Keith Passed

Keith received the results from the Step 2 CS today and he passed.  It took two and a half months to get the results back, which is way too long!  He doesn't have anymore tests to take until residency.  Now he can relax, go on his interviews, and then match in March 2012.  We are so excited!  And mostly, we just can't wait to move closer to Minnesota.

Residency Interviews

It's the start of interview season for medical graduates and Keith has quite a few scheduled already.  We are really excited about the possibility of moving back to the upper midwest!  Keith has been able to schedule 6 of them around the same time so we can drive to all of them and not have to spend money on plane tickets.  The week before Thanksgiving he has two in Iowa, the week of Thanksgiving he has two in Omaha, NE, and the Monday after Thanksgiving he has one in Mankato, MN.  He has to fly back in January for an interview in Rochester, MN.  So far he has about 12 interviews scheduled!   He just took his last exam, the Step 2 CS this past Monday.  It's a little stressful having to wait so long for the results, especially since it is such a subjective exam, but I am sure he did well.

The picture above is Alex at the Huntcliff Stables Pumpkin Patch in Sandy Springs, GA.

Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield

A few days ago, while Alex was at school, Keith and I decided to head back to Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield. Keith has had a few days off during his Urgent Care rotation so we have been taking advantage of it and getting out to see the area. I think Keith is liking Atlanta more and more, but he still does not want to live here long term. The picture above is at the top of Kennesaw Mountain. We decided to go down the other side and start up the next little mountain called Little Kennesaw Mountain. We could of kept going but our legs were tired. We had hiked a total of about five miles and it was getting a little too hot to keep going.

In other news, Keith applied to a total of 65 residency programs. Wow! I thought that was a lot, but really it is not as many as some of our friends have applied to. I can't wait to find out where he will have some interviews and where we might end up.

Congratulations to Keith

Three weeks ago Keith took the USMLE Step 2 CK and I am happy to tell everyone that he got his results back this morning and he did great!  I am so proud of him!  He is also relieved to have that test behind him.  He will take the USMLE Step 2 CS in October.

This week Keith started a rotation in Urgent Care.  He is glad to be done with GI as watching colonoscopies all day long got a little redundant.

Chattahoochee River

The other day, Keith, Alex, and I went to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area- Island Ford to hike around.  I took a few pictures and posted them on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bratulich/sets/72157626538035575/

Island Ford is just one section within the national recreation area.  We plan to be here for at least another year so we hope to visit more of the recreation area before we leave.

Keith scheduled a few more rotations and is now scheduled until February of next year.  He has a few more to schedule and is thinking about which rotations he wants to do.  This is what his schedule will look like for the next few months.

He is finishing up the next two weeks in pediatrics.
5/23-7/1 Psychiatry
7/18-8/12- Gastroenterology
8/15-9/9- Urgent Care
9/12-10/7 Cardiology
10/10-11/4-Internal Medicine Sub-internship
11/7-1/27 Surgery
1/30-2/24 Emergency Medicine

He has two weeks off in July but will be studying for his USMLE Step 2 CK exam.  After he finishes with that he will have to study for the USMLE Step 2 CS exam.  The studying never ends!

Blooming Flowers

We have been loving the weather here in Atlanta (except for this week, it's been rainy).  Alex and I meet up with her preschool friends at the playground most everyday.  Tomorrow since it is supposed to rain again we are going to meet at an indoor playground called Jeronimo.  Alex loves getting together with her friends and having them come over to play.

Keith is enjoying his Family Practice rotation.  He says the majority of the patients have been coming in with allergies.  Allergies are really bad here, so bad that there is a layer of yellow dust (pollen) on everything.  I will have to take a picture of it and post it because I have never seen anything like it.  After two weeks of Family Practice, Keith will start his Pediatrics rotation.   We still do not know what his rotations will be after Pediatrics.  I hope we will find out this week!  Dealing with Ross University clinical department can be so frustrating!

Keith Starts Back on Monday

So Keith finally found out today that he is going back to his IM rotation on Monday!  So he did his two weeks of Nephrology and now he will be doing outpatient stuff..  I hope we don't have anymore issues with Ross.

Ross Clinical Rotations at Dekalb

So Keith started his IM clinical rotations at Dekalb on Monday.  Ross had told him to keep on the low down and not talk to anyone.  He kind of figured it was because he transferred from another hospital and didn't go through orientation there but it wasn't!  Apparently there is a dispute going on between Ross and Dekalb and because of it Dekalb Hospital isn't taking on anymore new students!  So today, after an hour of being there, they told Keith he had to go because they weren't taking on any new students until Ross University School of Medicine and the hospital work out their issues.  Great!  First of all, I can't believe they put Keith into this situation knowing what was going on!  The doctor that Keith was with today told him that they are bringing in too many new students.  Apparantly there are 107 new students scheduled to start at Dekalb Medical this month, and most of them are Ross students.  This really bothers me!  What if they don't settle their dispute, then what?  Do we move again?  We signed a one year lease, what do we do about that?

More details to come.  Keith is now trying to get a hold of someone in the clinical department.

