Quick Takes

1

I had my second-to-last test in clinical skills. A group of about 25 second-years came into a room in the simulation center. Two of the three course directors were already there (the course directors are primary care physicians and very earnest about physical diagnosis, professionalism, and accountability...I don't know any better examples for us) and they explained the way the exercise would test our knowledge of history-taking and physical exam skills (taking an "H&P").

We would have a patient come in and pretend that we were doing a full H&P to admit this person to the hospital. Names would be drawn at random from a box and the students whose names were drawn would complete sequential parts of the H&P. This is meant to ensure that we all know the H&P very well (not unlike random selection of students to demonstrate propositions in freshman math at TAC).

Surprise! Our "patient" was the third course director, dressed in overalls and a John Deere hat. That made us laugh! It took away any potential intimidation that we'd feel, doing our exam on a teacher and doctor. It was fun. As a group we were well prepared, although I think I was not as well-prepared as some other people. I have my final test next week.

2

I am in my last block before the second year ends and I spend a few months on STEP 1 before third year. The musculoskeletal/integument (bones, joints, muscles, skin, hair, nails) block has been pretty easy so far. We're all tired and can't wait to only study for one thing (STEP) instead of two (STEP+school). 

3

We had a presentation on third year today at lunch with some current third-years. We asked "what exactly is 'rounding'?" and about weekends, calls, and schedules. What did they wish they knew? What would help us shine? The general gist was: be humble. The third-year medical student is the lowest on the totem pole and should acknowledge it and be comfortable with it, using her time to diligently learn, work hard, make other people's lives easier and not harder. She should be professional, not mind the lowly tasks, get used to feeling out of place, be open about her knowledge deficits, and roll with the punches. "We all just have to be humble," one third year said in closing, using the word 'humble' for the first time. "Pride is your biggest enemy third year."

4

The end of the ERHS (endocrine/reproduction/human sexuality) block was the "HS" component, and I am really striving to let everything roll off my back instead of getting depressed about all the sin/mess/wounds/errors/backwardness currently accepted as love/awesome/healthy/normal/progressive, especially touching sexual "orientation," sex "changes," sexual practices (before/during marriage/"marriage"/any relationship with whatever person(s) consent)....

But you know what's interesting? My Catholic faith is strengthened by the fact that we couldn't leave the block without someone talking about the Catholic Church. One lecturer in particular, who was supposed to teach about the specific healthcare needs of the LGBT community, spent most of his time talking about the Church. At one point, I doodled in my notes, "why are we talking about women priests?" We also covered how Pope Francis would be so much better than Pope Benedict, celibacy, chastity, St. Teresa of Avila's transverberation (shudder), exclamatory prayer (double shudder), biblical hermeneutics (his term), repression (moan), and indulgences (yawn). There was more, but I might bore you. The upshot is: you know it's Truth when it is maligned to justify insanity.

5

Interestingly, that talk made me realize how much scandal is given by Christian dis-unity. This lecturer used the fact that people have different bibles (e.g. zero or two or three books of Maccabees) and that there were apocryphal gospels and different interpretations of scripture to justify his rationalization of homosexual lifestyles with Leviticus 20:13. If we were more unified, we could set a clearer example for the world. I didn't realize that the world needs Christian unity as much as the Church does.

6

I've also learned recently (during the Triduum) that to be called or perfected isn't to leave our sins behind, as though you only become a saint or "get" a vocation when you're all perfect so that you'll look good in your halo. No: we are called and redeemed at the same time and out of our muck. 

One of the hardest things I'm dealing with is the guilt of hurting others, and that comes to a pinnacle when I think about Good Friday and the Crucifixion, when I hurt the Incarnate Word who was suffering me so that he could have me with Him in heaven forever! This Lent/Holy Week/Easter was very good for me. Thanks be to God! I hope it also was for you.

The Stuff I've been Knee-Deep in

So, you probably already know this, but there is a small explosion going on in the world of contraception. I am talking about 1flesh.org, the brainchild of BadCatholic's Marc Barnes plus (an apparently large) number of young adults. They've taken Janet Smith and added all the flippancy of the meme age. PP and Jezebel aren't happy. Excellent.

