We went to the beach where I fell asleep in the sand and my mom got algae stuck in her swimsuit. We picked fresh berries at a local farm where my brother in law Aaron and I ate a month's worth of blueberries. We went to the Sacred Grove and gave the where my dad and I suggested to the sister missionaries some improved names for their stories ("The Subterfuge"). We visited the Erie Canal where my mother in law serenaded us with her beautiful old-timey song. It was a truly magical time filled with visits to Boston Market and Dunkin' Donuts (did you know America runs on Dunkin'?!). But now we're back to reality and trying to get use to our new life here. Here are some things since that have happened since the tribe left: I laughed ...

Part of a being a parent these days involves watching terrible children shows with little to no substance. I'm sure my parents had to endure similar hardships, but I don't understand why I have to. We have the internet which has given us youtube, Netflix, and Hulu. I've tried to put forth standards of better entertainment in my home, but my beautiful wife insists that Addie loves other shows more. She'll bring the children into the living room in the morning where I'm trying to do some work (with great aplomb I might add) and turn on one of these shows. Usually she'll turn on Paw Patrol, leaving me stuck watching a show riddled with problems. Now, you might ask why I don't just stand up and change the channel. Because it's the morning and I'm tired. That's why. Now I have all this useless knowledge about talking dogs. Here are just a few of my problems with Paw Patrol. My girls getting ready for some Paw Patrol in the morning 1. Why do o...

Several times I’ve been asked for advice on preparing for the MCAT from other premed students. There are a lot of resources out there and it’s really hard to filter through what will work best. To make matters more difficult, everyone has different needs when preparing for the MCAT. This means it’s not as clear as getting the best (most expensive) resources. In other words, there is no list somewhere that will tell you exactly what to do. That’s why I think it may be best if I start by giving you a little background on how I learn and what worked best for me and then review the resources I used. Like most premed students, I typically got A’s (with the exception of a B in one of my religion classes). If I didn’t get an A on a test I would review  what I got wrong until I could take a variation on the same material to get an A. In doing so I would identify why I got a question wrong (Did I not know a specific topic or interpret the question/answers incorrectly?). While I did wo...