Hello folks!

This is officially my first post, I'm very excited to join these other fine bloggers in giving you a  taste of what life as Michigan Medical student is like. As you know from my blurb, I'm an M4 from Troy, MI, I went to undergrad at Michigan, and I'm a certified bartender. But what else? I'm planning on going into Orthopaedic Surgery, I love to golf, I have a younger sister who is an undergrad at Michigan, and I'm currently spending my time in Palo Alto, CA doing an away rotation at Stanford University in Ortho.

Fourth year has been a blast. From the additional responsibility to doing rotations in my future field of choice and not having to worry about the little nuances of third year have been great! I finished two months of Ortho at Michigan alreay and headed out here to sunny California for my third month of Ortho in a row.  Doing at least one away rotation is an unspoken rule of applying to ortho residencies. It's a great way to spend time at schools/areas of the country you might be particularily interested in spending the 5 years of residency in.

I'm writing this blog from my first on call shift here. I've been on the Tumor service and I've seen some pretty incredible stuff, (ex. the resection of a 45lb tumor in a woman's thigh). After figuring out all the logistic stuff with parking, computer access, and locations of bathrooms (seriously), I've finally adjusted to the flow of things here.  I've got one more week of Tumor then two weeks on Foot and Ankle.

In addition to the new experience as whole, I've got lots of other things to look forward to. My parents are visiting for a week, I turn 24 on Tuesday (I'll be bringing it in style though with 5 cases currently on schedule), and of course finally getting to spend time doing even more fun stuff (SF, Napa, Giants game!)

Thanks for reading and sttay tuned for more updates from thiss Michigan lifer on an adventure in California!

According to a Stanford Alum, it cost the university $60,000 per tree to install and thousand per tree each year to maintain:

The main entrance to the hospital: