Rural Rounds

I've had a $25 gift card to Wal-Mart just lying around for over a year now, so I decided to use it today. I had earlier had the idea to possibly buy a canvas and some paint, and paint my own abstract or contemporary-ish art to hang in my room or somewhere around the house, to add some color. I figured it would be cheaper than buying something, and nicer than a poster. Well, I went to Michael's first, and their painting supply is high-dollar. Disappointing. I later found some 16"x20" canvases at Wal-Mart, as well as some cheap acryllic paint. I bought primary colors and black and white in big $1.67 tubes, more than enough for the canvases (maybe I can make more art later). I also bought a candle, and a wooden box in the craft area that I thought looked nice for a dresser organizer (I put my keys, watch, cufflinks, etc., in it to take away clutter). It feels good to be able to beautify a living space, even a temporary one. Having a creative flow at times, be it art, fur...

I've been reading the book The Provocative Church lately, and must say I give it two hands up and an amen. Reading this book will jump in the face of everything you thought evangelism was. Once not long ago (as in, beginning with my entrance into college and up until just recently) I felt very guilty regarding evangelism. The book hit this to a T when it sums up that most Christians feel that evangelism is something that ought to be done, but they don't readily do because they don't know how, they don't feel good at doing it, or they don't want to subject friends to a church that they themselves are bored and unfulfilled with. I have always wished to evangelize, but have always had the principle hindrance in feeling that it does no good to talk about God to someone who isn't really curious. And, to that end, I've simply strove for Christian progress (see Justification, Sanctification, Reconciliation, in a previous entry). This book holds that just such an ap...

I went to see The Da Vinci Code last night with Thane. He wanted to see it after reading the book, to see how the movie compares. I wanted to see what the hubbub was all about without reading the book. Boy, was a silly little story. I believe it's been out a couple weeks now, and it is probably going to be pulled from theaters real soon; the Forum showing we went to had five people watching it, including Thane and me. Thane says that the movie isn't completely like the book, and that it fails to embellish certain very important parts that in the book were elaborated to no end. Afterwards, we both drove back to my place and Thane came in for a while. We had been discussing the movie, and religion, and other things. Eventually we started talking about faith and apologetics and evidence of the truth of Christianity. Thane was telling me about what the book Case for Faith is like, and his intentions to read Case for Christ later on. He made an exceptional point in an exceptionally ...

"There are two great lies I've heard: The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die And that Jesus Christ was a white middle-class Republican And if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him" - Derek Webb, A King and a Kingdom Lately Tyler and I have had lots of discussions on the subjects mentioned in the title of this post. To use a second quote from Derek Webb (I know, two in one post!), "A lot of the songs on Christian radio are just outright misrepresentations of the character of God." I want to move that beyond radio and music, however. I think that it is far too easy to fall into the trap of putting God in a box, as they say; for someone to write a book that gives a suddenly new "insight" into who God is and what He's about. It's also a problem to assume to have correctly interpreted the Bible, which has for centuries been hotly debated as to what it means or instructs in many instances. What strikes me as ...

This past weekend I had the honor and privilege of being an usher in my friends' Joe Wallington and Liz Thorne's wedding. I was the usher on behalf of the bride, my longtime friend Liz, and was given the opportunity to take part in the wedding not merely as an attendee, but as a participant. I arrived in St. Joseph on this past Friday (May 26th), a day before the wedding. I didn't leave early enough to attend the rehearsal, assuming that as an usher, my duties were relatively straightforward. I had received an invitation to the rehearsal dinner, what I imagine was once termed the betrothal feast in a period not so long gone from the present. It was a spectacular event; the dinner was at an Italian restaurant in an older building in the slowly reforming downtown of St. Joseph. The rustic appearance of the restaurant, combined with the fantastic cousine, made me experience the event as something of a bygone age when weddings as multi-day events were the norm. Washing down the...

I stole this from Scott's blog, who got it from someone else. I found it entertaining so I decided to repost it here. Instructions : Use the picture you like best from the first (no clicking around for 44 pages) page of the search results on Google Image, and then answer the following questions. 1. The city and state of the town you grew up, no quotation marks. Ah West Plains Missouri. Small town at it's finest. 2. The town where you currently reside. Columbia, MO lies between St. Louis and Kansas City on I-70. It is the home of the University of Missouri Tigers, the famous Broadway Diner, open 11 p.m. to 11 a.m., and the recently released Quinn Snyder. 3. Your name, first and last, no quotation marks You may think that I'm a Beatles fan for posting this. I like the Beatles, but really I post this because my dad was a sargeant in the army. That's right, Sargeant Peppers. 4. Your grandmother's name Willa Ottersbach didn't turn anything up, so I went with Wil...

