First Day at CCNM

Just letting you know, these next few blog entries are going to be retrospective, looking at the first few weeks of school. They were quite busy and so I didn’t really have time to get started on the blog, but once I’ve got these out of the way my plan is to make a post at least every few days just about interesting topics we learn or I learn through my own studying, or student life and other stuff.

So without further adue, the first day of school:

I left home pretty early to make sure I’d get there on time (orientation started at 8:30am...). Unfortunately I had some parking problems at the TTC lot, full! So I drove all the way to Fairview Mall and parked there, and  took the subway back to school, seemed so ridiculous but at the time I didn’t know about any other options, so I felt like I had no choice. I got to school and there was a huge lineup to get our orientation package; I tried to be friendly and talk to people in line, but it was pretty intimidating, such a big crowd of new faces. After getting our packages (including lots of free goodies like omega-3 from Ascenta and protein powder from Orange Naturals), we went into Classroom 4 where I soon learned we’d spend the majority of the year. The morning went with a bunch of talks from upper year students, professors, we had a tour of the school (I talked to a few more people during this time), and then lunch catered by Hearty Catering (organic, gluten free, all that good stuff) in the classroom during another talk. We got to hear from Bob Bernhardt, the president of the school (and an amazing man who has done so much for the school and the profession, I’m sure I’ll touch on him in the future), and also Nick DeGroote, the dean of academics.

After these talks we actually had all 3 of our classes that are normally on Tuesday (on the first day jeez!), but at least they were shortened to 50 minutes rather than the usual hour and 50.

Clinic 1 – This is taught by Dr. Khalili and seems like it will be a useful course. We’re just going to start learning the basics of what working in the clinic is like and the types of procedures that are done (not treatments, but stuff like charting and meetings, how to do patient intakes), and this is going to include a mock patient intake in class, and getting to go shadow one of the supervisors in the clinic later this term.

Naturopathic Philosophy and History – This is a really interesting course taught by Dr. Godfrey. He’s been teaching here for over 20 years and has tons of experience, he’s a pretty interesting guy. The content seems a little over my head to start, getting very spiritual and the words “cosmic consciousness” come up a lot. I guess I’ll do my best to get something out of this class, I mean it’s obviously here for a reason.

Homeopathic Medicine 1 – This course is taught by Dr. Kimberly-Taylor, and is one that I’m coming in the most skeptical about. I did a little bit of reading about homeopathy before school started, and have to say it seems like a really strange concept, and I’ve read a lot of skepticism especially from medical doctors. But I’m going to try to be as open as I can about it, we have 3 parts to homeopathic medicine, one every year. And I know that naturopathic medicine is really good and since homeopathic medicine is a big part of it, I think it’s worth trying to make the best of it. Who knows, maybe I’ll like it.

                After classes ended, I took the advice Dr. Khalili gave us and decided to go to the clinic. I’ve been having a lot of neck pain since the summer (I had 2 massage therapy appointments for it that helped but it’s still there). Lucky for me, Tuesday is the Sports Medicine specialty shift, so my problem is the kind of stuff they’re really looking at. My interns name is Shahin, he’s a fourth year student who has been working in the clinic since the summer so I have some confidence in him. After a bit of an intake with questions about what’s been going on, he started with a cervical manipulation, my first one ever. The popping sound kind of scared the crap out of me, and we actually only went one way. After that he did some acupuncture, also my first time, and used a heating pad. The acupuncture was actually pretty cool, there were a lot of needles in me but I barely felt any of them go in. He also used an electrical stim on some of the needles, and it felt just like a muscle stim that I’ve had in physio in the past. At the end he recommended taking a magnesium supplement (specifically magnesium glycinate) and using some robax heating pads for a little while. I felt pretty good after the treatment, but it’s been a long first day so I’m really tired. Hopefully I’ll feel better soon.

                                                     (The front entrance of CCNM)