I think I need a Car

Pictured above is Alex in bunny ears, Castlin, Kara, and Kaya.  We we're invited over to a family game night at Castlin's parents house, Jennifer and her husband, Shannon.  I had met Jennifer once while in Miami and now they are in Atlanta doing rotations.  Alex had a fun time playing with friends while mommy and daddy played Catch Phrase with the other couples. 

Keith had his second day today.  He is enjoying it so far!  Although I will say I am in desperate need of a car!  I just need to get out of the house.  As soon as Keith got home I went to the library to return some videos and then went to the grocery store.  Tomorrow is story time at the library at 3pm and I'd really like to take Alex. We went last week and Alex really liked it.  She is so shy but she really wants to participate and she always raises her hand when a question is asked.  Hopefully I can get her into a preschool soon.  I called the elementary school across the street because they have a pre-k program but there are 50 kids on the waiting list there.  Now I have her on a waiting list at a nearby church.  So I hope she can get in there sometime soon since Alex is the next one on the list.

Keith is doing his rotation with one other Ross student who has also just started her rotations.  It's nice because it's just the two of them with the doctor.  So he will get more hands on experience and will get to learn more.  Some rotations are with about 8 other students with just one doctor.  Keith says the doctor is really nice and eager to teach them.  Keith came home today telling me that red meat and salt are bad for the kidneys... I guess he wants us to cut down on red meat and salt now! :)

Keith's First Day of Internal Medicine

Keith just got home a while ago from his first day at rotations at Southern Regional Medical Center.  He started the morning in orientation and then spent the afternoon at a nearby clinic.  He is starting his first few weeks in Nephrology.  I was really curious to learn about how his day went.  I thought I would try and post tidbits of information on what type of stuff he sees and learns about during his clinicals.  He said today he saw a lot of people in the end stages of kidney failure.  Many of them also had drug induced nephropathy.  I asked Keith to explain what this is and of course he tried to explain it to me in medical jargon and I just did not understand so I looked it up myself.  When he said "drug induced", I assumed illegal drugs like cocaine, but he was talking about NSAID induced nephropathy.  Anyways, I'm sure I will have more interesting tidbits of info to come.

The picture above is Alex at the Brook's Run park near our home in Dunwoody, GA.  We used some dead grasses and twigs on the ground to make a nest and then found little white rocks to put in the nest.  She had so much fun!  Alex isn't in daycare or preschool yet and I hope to get her in something soon.  Of course it is kind of hard when we only have one car.  I also have her on a waiting list for a preschool near our home.

Keith's Starts His First Day of Rotations Tomorrow

Keith starts his first day of rotations tomorrow.  Well, actually it's orientation day so not sure if he will actually start or not.  We drove by the hospital a few days ago and it looks really nice.  This is it above, Southern Regional Medical Center!  He will start out by doing 12 weeks of IM.  I'll post more updates to let you all know how his rotations are going.

Rotations Starting October 25th in Atlanta, GA

Keith is starting his clinical rotations on Oct. 25th in Atlanta!  We are so excited!  He is starting off with a 12 week Internal Medicine rotation and then goes to a 6 week OB/GYN rotation.  We are now looking for places to live in Atlanta.  Right now we are thinking of the northern suburbs- Duluth, GA.  I know someone that lives there and I hear it is a really nice suburb.  

Moving to Atlanta

Picture above is of Alex fast asleep while the rest of us watched the Saints beat the Vikings last night.  I guess Alex isn't into Football as much as the rest of us! :)

Keith found out today that he is going to do his rotations in Atlanta!  I'm so sooooo excited to move there!  I don't have his full schedule yet but I will let you all know what his first rotation will be when I get it.  He was offered an Oncology/Hematology rotation in Maryland but it overlapped with the start date for Atlanta so he decided to hold off.  Plus he would like to try and get more of his cores in before he does a rotation like Oncology/Hematology.

Beth's 5th Birthday Party

Today we drove down to Mankato for Beth's 5th birthday party!  Alex bowled for the second time and she did an awesome job!  She got two spares!  Yay for Alex!  After bowling the girls had pizza, cake, watched Beth open her gifts, and then they all played some games at Wow Zone!  It was a real fun time!

I'm sure your all wondering about those titers.  Well, we called around to doctors offices yesterday to find that one office in Woodbury said they would do it.  We went there, Keith waited in the doctors office for an hour, only for them to tell him they couldn't help him.  Not only that but they still charged us for doing absolutely nothing!  I guess I'm not surprised!  So we ended up sending everything in anyway.  I was looking into it further and there is one hospital in Washington D.C. that requires quantitative results for titers.  So we will see what they say next week.

Click below to see the pics I took from today:

Beth's 5th Birthday Party

Ugh!