SERUM MARKERS OF INFLAMMATION AND ENDOTHELIAL FUNCTION ARE ELEVATED BY HORMONAL CONTRACEPTIVE USE BUT NOT BY EXERCISE-ASSOCIATED MENSTRUAL DISORDERS IN PHYSICALLY ACTIVE YOUNG WOMEN Hinton PS, Rector RS, Peppers JE, Imhoff RD, Hillman LS Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA You can index me in PubMed after June 2006.

So I've been away for a while now. Last week was our spring break (yeah, we had a week off a couple of weeks ago too. Yeah, I went to Guatemala that week with a group of Christian medical students. Yeah, it was great), and I went home to see family for the first part of the week. Once back in Columbia however, I was living it up and not studying at all. I had brought back my hunting rifle from home, so me and my friend Ben went out to Finger Lakes park to shoot. He had a stake target with spinning ping targets. It was made of ~ 1/2" steel plates. He pinged it several times with his Sig Sauer 9 mm. Unfortunately for Ben, my .308 can shoot right through 1/2" steel. Unfortunately I didn't know that before I shot a hole in his brand new target. The rest of the week was spent going running, playing basketball, making amazing homemade pizza, and building a headboard. I built this with my friend Aaron's help. Now, I've got a sweet headboard where before was plain whi...

Guatemalan girl Originally uploaded by Dr Peppers . The trip to Guatemala two weeks ago was simply amazing. For starters, the caliber and character of people I was with was of the highest quality. Their faith and encouragement kept the whole week nothing short of incredible. We got to visit the western hemisphere's largest indigenous market in Chichicastenango Sunday, and we all spent large sums of money gathering lots of exotic goods. Monday through Thursday we held clinics in three different locations; Tuesday and Wednesday were the same location. During my day to do medical consults on Thursday, I got the opportunity to do a fetal ultrasound, and I also got my digital rectal exam done (a requirement for all first year medical students). All in all, we saw approximately 350 patients, took several care packages to needy people, delivered a number of Bibles, prayed over and encouraged people, and left tons of pharmaceuticals for the permanent clinic in Chichicastenango. Some o...

It's just after 2 p.m., I've turned in my exam, but still have to wait around until 3:30 to do a 20 point section on neuroanatomy cross sections. I feel pretty good about the exam, I studied like crazy and I think it's all finally paid off. I should be studying cross sections, but I decided killing time was far more worth my while. And it lets me find really interesting stuff, such as this MC Hammer music video online. Since I'm just finishing a block on neurology, my first thought when watching Master Hammer dance was that he had bilateral hemiballismus , which is a problem caused by a lesion to the subthalamic nucleus in the brainstem. People with hemibalism tend to have wild erratic flailing movements because they've lost a part of the brainstem that helps suppress random movements. Is Hammer a medical case? You decide... In other news, I am flying out of Kansas City to head to Guatemala , for a one week medical mission. I'll spend four days working in a cli...

Lexington Square Originally uploaded by Dr Peppers . Here's a shot of the courtyard inside my townhouse complex. Just one of a few of the photos I made with my new camera . Check out my photo feed here The rest of this weekend, however, will most likely be devoted to studying and taking practice quizzes. Hopefully, at least.

Today I had the good fortune of skipping the only two lectures of the morning and sleeping until 10 am, and getting some much needed rest (I've been sick lately, so it was worth it). A little after getting up and getting dressed, I heard the door knock, and to my delight it was the FedEx man. In his hands, for me, was my new digital camera! Tonight, after reading through a case, some lecture notes, and watching a histology DVD, I decided to pursue something more exciting. Namely, taking pictures with my new toy. I bought it in hopes that when I go on some major trips (which I seem to do every year), I could take more artistic, photographer style shots, and maybe print some for hanging. To get there though, I need practice. And that's exactly what I did. Here's some of my better shots from tonight's practice run. Let me know what you think.

I think that it's time for an evaluation of my blogging. New idea, stop trying to be a novelist writing a book, and just put junk up that faraway friends can read in a minute or so. Less length, more frequent updates, better blogging. Yesterday I had a great final ACE experience at the family practice clinic I was at this block. I got to do a couple of patient interviews on my own, sans doctor, and did just great. Of particular note was a guy in for a diabetes followup, and I got to talk to him about how his medication was working, his diet, blood sugar control, and asked all the right questions according to my preceptor. In the end, we told the guy that his diabetes was under control without medication, and that he was doing just great. That's what makes me look forward to medicine, the victories.

I have a habit of not updating this thing often enough. I need to work on that whole consistency thing in the midst of the rest of life’s distractions. Class has just resumed. I’ve been back in town about a week now after driving back and forth across the state for almost a week. Being back at school is almost a relief to the constant driving. This block our focus is on neurology. From the first day it is pretty apparent that it will be a challenge; just the terminology alone makes neurology seem its own language apart from medicine as a whole. On the other hand, learning about the brain is paired with learning about behavioral sciences. Currently, we’ve been having lectures on substance abuse and sexual behavior. I was talking to a fellow classmate today about why we’re both interested in the potential medical fields we are. He plans to specialize in one of the most intensive medical fields there is, if not the most intensive field there is. I don’t doubt for one minute he will fail t...

