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I apologize for the absence of an update this past week. I have been very busy.

My last week was spent mostly studying and volunteering. At the hospital, I worked either at the information desk or on the shop trolley. I had a good time, but it started to get a little repetitive. Thank goodness my criminal background check passed. Now I will be able to work on the wards and interact with patients more!

The week before last, we saw a nice play called London Assurance. It was written in the 1840's and was put on at the National Theatre. The play was well acted-- somewhat like an Oscar Wilde piece but not quite the same level of wittiness. One of the leading roles was played by Fiona Shaw (Mrs. Dursley).

On Sunday I met with an alumna from my university who worked in my position back in 1991 at our house in Italy. I originally got in contact with her because she was trying to sell some tickets to see David Sedaris. I like David Sedaris and offered to buy them from her. She met with me and her English husband in a pub in Highgate and spent a good two hours chatting. We had a nice afternoon, and I'm looking forward to the reading.

I spent the past week mostly shadowing at the hospital near our house. Back when I was in the US, I contacted a consultant physician at the hospital, a man who is apparently one of the best thoracic doctors in the country, and he set me up to follow different doctors around for the week. On Monday, I shadowed a senior house officer on the ward where people are sent after they are admitted to the emergency room. On Tuesday morning, I watched endoscopy of the lungs (saw a tumor up close and personal), and in the afternoon I followed a lung registrar around the hospital as he followed up on his referrals. Wednesday morning was spent in the thoracic clinic with another registrar. That afternoon I went back to the post-emergency ward (and got to see an example of pyoderma gangrenosum). Thursday I went to a hospital out in the suburbs to watch some day-surgeries-- hernia repair, varicose veins, and cataract removal. The afternoon was spent following a consultant physician around a vascular surgery clinic. We had one patient with an ulcer that had almost tunneled its way through his leg! This morning, I shadowed a dermatologist. This man was great to watch-- one of those doctors who is super professional but has a really good touch with the patients. He also does a ton of research (he has an MD and MBBS, see below), so he was a really interesting person with whom to discuss research and medicine as a career. I think I'm going to try to follow him around again.

By the way, some medical terminology is different in the UK (of course). Surgeons are referenced as "Mr." or "Ms." After medical school (which is normally an undergraduate course of education), students continue training in hospitals as house officers (residents), then become senior house officers (residents), then become registrars (chief residents/fellows), then rise to the level of consultant physicians (attending physicians). Doctors usually receive a "bachelor of medicine" which is termed either MBBS or BMBCh; an MD is the equivalent of a PhD in medical research.

On Tuesday, I went to see Judi Dench in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. It was fantastic. Judi Dench was so, so good. I'm so glad I went. I may have seen her car leave the theatre, but I'm not sure.

My MCAT studying is coming along ok. On Saturday I took a full-length exam written by ExamKrackers, not the AAMC. I didn't do particularly well, partly because I didn't eat lunch. I also don't like the way EK writes their test questions in general (and they do not explain their answers well at all). I'm taking another full-length test tomorrow, and from now on I'm just going to take AAMC tests. Hopefully I'll do better this time, otherwise I'm going to get discouraged. I still have a month before the exam, but I haven't been able to study much this week and am starting to feel anxious.

This week I'm volunteering a lot and hopefully studying a lot!!!