Shortest Midterm Week Ever?

It's Monday, sorry I missed my usual Sunday post, but I'm here right away! It's a bit of a busy time right now with CCNM midterms. Again, I'm in third year, so this is going to be my fifth midterm period at CCNM! Time sure flies. This is a really odd one though, because for the first time, midterms are not the week of Thanksgiving (I may have mentioned that in my last post, if so, sorry, I forgot). So we have midterms over five days instead of four. However, third year is a little different than first and second; we have a lot more assignments, so we have less midterms. So right now, I've only got three midterms - I know, my undergrad self would be crying if I had three midterms in a week, but at CCNM, when you're used to five to six exams in four days, three exams in five days is really not so bad! Anyway I've got Nutrition on Tuesday, Men's and Women's Health on Thursday, and Physical Medicine on Friday. I'll try to debrief these exams a bit on my next Sunday post.

Nutrition is going to be a little strange, because it's actually an open book exam; to my knowledge, my first open book exam ever in seven years of post-secondary. We can bring in whatever we want, and for me that means the course textbook, the Gaby "Bible of Nutrition" (honestly this book is over 1300 pages, it has so much information!), and course notes. The exam is all short answer instead of multiple choice, so it'll be a little different, but I think it will be okay. Critically think instead of memorize. What a concept!

Men's and Women's Health is regular multiple choice, there's a fair amount of material, but I don't think it will be too bad. Lots of overlap with other courses, and stuff we have done in the past. There is a lot of therapeutics to know though...oh third year.

Finally Physical Medicine, it's going to be a little weird as a multiple choice exam. This is the type of course that you really see as more of a practical based thing, and the final will be just that. But for the midterm, we've got about 400+ pages worth of material, all sorts of physical exams and conditions and dermatomes and trigger points. So much information! But at least it's at the end of the week, so there's lots of time to prepare for it.

Anyway, on to something that is not just school. I've recently been doing lots of self-development, with books and podcasts being a big part of that. There's so many interesting and useful little tips you can learn, and I thought it would be nice to share some of those through my blogging. So for this week, I wanted to share a pretty cool one I learned today, called "block breathing." This is something I had learned in the past, but modified. Basically, you breathe in for 3-4s, hold your breath for 3-4s, breathe out for 3-4s, and hold again for 3-4s. While you do this, you can imagine drawing a square with your finger, or even actually draw one. Each side of the square is a portion of that breathing. This is a great exercise for helping draw you back to your breath, become more mindful, get into a parasympathetic state, and just relax. The simple things are always the best aren't they? The cool twist I learned today though, was to do block breathing while walking. Walking can be especially stressful if you are in a rush or in a big crowd of people. It's also something you have to do all the time, so why not use it as an opportunity to be more mindful and relaxed? So in this scenario, instead of using 3-4s for each side of the square, you can breathe in, hold and breathe out based on the number of steps you take. 4 steps is a pretty standard number, but depending how fast you walk, you can switch between 4-8 steps and have a pretty good rhythm.

So give that exercise a try next time you're out walking, and let me know how you feel. I'm off to study again, see you Sunday!

Remember to breathe properly! Breathe with your diaphragm and not your chest to get the best airflow, and better relaxation. This is as easy as putting you hand on your stomach while breathing - ensure it pushes out while breathing in, and comes in when you breathe out. Enjoy!

OAND Convention, First "Regular" Post, and Running

Here I am, as promised, for my first regular Sunday post. I already summed up last week so there's no need to talk about that, but instead I'll talk about my great weekend at the OAND Convention.

So, I think I mentioned it in a previous post, but the OAND is the Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctors. This is not to be confused with CONO (College of Naturopaths of Ontario), who are the licensing board for NDs in Ontario. The OAND is the advocate for Naturopathic Doctors in Ontario, helping to advance legislation, provide continuing education opportunities, and lots of other activities. They have an annual convention each year which is a big opportunity to get a lot of great continuing education, and of course meet up with old friends - I'm still at school so this isn't as big, though I did get to see some friends who had graduated, and also Leslie from Signature Supplements, a really fantastic supplement company that does custom compounding for NDs (I worked for her in first year, but I'm a little too involved in academics and other stuff at school now to do that).