So where have I been for the past month? I've been finishing my second block of medical school, that's where. I'm still pretty new to this medical school thing, and not always the greatest time manager, so I had to put blogging on the back burner. Alright, so time management may have less to do with it than does obsessive-compulsive studying so I can be absolutely sure I won't fail the tests I take. Looking back on tests, I'm pretty certain that I am still going to be in medical school, and may have done better than last block. I definately feel like I knew more this block than I did last block. Now hopefully I don't become too obsessed with doing better every time tests roll around, or I will kill myself when a really hard block comes around. I have managed to find time for other activities besides studying however. My roommates and I, and our neighbors three doors down all celebrated Festivus . For those of you unfamiliar with this holiday, it has its origins ...

Tonight I went to an independent film theater here in my town called Ragtag Cinema-Cafe. Me and my roommates and two other friends watched George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck It was quite entertaining, and a good break from studying (which I have done plenty of lately and is cause for the lack of updates; tests are now only two weeks away). It is about CBS reporter Edward Murrow's criticism of Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950's for his methods of hunting communists. The result of the historical confrontation was Senator McCarthy being investigated by the Senate. I think the film is great and I highly recommend it. I think oftentimes people in power can go on such "witch-hunts", looking for opposition or attempting to find opposition in order to create a scare, and help to keep themselves in power. Sometimes it's manipulative, but what if it wasn't? What if the person in power themselves were convinced there was a danger? What if evidence did point t...

It’s been more than a week, and I think an update is due. Plus, I can give updates on my own status with my heart murmur, having seen the doctor this past Friday. The only thing that has kept me from updating until now is simply laziness (in other words, I was far too busy studying/eating/cleaning/sleeping to actually relax and write). This past Friday I went to the Student Health Center to see my doctor about the previously mentioned murmur recently discovered. My doctor presumed it was most likely an innocent flow murmur, which occurs if a heart valve doesn’t close all the way or in time when the heart beats, allowing blood to flow back the opposite way, and the blood causes turbulence heard as noise. If you’ve ever heard turbulent water flowing over and through rocks and back upstream in eddies in a river, you should get the idea of what a murmur is. It was recommended that I have an echocardiography done, or an ultrasound picture of my heart. This would allow us to see exactly how ...

It seems that no one ever stops to think about doctors actually being patients themselves. The patient is the one who needs to see a doctor, who is healthy and will make you healthy. But doctors are also human, just like their patients, and just as vulnerable to ill health. In fact, most aging doctors are already patients themselves to another doctor, who in the midst of treating their patients may be seeing their own doctor on the side for anything from diabetes to high cholesterol to hypertension. How does it feel to be on the other side of the system? For most of us, we probably know what it feels like to be on the patient side, since most of us aren't doctors. As a medical student, I know that I as well as many of my class have had those "hypochondriac moments", where we suddenly believe we've discovered signs of terrible illness in our own bodies. We know just enough to be dangerous. Luckily it is just our own wild imaginations taking one minor symptom of a disea...

In my junior year of college, I had the opportunity to shadow a family doctor for half a week. Sitting in his office one day, looking at his medical school degree, I noticed the degree read “Doctor of the healing arts”, or something similar. At the very least, I remember clearly that it read healing arts – and not medicine. When people go to the doctor, they generally expect that the doctor will have the answer for their problem. The doctor is the expert, and is the person to go to when you have a medically related problem you need taken care of. For many people, health care is a lot like any other service industry: consumer driven. The fact that the service is on me, rather than on my car, my house, my back deck, computer, etc., only makes it more personal. In the end, I have a problem, I go to the expert, I get it fixed, and I pay the expert. However, just like the service industry, if the service rendered is insufficient, doesn’t fix the problem, or worse still, damage or destroy th...

Sometimes you find that you're right where you're supposed to be. That might be the right city or town to live in, or it might be in the right kind of relationship with the right person. Maybe it's as simple as the right place at the right time, and events around you seem to be working solely for your favor. For me recently, it is finding that I am heading in the right direction on that oh-so difficult path known as a career. Wait, I'm going to have to admit something here first. I just spent about 15 minutes coming up with that catchy opening. Don't worry though, at least a third of that time was in retyping it after it suddenly disappeared for reasons known only to...well, no one really. Alright, now back to telling you just where I'm going with this new blog of mine. My name is James, and I'm a first year medical student at the University of Missouri - Columbia. I just graduated college this past May. It was in college, between my first and second years, ...