Posts Tagged “infectious disease”

Vlog 2: Pinterest and Pneumonia!

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Cathryn

I bet you’ve never seen THOSE two things together before!

Tagged: infectious disease, oral presentation, pinterest, pneumonia, therapeutics, video blogging, vlog | 2 Comments

I need an IV coffee drip STAT

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Cathryn

Have you people heard of the magical coffee cart that sells coffee and muffins for $1 each?! It’s called Brewed Awakenings and they stalk the halls to provide shlucks like myself who constantly need a caffeine and sugar fix. I wholeheartedly approve because it means I get coffee without even having to lift a finger! I can get it from our hangout table outside of the Science Library.

Gosh, what a week. I thought I could catch a break after clusters but it’s just been a whirlwind of business ever since. We have oral presentations in case this week and a quiz this Friday. Not to mention that wee little event called the presidential elections.

I’m not letting myself get all psyched up for the elections until I figure out what to do with this case though. This guy with hospital acquired pneumonia is about two seconds away from getting a bandaid and a lollypop though, I’m not even kidding.

It’s totally a Monday.

Tagged: coffee, elections, infectious disease, pharmacy | Leave a comment

On entertaining group case sessions

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Cathryn

We had to present a case to our session meeting last week. Here’s how that went down.

Our cases all come out of a book, so they’re fictional (although since some are written by our professors and other clinicians then I imagine they’re somewhat based on fact!)–just to lay down some ground rules. The case that my group presented on was for cellulitis, which is a soft tissue infection that this 19 year old patient got from playing baseball when he slid into a base. The cellulitis is on his butt.

I know I’m a 5th year pharmacy student but oh man that is unfortunate and worth making a thousand jokes about. My group was chosen as the group to present the case to the class and all I could think about was how this college student needed to elevate and immobilize the wound. I was in charge of patient education, so naturally, I wanted to tell the patient that he couldn’t do any booty-shaking at “da club” and he would need to lay like Forrest Gump in his bed to keep the wound clean.

“LIEUTENANT DAN! ICE CREAM!”

I may or may not have quoted this scene to the class. If you guessed “may have,” then you would be right.

Who knew soft tissue infections could be so fun?! I make it fun.

Tagged: case study, class, forrest gump, infectious disease, movies, pharmacy | Leave a comment

Bugs’n'Drugs

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Cathryn

This semester, we’re studying infectious disease, which is awesome. Definitely high up on one of my favorite subjects. No idea why though. Our professor ever-so-lovingly has referred to his lectures as Bugs and Drugs (hence my title). Yesterday, we sat through a 2.5 hour lecture yesterday and it was occurring to me that dealing with these cases is not unlike a real-time strategy role-playing game.

If you don’t know what that is … then good on you. But taking the example of my faaavorite, Fire Emblem, you command an army of people with different skill sets (and trust me, there are enough antimicrobials to fill up a Fire Emblem army), and then depending on each fighter’s skills, they may have strengths or weaknesses against enemies. This is exactly how infectious disease cases work–figuring out the enemy’s weaknesses and picking your strongest fighter(s) to go into battle.

Which brings me to my next point: I’m about 90% certain I’m going to apply for a pharmacy residency next year, and there’s a good chance I want to work with infectious disease. This is a big life decision for me! And I’m terrified! YAY!

To commemorate, I wanted to share the New Guy at the Pond: an Egret named Dolan.

Curtis walked RIGHT UP TO HIM for that picture!

Tagged: birds, classes, fire emblem, infectious disease, pharmacy, video games | Leave a comment

Sinus Epidemic ’12

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Cathryn

It all started the morning of September 9th.

Well, probably earlier than that, but let’s go with the 9th. I had a sore throat. I knew where this was going. Nowhere good. I started with a kettle full of water, put it on the stove. Set the burner to high. Herbal tea with lemon juice and honey could be my savior.

But it was already too late. The infection had taken its hold in millions of host cells. THE PARASITE HAD WON.

The morning of the 10th my sinuses had filled with muck and I was breathing like Darth Vader. I made it through all my classes on Monday, managed to ace a medicinal chemistry quiz (SOMEHOW), and I went home with the innocent but misguided thought that I could get some homework done.

Instead I conked out on the couch watching Ghost Hunters International. In fact, I fell asleep when one of the investigators was calling out to spirits in a solitary confinement cell in a haunted jail in Ireland.

What’s creepy about my illness was that everyone has it. We’re sharing this infectious organism and I didn’t even realize it until around Wednesday. Gross, gross, gross. Yucky. Stay away.