October Blog Post 2020

OCTOBER BLOG

For the past few weeks, I have loved this program more and more. I genuinely feel like this program and information I have been studying will drive my career forward, in Medicine. I have also found that using a learning objective information as a study guide is very helpful too as well.  For example, I began writing out the various clinical pathologies and then what drugs are used to treat each different one. I wrote my PenPal a letter for the months of October for DreamCatchers. I also donated food to Covenant House to volunteer at the local shelter and made an appointment. I will see what I can do Halloween day. I am also volunteering at a local food drive, potentially 2nd Harvesters and/or NOLA Ready to  help out the community in the aftermath effect of  Hurricane Zeta relief whether it be feeding the homeless, giving them help,  food distribution, or ride share for anyone who needs assistance getting around.

This week Hurricane Zeta made landfall, it was the first of the named storms that actually impacted the City of New Orleans, causing about 75% of Orleans Parish to go without electricity. Everything went dark around 6:30 PM, the night of the storm. It was like waking up to the zombie apocalypse. It just makes me think how really susceptible New Orleans really is to hurricanes, even with all the preparation and infrastructure in place, we are still one gust of wind away from looking like a third world nation. Somehow, hurricane preparation should be addressed better. I love New Orleans too much, I am so proud to call this place home, but we have to do better. 

I am focused on understanding the chemical mechanisms of actions for the different drugs. I also want to memorize the Renin angiotensin cycle because I know this will become useful as a Physician. My favorite part of learning this month has been in cell and molecular learning about gel electrophoresis and PCR, because it reminded me of my undergraduate at Louisiana State University where I did capillary staining for PCR in Dr. Warner's research lab.

 I am going to continue to volunteer tomorrow with Hurricane Zeta community service and help out in the community by volunteering my time and resources in assisting others in debris removal, cell phone powering or food drop off in anyway I am can.