EDIT! I am also super excited about IuseNFP.com. I was thinking 1Flesh was getting a little negative and needed some positive "this is what NFP is" action, and the next day they linked IuseNFP.com. How perfect!


In other news, I am working on abstracts for the poster session of the CMA. One is about tubal surgery to open/heal fallopian tubes in women with tubal factor infertility. This is an ethical alternative to IVF and growing in popularity in mainstream gynecology because it can allow a pregnancy rate very close to IVF's. I'm super excited about this, because I'm discovering I love surgery and tuboplasty has long been a part of surgical naprotechnology.

I deferred my application to the Pope Paul VI institute's Medical Consultant program because of lots of commitments during this school year. However, I asked them to hold my application for two years, since I hear fourth-years have tons of time.

In the meantime, WYA is launching Fertility Education + Medical Management (FEMM), and with a weekend in New York this September, I might be able to become a FEMM teacher.

I've finished the opening work on my local Med Students for Life and CMA-SS websites (no, I won't be linking those) and I've put out emails so that people can review and offer to add content. Hope that works....

I made really tasty Jambalaya...I soaked and cooked red beans in water with onion powder and chicken bouillon, and there was just enough water from the beans to cook all the rice and shrimp. Admittedly, I used a mix, but I still felt like a chef.

School starts in three weeks. I have that familiar back-to-school feeling: May seems long ago, but at the same time it feels like yesterday.

Repost: William Coulson and the LCWR: "We Overcame Their Traditions and Their Faith"

This morning I read an article by Kathy Schiffer. My recent Church history is very patchy, and this gave me a big piece of the missing chunk, explaining why consecrated life experienced such a decline between 1970 and 2000.

Medical Ethics club on Abortion

A pro-life friend and I went to the bioethics club meeting on abortion earlier this week. There were eight students there, including the two of us. I had to leave early (halfway through the meeting) because I had to commute to another class, but my friend took notes for me. Everything in quotation marks is a direct quote.


First, the part I attended.
We began with a video from Al Jazeera (click right) about illegal abortions in Guatemala. The gist of the segment we watched was:

1. Women are suffering the effects of illegal, unsafe abortions.
2. Poverty is rampant, the fertility rate is unsustainable, healthcare is poor.
3. Conclusion: abortions should become legal.

The meeting never discussed the beginning of life. We never mentioned conception or tissue or personhood. All we talked about was availability of contraception and abortion. My peers (excluding my friend, who almost exclusively sat and silently took notes) uniformly believed that abortion was a right. There seemed to be flexible differences between them about how abortion should be used (e.g. as birth control?). Even so, they were very ready to agree with one another.

The bulk of the conversation I heard was about the poor, who needed abortions because they could not afford the $10/month birth control. My peers admitted that some of these "poor" prioritize their money badly, sometimes buying cigarettes or cable before buying condoms. I piped up to ask how much birth control cost if a person was on Medicaid. I was told it was free, but that some of "these people" had just enough money so that they didn't qualify for Medicaid, and that this was really sad. They complained about the inconvenience posed to the poor in an abortion: taking off work, driving multiple times to the clinic, and saving up money for an abortion (which takes time, during which the pregnancy is progressing and the abortion, getting more expensive).

I had initially sat next to my friend, with a space between me and the next person. Trying to be friendly, I bumped over a seat, but this gesture was unappreciated. The girl who I was now next to did not face me or look at me, addressing her comments to the others in the room. I as if I irked her. Only after my friend debriefed me on the rest of the meeting do I see why...

Now for the part after I left.
I tried to leave congenially, explaining and smiling as I picked up my bag. No smiles back, which surprised me. I am normally the only first-year who even comes to bioethics club meetings and I get lots of smiles. I was also being very sneaky during the meeting and saying things that were rather neutralish and even ambiguous. However, I didn't camouflage very well that morning. (I was dressed like I usually am: in a skirt, with my crucifix very visible against a white shirt. The TAC dresscode is a hard set of habits to break, and I eventually stopped fighting them because the female Muslim students don't get flack for dressing modestly and I want to dressing worthily of my King at Mass every day.)

