Work!

So I am all settled in to my new place, and Elizabeth Tatoulis, who has graciously and quite effectively taken on the role as my Australian Mom, has insured that I have settled in quite comfortably and with no shortage of food.

I began working yesterday and got the opportunity to watch a mitral valve replacement and a nuss procedure. A mitral valve replacement is where they replace the valve in between the left atrium and the left ventricle. After I asked him how long the replacement valve would last the surgeon also told us jokingly "all valves come with a lifetime grantee" (the patients lifetime if you dont get it)

A nuss procedure is where they put a huge stainless steel bar underneath the sternum and bend it up as to push out a pectus excatvatum, or concave dented chest.



The first operation was incredibly delicate full of finesse when compared to the less subtle cracking of the rib cage. Truthfully the tools on the bench looked like they were borrowed from the Spanish inquisition.

I also got to watch a triple bypass on a completely beating heart, which I didnt even think was possible.

The surgery was really incredible. What has been so great is that this is a teaching hospital, and ive been viewing surgeries with residents of the hospital. As such the surgeons have been amazingly informative. The duration of the surgery (hopefully not to the patients expense) was full of quizes and lessons of sort. From "What from physics do you now about the type of electricity used in diathermy so that it does not effect the patients heart?" to "What drug will we use to reverse the effects of heparin?"
Obviously I was behind the residence in most areas (especially in those pertaining to anatomy) but was still able to keep up quite well.

This morning I went on rounds with the residents which was also a bit taxing on the old bean, as I was not totally exempt from questioning about subjects I have no idea about. Right off the bat I got:
"Christopher, judging by this chest X-ray do you think he has any pleral effusion?"

I didnt know, so I said "I dont know"

"Well what can you tell from the costophrenic angle?"

..uh

.....

........

..........?

All the residents looked at me and I could feel crickets chirping. I was a little embarrassed cause I didnt know the answer, but also I was very gratified that they would even ask the question which sort of implied they thought I might know the answer.

"I actually haven't been to medical school"and I thought that would clear up the mix up, and solve my little issue, but the Dr. said she knew that and continued to look at me for an answer. A few bars of staggering later she bailed me out. In case youre wondering he had no pleral effusion (fluid in the lungs, duh), and the costophrenic angle (allegedly) made that quite obvious.

Being in the care of Dr. Tatoulis is great because nobody questions him. Hes one of the most senior members in the hospital and everyone knows him. Im not sure if its just the nature of Australians, or their fear of "the prof", as they call him, but either way everyone is incredibly nice and accommodating to me at the hospital.

People here are very keen on American politics, and I mean every aspect of American politics. I expected some questions about Obama, and the Iraq war but yesterday someone seriously asked my opinion on the Kennedy assassination conspiracy! How does an Australian even know about that? They (if I may make a sweeping generalization based on limited experiences) may not know that much about their own government, but they are extremely welI informed (and critical) about ours. I cant speak with out people instantly recognizing where im from (the accent), which naturally stems countless jokes about Americas death penalty, our horrible coffee, and what seems to be everyones favorite topic; our gun control laws (or lack there of).

Australian word of the day: If you called a small child a toddler, people may think youre saying hes drunk. An "ankle biter" is apparently a better term for a small child.

So I live at Hogwarts

Yeah you read the title correctly, today I moved into my living quarters and it turns out it is a mythical castle where they teach magic, or it at least looks like it.

The Building:


My Room:



The Dining hall, you cant tell me that doesnt look familiar:


Despite being a nation where grown men willingly play field hockey, culturally the US and Australia are pretty well in line. Burger King (for what ever reason) is called Hungry Jacks, Starbucks is on every other corner instead of every corner and they charge you 30 cents for ketchup (they call tomato sauce) to put on your chips (not french fries) which is I think ethically wrong. Now I know Australia doesnt have a bill or rights but you would think that somewhere it would be mandated that ketchup (or what ever you choose to call it) packets should be free and bountiful.
Other small differences include: no brewed coffee. I thought that everyone drank drip coffee but they dont, they dont even sell it at star bucks. Its expresso or no coffee. This is very annoying if you dont like expresso or spending 4 dollars on your coffee or in my case both.

Also much like europe when you ask for tap water with your meal in Australia, they look at you sympathetically like a poor, troubled individual who clearly need therapy.

Yesterday I went to the south coast of Australia and watched thousands of little penguins march in from a day out at sea...they didn't let us take pictures but if you're incapable of google image searching "Australian Penguins" then you couldn't be reading this anyway. The site despite being very touristy was actually pretty cool and well worth the trip.

Im staying in the University but they are on Holiday, so the place is pretty empty. Last night (which was Friday night) I began my quest to meet Australians. I first went to the rock climbing gym and climbed for a while and met a few people (who were admittedly a little strange but I was in desperate need) and they took me out to a few bars and bought me lots of drinks but unfortunately had to leave somewhat early.

I walked home content with the night thus far when it then dawned on me that despite there being McDonalds and Burger Jack Hungry King, there are no Taco Bells. Where you are supposed to wander after a night at the bars to get a 99 cent burrito with dogfood meat remains to me a great mystery.

Thank god I found KFC.

