Survival of the Fittest

After two long weeks of 6:30 AM wake up calls, sitting in a near arctic cold classroom, and listening to endless speakers explain procedures we will “understand later”… we are done with bootcamp! This week we focused on our inpatient/outpatient rotations. Don’t be fooled by the word “bootcamp”… most of it was spent chatting with the dietitians or playing the jelly belly game. (The candy shop is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from our classroom. Who knew guessing jelly belly flavors could be that entertaining?!) We even made it to the library two times this week to work on our study guides. It feels good to refresh our minds of the endless lab values and nutritional calculations we did in our undergrad.

Yesterday was one of my most informative, yet disturbing, days of my new life in Charleston. Because outpatient rotations focus so much on dietary recalls and understanding the Charleston “cuisine”, one of our preceptors gave a powerpoint covering this area. I had no idea of the things I didn’t know. Things I learned today…

1. Nabs = fluorescent orange peanut butter crackers with 190 calories and 15 g of fat

2. A glass of tea = 2 cups of sugar per quart

3. Fat back is a usual addition to meat, bean, and rice

4. Ham hock can be added to about any dish to take away any hope of it being healthy, including vegetables

5. Grits are eaten most every morning and sometimes night…. With 2 sticks of butter and bacon fat of course

6. Red beans are cooked with lard, lard, and more lard

7. Hush puppies = deep fried cornbread

Lets just say that I spent this half an hour in horror. I felt as though I gained 3 pounds just listening to this speech. South Carolina is one of the top 5 most obese states for a reason! Let’s hope I don’t need a translator at my first patient counseling session. I am officially a Yankee.

Our apartment is wonderful and we love our living situation. We have our routine down… Jo makes coffee at 6:45 each morning, Julie reminds Jo of keys/wallet/anything of importance each time we leave the house, Jo tries to convince Julie to eat breakfast, Julie watches her reality shows, and Jo goes to Tae-Bo. Somewhere in between we laugh, talk, and continue to grow in our friendship.

We celebrated the end of orientation yesterday. We all feel truly blessed to be in this prestigious teaching hospital. Adorned in our brand new brown scrubs, Jo and I will begin our inpatient rotations in a few days (pictures later, don’t worry).

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we begin our first day on Tuesday!