Source: PPFA via whyprolife.com

The next day, my friend explained that the rest of the meeting included a discussion of Planned Parenthood. "Oh...I'm pregnant," quipped one, "well, got to go to Planned Parenthood." Others approved this with "good," and "that's great." (PP), opined my peers, is about patient education and prenatal care; most PPs don't do abortions. Do they know that 38% of PP's revenue is from abortions? And do they know that 37% of PP's revenue is from clinic incomes? What does this mean?

They also discussed the Komen events, which they dismissed as politics.

In our state, they said, the waiting period and mandatory ultrasound aren't useful--most women don't change their minds. Moreover, most women aren't traumatized by the event, just those who are already "sick."

They went into more detail about the hassle posed to abortion-minded women. Besides having to take off work and drive to the clinic, they are also harassed by protesters and their families (my friend wrote D**n protesters yelling at you, go to H*ll). The government makes them jump through hoops. But it's fine once they're inside, and they're "free" three hours later.

My friend asked whether the father of the baby was responsible for the decision. This was dismissed as off-topic. He should have to pay child support, but only the woman has a say in an abortion because it's her body.

Other chilling quotes included "the more [abortions], the merrier," and that pro-choicers are "always on the side of the woman's rights [and] morality."

But that was not all. Two more quotes my friend recorded showed me why I received such a cold shoulder and a stiff good-bye.

"...it's illegal because of the Catholics."

"...it's those evil people..."

The quotes were said separately (he didn't mention whether they were from the same person), but the message is clear. And (truth be told) when he gave me these, I didn't believe him at first, because they are so clearly the end result of relativism that I have read about for so long: the truth is called a lie because it refuses to accept lies as truth.

Well, So much the better that the credit for opposing abortion go to the right persons. And so much the better for a time of persecution; the Church always flowers during these. One more quote:

"Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and 

utter every kind of evil against you because of me." (Mt 5:11)

---

Forward this around! Everyone needs to know that the persecution has begun and our hope is now clearly only in Christ and his faithful Bride.

United States Consecrated Women

This post, like the last one, starts with my evening in the hospital chapel. But this post, unlike the last one, is not long and nice and reflective.

Before Mass (which was only attended by the celebrant, four habitless Franciscan sisters who administer the hospital, and yours truly), the first part of Evening Prayer was prayed. However, we did not pray out of a breviary. We prayed from The Companion to the Breviary: a Four Week Psalter Featuring All-Inclusive Language (emphasis mine). The doxology was rendered:

Glory to you, source of all being,
Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

It was printed on cute little cards with sunny clip art and inserted as bookmarks into the Companion. I can think charitably about ugly architecture, but removing God's masculinity from one of the most necessary prayers is very different. Who would want to sterilize their Spouse? It is interesting to me that the culture of sterilization (i.e. Western civilization right now) does not exempt members of the Church.

But there is good news!

1. Real Catholicism is winning.
2. The Church is speaking with the LCWR.
Update: I like Elizabeth Scalia's thoughts on this, more than anything else that has come out. I tend to assume the worst of habitless nuns, but she has a balanced perspective that ultimately emphasizes obedience.

I pray that women religious in this country return to their radical beginnings. Look to the thousands of years of strong and beautiful women saints!

(Right: Main nave of the byzantine basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. The mosaic shows a procession of early Christian virgin martyrs, such as St. Agatha. Doesn't this beat sunny clip art?)

Beauty of Espousal to Christ

Quickie post before I buckle down to studying...just in case you think the exterior beauty of consecrated life does not exist (as I am tempted to when I see nuns in suits), think again. Today I found the website of the Adoratrices du Cœur Royal de Jésus-Christ Souverain Prêtre. And my mouth dropped open to see photos of our rich and ancient traditions exemplified as

• This sister professed temporary vows (scroll down and look at her face!) in 2011
• These two postulants became novices the same year

I found the site because a TAC alumna became a postulant last year as well. Deo gratias!