We are so frustrated! This past friday we drove to Mankato to have a physical and health assessment form filled out for Keith. He needed to have one more titer done and that was for Varicella. Today when we got everything together we found out they didn't give us quantitative results! So we drove back down there only to sit there for a few hours and find out that they do not do titers with quantitative results. Not only that they told us nowhere in the Mayo Health System do they give quantitative results for titers! We we're so mad! We basically just wasted a whole day! Now we need to find some other clinic that will give us quantitative results for his titers! I only got a hold of one place after 5pm today and that is the Roseville Medical Clinic and the receptionist says "sure we do titers here." So I asked her if they gave quantitative results instead of just the "positive" or "negative" and they don't do it either! Keith called Ross and they said he could not have his clinical schedule unless he gets his quantitative results. I hope I can find somewhere that will do this for us. For now our plans to go to the State Fair isn't going to happen because this needs to get done first! Does anyone out there know if any clinic in the twin cities does this???

Getting Ready to Move

Now that we are getting ready to move (we don't know where yet), we are trying to sell some stuff on ebay. So if anyone is interested-- happy bidding...

1. Pentax Pocketjet 3 Plus Thermal Printer with Bluetooth
2. First Aid for the Basic Sciences- General Principles
3. Tomtom GO 730 GPS Receiver with Windshield Mount

The printer has probably been used for less than 30 sheets of paper. We brought it to Dominica thinking we would use it often but really didn't. The first aid book has no writing in it and is practically brand new. The Tomtom is awesome! If you are traveling a lot this thing is perfect. We have another one so we don't need this one anymore.

We are still waiting to hear about where we will end up. The past few days we have been trying to get Keith's immunizations, titus, and health assessment form to the school. Yesterday Keith had his physical and at that time he realized the only titer he needed to have done was the Varicella. So now we are waiting for those results to get faxed to us so we can send everything off to the school. Hopefully this will all get done on Monday because I don't think Keith will get his clinical schedule without all of this done!

And the Results are in. . . .

We anticipated getting back Keith's USMLE Step 1 exam results today!  Keith got up this morning about 4:30-5:00 to wait for the "E-mail".  We had heard of a few people that got their email at 8:30 EST (which would be 7:30 cst for us).   You have no idea how anxious we we're.  Finally around 7:30 cst Keith got his email and he passed!  He did a great job!  We are so proud of him.  Now he has emailed the registrar's office at the school and submitted his test results so he can get his clinical rotations scheduled!  I'm sure I'll let everyone know where we end up going!

July 27th!

Alex is loving her new bike! We went riding again yesterday for a while! We are really going to get some good use out of it!

I thought I'd let you all know that Keith is registered now to take his USMLE Step 1 exam. He will be taking it in Woodbury on July 27th at 8am! This is a REALLY big exam- it's the first of three United States Licensing Exams! He has been studying so much! I know he will do well, especially since he did well on the NBME COMP exam and he did the 7 week Kaplan Live Retreat course!

Today Alex is working on her ant farm and making some bird treats to hang in the trees. I'm sure I'll be posting pictures later today or tomorrow!

Visiting Keith in Chicago

Keith has been in Chicago for the past few weeks taking a Kaplan Step 1 Retreat course. He will be there until June 9th, so Alex and I decided to drive to Chicago and spend a few days with him. I think Keith was ready to get out of the hotel (because he doesn't have a car) and see the sights!

He didn't have class on Monday so we spent Monday doing some touristy stuff, like going to the skydeck at the Willis Tower (used to be the Sears Tower), visiting the Buckingham Fountain, and going to the Millennium Park. I hadn't been to the Willis/Sears tower since High School and I didn't remember them having a clear platform to walk on. Keith nor I could do, but Alex didn't have any problem with it! It was pretty neat seeing the beautiful city from 103 floors up! We had lunch near the Willis Tower at a restaurant called Giordano's. I had heard it had the best deep dish pizza in Chicago, so we had to try it out! It was pretty good! After that we went back to our car and found that our parking cost was 30.00! Wow! was that expensive! So we decided to drive to the Buckingham Fountain and then to the Millenium Park, two places that are free to see and had cheap parking! :)

Then we decided to go back to the hotel and get some laundry done for Keith, then had dinner at Woo Lae Oak, a Korean BBQ Restaurant. It was a nicer restaurant than we expected! Our meal was awesome! and if it wasn't four our friends, Lily and Min, we probably wouldn't of even gone in there! But because of them we have a new love for Korean food!!!

The next day Keith had class so Alex and I went to a nice park in Skokie, IL, called the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park. It was free and had free parking!!! So that was the main reason why we decided to check it out! The park was really nice and we saw some pretty neat sculptures. Alex on the other hand was a little scared of some of the sculptures! But that's OK it was still fun! Later that day we played at the park then had dinner at another Chicago pizza place called Gino's East. This place had pretty good mozzarella sticks and deep dish pizza! Plus Alex got to write all over the walls! What more could we ask for! I would definitely check this place out if you go to Chicago!!

In other news, Keith passed the COMP exam! We are sooo sooo happy! This exam covers the first two years of medical school! Keith tells me he is thinking he will take the Step 1 exam in July. The Step 1 exam is the first of the medical board exams!

Chicago-2010

Keith and his Physical Exam

Keith is being tested later on this week on doing physical exams and today as I was cooking dinner, I look over and see Keith practicing the exam on one of Alex's teddy bears. I thought it was so funny so I picked up the camera and started taping. I have also been his practice patient and so has Alex! I'm sure he will do a good job! Check out the short video below: