"Breath In and Breath Out..."

This past month has been all about the pulmonary system. I had never studied it extensively, but I found myself enjoying it quite a lot! Growing up, I knew a lot of children with asthma, and I recognized the limitations some of them faced on a day to day basis. But learning about asthma from a pharmacology standpoint was truly fascinating. There is no cure for asthma, but there are definitely drug regimens that can help patients manage their symptoms and episodes. In addition to asthma, we learned about drugs used for tuberculosis and pneumonia. These are all definitely diseases that come up in our everyday lives, and so it was interesting to see how physicians approach different cases based on different factors. More so, it was curious to understand and see first hand the differences in outcomes for patients with either disease. When I shadowed a neurologist at UW-Madison, I was able to follow her around on her consults. One of the patients she visited I will never forget; he was a prisoner with disseminated tuberculous and was found to be brain dead. At that point, I didn't understand why there was no treatment for him- surely medicine could find a way to treat something like tuberculosis. But after understanding how drug regimens are picked and administered for different stages of tuberculosis, I can now see how serious his case was. He had HIV. His tuberculosis was beyond any traditional drug regimen. He was at a point where medicine could do little. Although reflecting on my experiences with these different diseases may have been more challenging than in other units, I definitely value the knowledge I now have.

On a more positive note, in my last post about the curriculum I mentioned that I am trying out a new studying technique. I've found it to be quite effective as my exam scores from this past block have demonstrated. In addition to my new approach, I have also found a few people that I can comfortably study with in a group. It seemed at the beginning of the semester that finding a consistent group would be a challenge, and indeed it was. I tried to study with various people in a multitude of ways, but everything sort of fell into place these last two block exams. This method was especially effective for the material from our Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology class. Thankfully my experience in a laboratory setting has put many of our lectures into perspective for myself, but I find that explaining it to others helps both me (in reviewing), and helps others get a more tangible grasp on the material. Onto GI then!

The Little Things

This month I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity twice. Our pulmonary block had a bit of flexibility, so there were quite a few days in the month that we had free to volunteer and study. On November 6th, ten of us went to volunteer at Annette Street. We were split into two groups and sent to separate houses on the same street. My group of five ended up at the same house I had volunteered at previously; I was excited to be able to work on something that I was somewhat familiar with from before! We were quickly set up with moving the excess dirt from the front of the house and dispersing it evenly underneath the house. This took most of the morning and by the time lunch came around, we were all exhausted. It was necessary work, but it was also a lot more tiring than any of us had expected.

After refueling, we returned to find we would be measuring, cutting and fitting rebar into the future sidewalk in front of the house. However, by the time we finished with this task, we were informed that the front stairwell into the house had been built wrongly. We needed to raise the platform by about a foot, but we had almost no tools or resources to do so because the site had been cleaned up already. Because one of the group members -Justin- has previous experience in construction, he was quickly able to figure out a way to accomplish our necessary task. As he disassembled and recreated a new stairwell, the rest of us brought back some of the dirt from underneath the house. By doing this, we could use some of the resources around the house to raise the necessary platform. After we had accomplished this, we went around the house cleaning up any left over scraps of lumber, bricks, nails and garbage.

I returned to another house on Annette Street on November 27th to volunteer with Alex and Luke. It was a cold, rainy day, and so we were stationed inside with a small team. The three of us were the only student volunteers and were part of a team made up of three adult volunteers and five or six AmeriCorps volunteers. We were all quickly assigned different tasks that still needed to be completed inside the house. Luke, Alex and I were given instructions to make shelves and install them in all of the closets. Because there weren't many electrical connections, it was a balancing act of using what tools were available at any given time. Many of us ended up needing to use the wood saw or the nail gun at the same time as others, but through patience and humor, we created some sort of agreement.Overall it was a pleasant experience working and sharing resources with others to achieve our individual goals.

After lunch, Alex and I were set to spackling in all of the holes around the house to prepare the house for another coat of pain. As we slowly moved from room to room, filling in every nail or staple hole we could find, we encountered the other volunteers putting in floor boards, installing door frames, and sanding down edges. For me, spackling was a completely different task than I had previously done at a Habitat build day, but it was equally rewarding in its own way.

During both of these build days in November, what struck me most was the importance of accomplishing the "little things" in order to create a home for someone. When I initially signed up to volunteer with Habitat, I thought I would be cutting wood, painting walls, putting in shingles, etc. I was only thinking about the big things that really stand out in a home, the things that I always look at in a house. But lately all of my jobs have involved the little things. From leveling out the landscape, to putting in rebar, to making sure shelves are put in correctly, to filling in the little grooves along the walls, I have been helping create a home for someone. These may not be the first things I notice in a house, but I now recognize that they are the things that demonstrate the care and love that goes into building a home.

One other invaluable experience I've gained from volunteering with Habitat is meeting all the wonderful people who come to volunteer with this organization. On the 27th, the three of us Pharmacology students were volunteering primarily with adults, people who have committed themselves to serving the community throughout their lives. We met one gentleman on Tuesday who works in Washington D.C. as an architect. He was in New Orleans for a vacation, and made a point to volunteer with Habitat on one of the days of his trip. After talking to him some more, I learned that he volunteers with Habitat on almost all of his trips. Another couple that was volunteering committed to two days to help accomplish some of the major tasks that needed to be finished.

Much of my volunteering experience in the past has involved other students, but rarely do I get the opportunity to volunteer with adults. For me, it was an honour to work with those who see community service as a duty of all citizens, and those who engage in it so often. By getting out into the community through opportunities both here at Tulane and in my hometown, I feel confident that volunteering is something that I will continue to do as I get older. Maybe it will be through Habitat or maybe it will be through another opportunity, but I look forward to committing some of my time to my community.