Mexico Medical Student |

Just a quick reminder that the deadline for Tuesday’s Grand Rounds is tomorrow, Monday, at 12:00 noon CDT. Please review the post guidelines written here earlier this week. Thanks!

I was perusing some past hosts of Grand Rounds on Medscape to help get a few ideas for writing the upcoming edition, when I see an article with “An American Gets an Education South of the Border” in the title. I thought, “Hey, sounds like me.” Then it hit me: “That is me!” I had no idea the pre-rounds link was already live; I thought it went live the same day as Grand Rounds.

Sooo…even though it’s a lot of what I already said on the blog, there are some things that are unique to the writeup, and Dr. Genes did a great job of editing my rambling prose for a more formal presentation.

Following the link above requires (free) registration, but if you’re a medical professional or student of any kind, it’s worth it. If you want to read the article and insist on not registering, email me and I’ll send you a PDF of the web page.

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On another topic, we had a “Meet the Baby” party today for my classmates, friends of Claudia from the wives’ group, and it was a great time. (It was interesting seeing various people’s reaction towards her, some being totally hands-on and others barely touched her leg or whatever, quickly withdrawing their arm as if she would bite. Strange.) Anyway, more than one classmate asked how I did it and/or that there’s no way they could have a family here. I don’t know…necessity definitely wins out, and it’s not like I have the answer–I’m living it right now, but to loosely quote Alanis in her prime:

What it all comes down to
Is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet.
I’ve got one hand in my pocket,
and the other one is holding my baby.

Call me corny, but that’s exactly how I feel.

This is a major departure from my usual posting, but I love Soviet-era culture. It’s not a “Oh, what a wonderful time it must have been during Stalin,” way but rather a never-ending fascination. I also love anything dealing with the CIA, KGB or espionage in general; I’m a total sucker for a good spy movie/story. Did you know that in Russian culture a wide-mouthed smile is perceived as someone laughing, so that Westerners traveling there would often get odd looks like “What are you laughing at?” when trying to be friendly? It’s like the norm is flat affect, and what we’d consider a chuckle is downright hilarity. Or at least used to be that way–perhaps things have warmed after 15-some-odd years of glasnost. A quick perusal of my music library also shows huge leanings towards 19th and 20th century Russian composers, by far. I even joked about subjecting my future child to Shostakovich as early as possible (before I even knew she was already conceived!)

Imagine my delight when I discovered a site full of authentic Soviet-era propaganda posters! (The linked poster’s caption reads, “Chatterbox–a gift to the enemy!”) I love the sneering, “I’m turning you in” look of the guy in the background–priceless. Through a small attempt at learning Russian about 5 years ago, I can read a little bit of simple words, but to enjoy the site you’ll need to make heavy use of Babelfish.

I know this is probably not for everyone (probably only me), but I thought I’d post something interesting and different.

I will be hosting Grand Rounds on Tuesday, August 8th! The current edition is being hosted by Dr. Lisa Marcucci at Inside Surgery, with pre-rounds at Medscape. (As always, GR is updated in my sidebar). The “theme” (a term I’ll use loosely) for the edition here next week will be “Culture Convergence.” The central focus will be anything that demonstrates an encounter with another culture, nationality, time period–anything that caused you look differently at them or yourself. Again, this is simply a focus that I’d like to personally highlight, it is not a requirement.

The few guidelines I have are as follows:

• Send your submissions via email to enrico-[at]-mexicomedstudent.com with the subject “Grand Rounds” and the URL of the post for inclusion in body of the email.
• Most important: all posts must reach me by Monday, August 7th at 12:00 CDT (13:00 EDT). I’m busy too, and I need time to compile an edition that does service to the Grand Rounds tradition. Any submissions received later than the above will automatically be forwarded to the next host; the postage is on me.
• For submissions, I will accept anything, but I will give greater weight to posts that highlight my proposed theme for this edition.
• Please be mindful of post length, keeping them if at all possible to under 600 words. Book-sized submissions take longer to read and don’t “play nice” with all the other links.
• Posts should be accessible to (though not necessarily written for) a general audience.
• I hope it’s not an issue, but I may not be able to include all the submissions I receive. I do not have a hard limit, preferring to remain flexible. I will always lean on the side of inclusiveness, but I reserve my editorial right to do what’s best for the edition.

Seriously, I do hope to get submissions throughout the week and not just on Sunday night/Monday morning. As soon as you’ve posted something and feel it should be included in next week’s edition, send it to me then. Thank you.
I hope to do justice to the upcoming edition. I’m honored that Dr. Nick Genes picked me to host. See you here next week!

From our pathophysiology professor’s notes that were made available to us yesterday:

Does this mean MAT hurts? It looks more like torticollis than an arrhythmia. Anyway, this shows I’m easily amused.

Coming soon: Tales of Surgery II: The Suture Strikes Back!