Anyway, this year I volunteered at the convention instead of working for a company, so I volunteered all day Saturday, and then got to go as an attendee for free on Sunday (the convention is Friday-Sunday). On my volunteer day I still got to see some talks and walk the tradeshow floor, so overall it was a great time. I saw a bunch of interesting talks, my favourite of which was about Fear and Anxiety in Cancer Patients, this was given by Dr. Jen Green who is actually a FABNO ND from Detroit - FABNO is a Fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncologists; there are only about 100 total right now, and these are really well educated doctors. I really enjoyed learning about some new research in the use of mindfulness to treat anxiety and depression in cancer patients, and also seeing the applicability across other disciplines. The tradeshow was also fun, getting a bunch of free stuff, and also learning about some new products and things that are in the works. Overall it was a pretty cool weekend, and though it would be nice to sit around and relax after a hard week, I think this was a great choice - I'd recommend going for any student, but especially in 3rd and 4th year when you know a lot more and can see yourself using the things you learn much sooner.

On another note, I wanted to mention that I've taken up running, at least a little bit. I've never done that much of this in the past, most of my cardio being HIIT type stuff...or non-existent (I weight train too much!). There's tons of benefits to cardiovascular training and it's an important part of a complete workout program, so I'm pushing myself to really get involved. I did my first 10k on Friday, and today, after the convention, on about 4 hours of sleep by the way (I went out with some friends last night and got home pretty late..), I went out and did a short 5k night run. Not a long one, but decently tough for a beginner runner, plus I'm exhausted from the weekend. It's a nice little break from the world though, and I really love my music so it's a great chance to zone out and enjoy that - though don't zone out too much and get hit by a car!

Alright so that's all for my first Sunday post of the year, I've got a long week ahead of me with a bunch of assignments due, and my gynecology station 1 practical on Friday, and my first physical medicine practical on Friday too. I'll see you next Sunday for an update on the week, if you want to know about anything particular make a comment and I'll see to that. Have a good week!

I swear I don't do all this!
Okay.....maybe just a couple apps

TGIF!

It's Friday, and that means it's the last day of my "what you take in Fall third year" series.
So here's the classes for today:

Physical Medicine - This is just another physical medicine class, but a few times during the semester we'll have practicals on Fridays to actually work on the skills we're learning. Our first session is next week, so I'm pretty excited for that (sitting in a lecture hall gets boring after 6 years!).

Homeopathy 3 - This is taught by Dr. Bakir who taught is first year. I'll give her this, she's incredibly passionate about homeopathy. You can really see it when she teaches and when you ask her questions in person. She's also very friendly and easy going. Homeopathy doesn't resonate with me as much as others, but she's really great if it does for you. This year it's a full year course, and there is going to be a lot of focus on acute remedies - I think this is great, because I think Naturopathic Doctors can have a very difficult time integrating classical homeopathy. There's so many other modalities that you have an styles of interviewing that are kind of at odds with homeopathy, and make it difficult, but I think the acute stuff can work well. Anyway we also are working on a live case which is pretty cool, that started today. We had a very experienced homeopath come in and do a full case intake on a live patient for us, and we charted as if we were doing the intake. Our assignment is to work up the case, and I think this is pretty good experience - better than just learning tons of remedies! We also are going to keep going over another case that Dr. Bakir did with someone and recorded, and because that one is recorded, she goes through it with us very slowly to point out important things.

Men's and Women's Health - In this course, we focus on none other than men's and women's health! Here we look at the same things we looked at in clinical medicine last year, but in more depth, and also integrating treatment modalities. In addition, there is a practical component that involves gynecological examinations and male genitourinary/digital rectal examinations. For the female exam, there are three stations throughout the year. The first is just a recap of PCD last year, practicing on models. Mine is next Friday. The next two will be on standardized patients. I'm a little nervous for those, but I think it'll be okay; everyone else made it through right? The male ones just have two stations, both of which will be on a standardized patient. Also nervous, but I think it'll be okay. These are of course important because NDs are trained as primary care providers, and we need to be able to assess these important areas if required by our patients.

So that's all for now, I'll make sure to do a full week in the winter so you can learn about what courses we're in then.

Anyway, This weekend is the Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctor's Annual Convention and Tradeshow. There's lots of interesting talks, and a full tradeshow with all the supplement companies. In first year I worked for a company called Signature Supplements, so I spent the whole time at the booth. This year I will be volunteering on Saturday, so on Sunday I get to go for free. I'm excited to see some cool talks and get a bunch of free supplements, and hopefully network a little bit. My regular posting schedule starts this Sunday, so I'll give you a bit of a recap then. For now it's back to work, so I'll leave you with another funny cartoon (by the way, I won't always do the cartoon thing, if there's something else relevant I may do a different picture, but it's been fun for this week so why not?)