Interning

Last Fall I got roped into serving as an advisor to our “Caduceus Club” at Pasadena City College.    These students want to go into health-related careers…and even if I never did, I agreed to open a classroom once a week at lunch for their meetings.  During their meetings I heard the guest lectures and learned a lot about our campus blood drives, but mainly served to encourage them in their academic pursuits.  However, I also got e-mails of off campus opportunities to share with them, one of which really caught my eye.

elbow1Last November I tripped.  Really hard!  Caught myself by sticking out my left hand (my right hand was full and couldn’t get empty quickly enough).  The good news was I kept my face from hitting the ground.  The bad news was I locked my elbow and apparently the head of the radius shattered on impact with the capitulum of my humerus.  I am now the owner of a titanium radial head replacement.  I asked my surgeon if I could watch the operation, but he said no.

So, there is a program at UC Davis where premedical students can shadow surgeons.  I already have all the prerequisite courses, even if I never seriously thought about becoming a doctor.  I decided that to be a good advisor I should lead by example.  If nothing else, applying to the program would help me understand what my students who need letters of recommendation are going through, right?

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