New blog to document all the crazy things I see or do

Since I have about 2 months before I start my medical rotations, I wanted to start a blog to document my experiences in the medical field and other parts of my life. I hope I can update this at least once a week.

This past 3 weeks has been devoted entirely to my Boards studying. Basically, reviewing everything I've learned in the past 2 years of medical school and it's a lot of information. Medical school isn't extremely challenging or difficult. I still believe everyone has the capacity to become a physician. What I've noticed though is that medical school is not based 100% on intelligent. It's more of a combination of dedication, sacrifice, and intelligence. I spend at least 6 hours studying everyday, and hope for an average of 8 hours. I know some students who do at least 10-12 a day, I don't know how that is possible to be honest.

Here's a tidbit about cardiology since that's the section I'm reviewing now:

Diagnosing a heart attack:

1. First 6 hours of symptoms: EKG is gold standard(EKG is done to any patients nowadays)

2. Cardiac enzymes:

a. Troponin I: rises after 4 hours of an infarct, and stays elevated for 7-10 days. Most specific of all cardiac enzymes.

b. CK-MB: predominantly found in the heart but skeletal muscle can also release them

c. AST: non-specific because it is also found in the liver and skeletal muscle (don't know why we need this one)

So if you see a patient complaining of chest pain with radiation to the left arm or jaw. Order these. Also if you don't see anything on the EKG, it doesn't matter, enzymes still need to be tested.