While in KFC I observed 5 young people 3 men dressed in Golf Attire, and 2 young ladies dressed very scantly in what appeared to be tennis attire. Golfer pro's and tennis hoes themed parties apparently knows no borders. I easdropped and they were discussing how to play the American game Beer Pong. "No no you need 6 cups on each side and 8 ping pong balls" interjected short white skirt, "No no 11 cups on each side" corrected pink polo vest.

I felt obligated as an American, as many other americans have in the past to impose my knowledge on clearly a lesser people (see 'Native Americans' 'The Philippines' 'South America' 'Iraq' 'Afghanistan' for more on this)

Upon discovering I was infact an American, they listened to my version of the rules of Beer pong as though they were scripture.

The sporty group, awed by my seemingly infinite wisdom, invited me with them and we went out to the bars once more. I met all of their friends and it turns out they are all med students. Small world.

I got a few of there numbers and added a few of them on facebook and am currently sitting waiting for some sort of indication that they want to continue being friends (yeah I know im really cool)

At any rate im slowly making my way into the melbourne social scene and ill keep you all posted.

Australian word of the day: You do not order pitchers of beer, or everyone you are with will laugh at you. It is of course, a jug.

Writing you from the future....

That's right. Little did I know that while traveling to Australia, I was also travelling in time. It is Monday evening, the 21st almost Tuesday in fact, and all of you back at home are stuck way back on Sunday. I don't want to spoil the future for you but Sunday was rather uneventful, as a matter of fact I didn't even get to experience the 20th at all. It just sort of disappeared, which is a shame, I typically enjoy Sundays....

At any rate I suspect that I will eventually get that day back; apparently when I leave Australia I will arrive before I left. Not that I'm in any hurry to leave, but there is something rather exciting about that idea.

I have developed a bad habit of assuming almost subconsciously that anyone who speaks with an accent different than mine must be speaking English as a second language. So I habitually talk to Australians slowly and use simple words which both makes me look like an asshole and unintelligent. Im trying to break this habit.

Australia is gorgeous. It was a perfectly sunny autumn day when I arrived here. They do however drive on the wrong side of the road. I find this very concerning. I do not anticipate I will very soon become comfortable with the idea, and fear that I might get killed crossing the street. You look right then left. This is very confusing. They also spell things incorrectly. "Colour" and "apologise". I find this exciting because if I ever misspell a word (which is extraordinarily common) I can just pretend that is how it is spelled in America.

The plane ride was very comfortable. I sat next to too Chileans which was exciting because I love the opportunity to speak in Spanish when ever I can, unfortunately they love the chance to speak English so we spent the duration of the trip battling between English and Spanish.

I cannot report unfortunately if the toilet actually spins the opposite direction or not. It seems to be the same, but I forget which way it spins at home so nothing to report on that front..

Im staying currently with our family friends the Tatoulis's (that most certainly is spelled wrong). Their house is wonder full and they truly are some of the most accommodating generous people alive. If you've made it this far in the blog post I promise that in the future I wont post nonsense rambling like this, but unfortunately at his point I really haven't done anything to speak of but nap and read the paper (papers here are ridiculously large and wide, I don't know if Australians just have longer arms than other people but you seriously need to be Michael Phelps to hold the things stretched out properly)

Anyway I'm here. I'm safe. I'm well cared for and I suspect I will have more to write about later.

Peace

Ive Created a blog

Ive decided to create a blog to articulate to the world my travels and exploits of the next few months. For those of you reading, which unless you happen to be my mother is presumably no one, I am currently in transit to the bustling metropolis of Melbourne.

I find myself in LAX. I have found that an airport is almost perfectly analogous to the city in which it resides. FOR EXAMPLE: PDX, or Portland international airport is a very clean, homogeneous, friendly, not very crowded airport that like the city (and the state) is very overwhelmingly green (at least the carpet is). LAX in contrast is incredibly crowded, loud and it impossible to find your way around. You are overwhelmed by a sinking feeling that someone is going to rob you. The thing that stands out most however is that no one speaks English. Truly, no body.

I have been in South America, Mexico and just about every country in western Europe and I have never been in a place where English is more scarcely spoken. As earlier mentioned it is very hard to find your way around, this problem is elevated by the language gap.

Allow me to set the scene. I walked off of the airplane and immediately stepped in a childs vomit. This gift stayed with me for a considerable amount of time as vomit tends to do on ones shoes in the linoleum jungle that is LAX. I wandered for ever until I finally found someone who spoke English (at least I think) but she was Australian, and I mean really Australian and I couldn't understand a word she said to me (this doesn't bode well for the future). I finally found some carpet to sort of rid my shoes of the aforementioned vomit and found perhaps the only open outlet in the whole place. I am sitting shoulder to shoulder with an indian man blaring sitar music and am currently less than chipper about this airport.

There are also no clocks in the building. Having left behind my cell phone and conveniently packing my watch deep in my checked bag where it can be perfectly useless finding the time is not as easy as one might expect. People become very suspicious when you ask them the time, they typically stop look around and check their wallets.

Also I feel like this can not go un noted. There is a strip club in LAX. I feel like that sorta speaks for itself.

HOWEVER, Im very excited to be leaving for another continent in just a few hours. You may be thinking to yourself "How narcissistic that he would think we would care to read about a trip through LAX" and I couldnt agree more. It is perhaps the most mundane thing I could imagine. But its my blog. Deal with it.