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April 2022

April: 9 hours CCANO Food Bank: 3 hours Card Project: 2 hours FQF Green Team: 4 hours Spring Cumulative: 12 hours   With one final blog post, the semester is over! It has been an eventful year, to say the least, but even with everything going on it feels like it went by in a flash. With our final exams and presentations all slowing down by the end of the semester, there was much more time available to take on community service. For the month of April, I took part in a few different community service opportunities to wrap up the year. First of all, I once again participated in the class card project, which was an overall great opportunity to not only participate in community service but spend some time doing it alongside many of my peers in the program.  I also volunteered with the Green Team at French Quarter Fest for an afternoon, which was a great experience! As someone not from New Orleans originally, I had not expected French Quarter Fest to be such a huge event for the city so soo
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March 2022

March: 0 hours Spring Cumulative: 3 hours   With March behind us, we are really entering the homestretch of the semester. The topics we covered in the last couple of modules have definitely been my personal favorites! Although I may be biased after majoring in neuroscience and doing research in neuropharmacology in undergrad, I think that neuropharmacology and psychopharmacology are incredibly deep and interesting fields within medicine. Ultimately, because we know so much less about the brain compared to the rest of the body, it can be hard to find the best fit for a medication, whether that be for intolerable side effects or lack of response. The effectiveness and response that a person has to a medication have so much individual variation that even the most knowledgable and skilled physicians still have to go with trial and error, even with extensive treatment algorithms and proven empirical treatments. With Med Pharm and Principles already wrapped up for the semester, the focus for
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February 2022

February: 3 hours Spring Cumulative: 3 hours I have been really looking forward to being able to experience the season of Mardi Gras as a resident of New Orleans, and it was definitely worth the wait. Having come to New Orleans only for the week prior a few years ago, I was able to catch a couple of parades and didn't get to see as much of the city during the season with all the crowds and bustle. To be quite honest, I could not have imagined prior to moving here that Mardi Gras was a whole season with so much going on; this time around, I was definitely more able to see what it was all about, and how Mardi has something for everyone. Even with all that time, there is still so much more that I didn't get to, so I am hoping I will be sticking around next year! For my 3 hours of community service this month, I participated in a Volunteer Interpreter Training session with CCANO. With this last required training session, I will finally be able to volunteer as an interpreter with Ca
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January 2022

A new semester, and another month of remote learning! First, Ida and now Omicron. Personally, I have found that I am most successful with in-person learning overall. While attending a lecture in your pajamas has its own appeal, I've found it can be difficult to maintain focus when staring at a screen for several hours a day. For me, it's quite a bit easier to engage with lectures and discussions when physically present in the classroom. While I'm sure others can feel differently, I also struggle with presentations over Zoom compared to an in-person presentation to the class; there is something about the absence of audience feedback in a Zoom presentation that I find unnerving. With the new semester also came several new courses in the curriculum. So far, I have found all of them to be interesting and full of new information. I am a big fan of presentation-based courses; I think that being able to present scientific findings is a really important learned skill set that doesn
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December 2021

December: 14.5 hours Fall Cumulative: 14.5 hours With our final exam this past Tuesday, an eventful semester comes to a close.  It only took me until December to finish up my community service hours, but I was able to volunteer with some amazing organizations in Second Harvest Food Bank, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, and the Salvation Army. While all three were really meaningful experiences (with plenty of hard work), they were not what I had been expecting to work with at the start of the year. That being said, they gave me a new understanding of the systemic issues that I could best serve within the community. Ultimately, my work at the Giving Hope Food Bank (partnering with Second Harvest) gave me some insight into the needs of the Spanish-speaking community here in New Orleans, and only reinforced my desire to pursue ESL and interpreting opportunities. I have always considered communication barriers to be one of the hardest obstacles to overcome for immigrants or r
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November 2021

I find it hard to believe that we're wrapping up November with just 2 weeks left in the semester. After the last couple of modules, I definitely feel like I've started to put together all the material across these different systems and developed a much greater understanding of pharmacology and physiology than I had before the start of the program with more than half to go, so I would characterize it a resounding success for me so far. Learning opportunities like the sim exercise and CBLs make the material much more immediately relevant and applicable, which has not just been helpful to my understanding but gives me a better idea of how all of the knowledge comes together in a clinical setting. For me personally, an opportunity like the sim session was exciting and let me take a glimpse into what both medical school and a career in medicine will be like, and I'll be looking forward to any more sessions that we get.  As far as our community service, I unfortunately wasn't
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October 2021

 After all that went on in August and September, October marks my first full month in New Orleans! All the turbulence and getting into the swing of classes from the get-go after returning made it a bit more difficult to settle back into a routine those first couple of weeks back, but now into October I've really been able to explore more of what the city has to offer.  The sights and sounds of New Orleans have been a welcome break in between work and class. Between the parks in the city and outside town, the music venues, restaurants, and the Krewe of Boo Parade I've already been able to experience a lot, but there is still so much more I have to explore. As I have become more comfortable and settled back into town, the program has definitely ramped up! While I haven't found myself falling behind, I have definitely started to see our coursework take on new complexity. By this point in the semester, most of the material coming our way has been more novel to me. I can see how
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