Making Progress

Yesterday morning and today we had biostats, and the attendence was kind of slim. Some people have been kind of trickling in half an hour late or not coming at all for the whole summer. But it has gotten much worse more recently as our workload has really started piling up. I wound up skipping class myself this morning to finish analyzing the data from my summer research project. As it turns out, most of my classmates apparently decided not to go today either, and we finally got an email about it from the dean this afternoon.

I always feel bad about missing a class, especially considering how much Case charges for tuition. (We're up to $41,000 for this year....yikes.) But unfortunately there are only 24 hours in a day, and I had to get this work done so that I could submit my abstract with some results. It would be nice if the assignments could be better coordinated so that as our research requirements gear up at the end of the summer, we wouldn't have as much class work to balance with the research stuff.

Speaking of research, yesterday we had another patient, a case this time. I missed the OR part because I was in class, but I went to the ICU afterward to help monitor the patient there. It's a lot less hectic in the ICU than it is in the OR. On the other hand, the patients' families come in to see them in the ICU, which changes the dynamics considerably. It feels a little awkward, actually, because we wouldn't even need to be there at all if the patient hadn't joined our study. I kind of felt like we were intruding on the patient's family's time, which is a little silly considering that the patient hadn't woken up from the anesthesia yet.

I almost forgot to mention that yesterday, our extra biostats homework for grad credit was due. I was not terribly pleased to find out that we now have a SECOND assignment to do on top of it. The biostatistician was being cavalier about it, saying not to worry because it wouldn't be due until the end of fall semester in December. I asked him to please give it to us early, because I don't want to be working on biostats after this block is over. Things are going to get busier for us, not easier, once we start our regular classes! He did send out the assignment, and it's basically the same as what I just turned in yesterday, but on a different article. It's annoying and stupid that I have to do almost the exact same analysis over again for another article, but at least it will be relatively easy this time now that I know exactly how to do it. A while back, he told us that he wanted us to get really familiar with this software, and one thing I will say for him is that he's definitely accomplishing his goal. :-P