December

December hours: 7.5, total hours: 12.5

In December, I continued to help my classmate Uma for 3 hours to make holiday greeting cards for children. I also volunteered to work two shifts at the "Supernova" event which was a special nighttime farmer's market hosted by crescent city farmer's market. I had never been to a farmer's market in New Orleans until I went to volunteer there. The nighttime market featured live music, lighted exhibits, and many stands selling local groceries and food. During the 3pm-5pm shift, I worked with a fellow classmate, John in whatever was needed to help the vendors. For the 7pm-9:30pm shift, I helped many vendors take down their tents as well as help the Crescent City Farmer's Market partners Friends of Lafitte Greenway. 

As for the curriculum this month, we went over the GI and Neoplasia pharmacology. I found this unit to be highly relevant as we went over cancer chemotherapy drugs as well as common cancers such as Leukemia. Cancer chemotherapy is constantly changing as new technology is developed often, and as people start living longer, rates of cancer will increase with a progressively aging population. I found Dr. Miller's lecture on carcinogenesis particularly interesting because he corrected whatever pre-existing  vague knowledge I had about common concepts I've read about before such as Cancer alley in Louisiana or the role that environmental factors play in carcinogenesis. December was already a short month because our semester ends after our test on December 14. However, in person learning was made even shorter as we had to move back to virtual learning for the last week due to the spread of Omicron at Tulane. I am looking forward to going back to in person learning next semester and I hope there are no outbreaks or increased restrictions.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

October

October hours: 3, total hours: 3 I went to volunteer at the Broadmoor food pantry this month and thoroughly enjoyed my experience. I helped arrange and sort the food in bags for the people who may be food insecure. I also helped assist people as they were coming in with whatever they needed such as bringing the food bags to their cars. I also helped with the set up and take down of the food pantry. There were several experienced Tulane undergraduate students who were helping lead the volunteer program. I hope to continue volunteering at the Broadmoor food pantry and may explore different roles such as cooking in the kitchen.   The curriculum is also progressively picking up as we had our cardiovascular and ANS test which I believed to be more dense than our previous tests. It was interesting to learn about many of the cardiovascular drugs such as beta blockers as well as the cholinergic pharmacological drugs. In addition, this unit was more strongly related to current and former world
Read more

March

Image
March Hours: 7, Total Hours: 7 This month, we started off with our Mardi Gras break and after we went into our pyschopharm module. In Medical Pharmacology we went over very interesting topics such as antipsychotic medications, antidepressants, and anxiolytics. Mental health has been worsening over the years, especially during the COVID lockdowns causing isolation for many and exacerbating mental health problems so these are highly relevant topics. We also went over the important toxidromes and how the different drugs/medications cause these toxidromes. We also learned about the different main stimulants and hallucinogens as well as treatment of Insomnias. We also had our Cell control test this month, in which we went over the ion Chanels and how to image Calcium and the fluorescence methods used to study ions and ion channels.   Unfortunately a tornado hit New Orleans this month. I volunteered for the Second Harvest Food Bank, and we collected supplies from the community to help with t
Read more

April

 April Hours: 5.5, Total Hours: 12.5 This month was a very light month as we were pretty much done with our medical pharmacology class with the exception of the NBME shelf exam. Preparing for the NBME Shelf Exam, however took some time and the exam was fairly difficult. The final exam was eventually curved due to the class average. The only lectures we had remaining were for the Cell Control class in which we went over pharmacogenetics as well as the role of Oxygen in the cell. We also had our endocrine pharmacology presentation this month in which we went over how personality relates to stress responsivity. In the Cell Control class, we went over stroke treatments, risk factors, ischemic conditionings, etc,.. We also went over mitochondrial respiration as well as the importance of reactive oxygen species and mitochondrial ion channels.  For volunteering this month I did a shift at the Second Harvest Food Bank, specifically at the Broadmoor Food Pantry, in which I sorted and packed foo
Read more