First day of Thanksgiving break

Last week was a little harder than the the few weeks prior. Monday we had a Evidence Based Medicine exam. It was all about stats and epidemiology. Not very exciting. Infact I don't really care for the whole unit. We still have one more exam and a paper to write. The Evidence Based Medicine unit is the means to getting our Masters Degree. In the second year we have to do a big research project as one of our rotations. That's one thing that I am not looking forward to.

After taking the EBM exam on Monday I was then able to focus on the Cardiology exam that would be the next Monday. This exam was sure to be the toughest so far. It covered 14 lectures from three different classes: Clinical Medicine, Diagnostic Methods, and Pharmacology. The unit included topics in Congestive Heart Failure, Coronary Artery Disease, Hypertension, NSTEMI/STEMI, and other heart conditions including the physiology, diagnostic procedures and treatment (pharmacological and non-pharm).

It is never as easy as I want it to be. The Friday before the big Cardiology exam was my final Complete Physical Exam. Ashley "volunteered" to be my patient. We had practiced a dozen times or so at home. The exam was a complete head-to-toe that had to be completed in 45 minutes. I had never finished in time in my practicing, but the exam went fine. I did very well and had some great feedback from my proctor (who happened to be the director of the PA program). She has a tradition of letting her students know what field she thinks they will be successful in. She told me that I would do well as a hospitilist or in Emergency or Surgery. That is pretty close to what I have in mind as of now.

I got that over with and spent the rest of the weekend studying for cardiology. I woke up at 4:00am on Monday morning and studied up til the exam at 8:00. It went much better than I had anticipated. That was the only thing we had scheduled that day, so upon completing the exam I was free to begin my Thanksgiving break. We just hung out the rest of the day. We bought a christmas tree and went to the mall. Eliza got to see Santa Clause and tell him what she wants for Christmas (which happens to be Licorice and Shoes).

For the first complete day of no class, we went to the Carolina Premium outlets to the Nike store. We had a great time shopping and just being together (and not worrying about school). Here are some pictures from the day.




Eliza wanted to ride each of these little toys. I of course said no (that is what dad's are supposed to do...right?) But I at least let her sit on them for a picture.


We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for lunch (one of my favorite places to eat). We found out that they have a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, so we will be heading there for dinner. Eliza wanted to take some pictures with my phone, so these are some of her's.

We got home from shopping and went to the park so Eliza could play for awhile. Her and Sarah had a great time.

We ended the day with Ashley going visiting teaching while I watched the girls. I got Sarah and Eliza in the tub and ready for bed. It was a perfect day.