Summer Cooking!

I know that the focus of this blog is medical school. However, I try to incorporate meal prep ideas as well. I am currently on summer break between 4th and 5th term. So, I have been doing some light cooking at home with my family. I thought that I would share some ideas of my recent dishes that my family and I made! Enjoy! :)

This rice dish got me through finals week. It is filled with spices which made my kitchen smell amazing! I had this dish in combination with a vegetable dish (not pictured). 

We have been making some healthy salads and of course some great desserts. Pictures are below:

             

Right: LOVE this salad! It is made of pomegranate, cucumber, mango, corn, and a homemade dressing

Left: Delicious!! This salad has pomegranate, lettuce, mango, and bell pepper with a homemade dressing.

LOVE chocolate covered strawberries!!

Red Mango is always a great treat!!

    

Hope everyone is having a great summer! Thank you for reading!

~N

PS: I'm so sorry the photos were not showing up earlier! 
Pictures have also been updated for the term 3 post which 
can be found here.Thank you for your understanding. 

Immunology Quiz and Meal Prep Sunday

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Finals are quickly approaching, we suddenly had a immunology quiz (more on that later), and the term is wrapping up. Today, I thought I would do a post on our immunology quiz that we had last week and a few meal prep ideas.

Immunology Quiz

The class was anticipating a quiz but didn't anticipate it to be in class. So, when we found out about that piece of information, the class frantically started studying for the quiz. The professors agreed that it would be beneficial for the class to take a timed, in-class quiz to better prepare for the finals. While I was studying for immunology, I simply did not understand why the professors would suddenly decide to give a quiz of this sort. In retrospect, they were correct. If it wasn't for the quiz, I would not have made time to re-study the 10-12 lectures. Now, a week after the quiz and 2 weeks before the final, I am so glad that reviewing those 10-12 lectures for the final will be much easier. I have plenty of other studying that I have to complete as well! We have a new professor for immunology this term so it was unclear how the questions would be structured on the quiz. However, as usual, I went through each lecture at least 4 times before the quiz and briefly looked over the Complement flow chart I had made pre-midterm (so glad I looked at the chart). I also found it helpful to make a chart for all the cytokines and the immunoglobulin lectures. For future Term 2 students, start memorizing cytokines early. The material builds up very quickly! 

Meal Prep Sunday

Last week I decided to make 2 dishes for the week. The first is a dish I experimented with a few weeks ago and it turned out great. So, I made it again. It is a spicy Chinese eggplant dish with a hint of garlic and ginger. The recipe recommends green onions, but I used regular onions which worked out well too. I also added green peppers to the dish to prevent them from going bad this week! This dish has become one of my favorites. The second dish I made was a potato and onion preparation which I eat with bread or naan or tortillas. Although I got the idea from my mom a long time ago, it was my first time making it myself. I'm so glad it turned out better than expected. J and I cooked together last weekend and it took us about an hour to finish both dishes. 

Only 3 more weeks until we are back in the US for the holidays!!! Count down has officially begun! :) 

A shout out to our deans who came and spoke to Term 2 students yesterday about a number of administrative and student-related issues. Thank you!

Hope everyone is having a great week! SGU students, only a few more weeks to go! Keep up the hard work! :)

Time Management in Medical School

Every student that enters medical school has a general idea of how they are going to structure their day, study for classes efficiently, and make time to "live a life". As much as I support such a plan, some weeks, it is very difficult to stick to a plan and very often students find themselves falling behind. While I was going through term 1, I realized that I had to manage my time better because I simply was not getting enough sleep. I would stay up late, wake up early, drink coffee, and still be behind. It was about this time last term that I re-strategized my study plans and found ways to be more efficient. Here are a few methods that I used to become more efficient.

1) If you have read our previous posts, you can probably tell I am an advocate of meal prep. Does it actually save time? Yes, it does. Instead of venturing out to eat or cooking every night, if I cook once a week, I find my week a lot more productive. Typically by Sunday nights, I have finished grocery shopping and cooking. Then I know that my meals for the week are relatively planned out. For example, this week, I wanted both a family favorite dish (an okra dish eaten with flatbread/tortilla/naan) and some pasta. So, I made both. I made one dish on Sunday night and one on Monday night. Did it take a lot of time from studying? No, I devoted about 1 hour per night to make each dish. Now, I have more than enough food for the rest of the week. If I hadn't cooked earlier this week, I probably would have spent about an hour cooking or picking up food from a local restaurant per night. So, it would have taken more time away from studying. 

Don't know what I do differently, but my mom's version of this dish tastes so much better! 

Delicious! 

2) Don't dedicate too much time to one lecture. I try to stick to a 2-3 hour maximum for reviewing each lecture. Some of my friends set an alarm. When the alarm goes off, they must move on to reviewing another lecture. This also motivates students to focus on the material for a set period of time and try to beat the alarm. If I see myself not understanding the concept and just wasting time, I simply skip the slide and make sure I return to it over my weekend review. That way, I can move on to the other lectures/labs that I need to review for the day. 

3) Remember to sleep. There are several studies that have found that sleep is associated with memory and focused attention. With minimal sleep, sitting in lecture may turn into a perpetual nap session, which is simply unproductive. 

4) If you don't finish reviewing all the lectures of the day, it is ok. At the beginning of the term, I struggled with this concept. I would try to review every lecture as soon as it was taught. That is an ideal situation and what students should strive for, but may not happen over every weekday. Just make sure that the lecture is reviewed and understood over the following weekend. 

5) Schedule breaks during the week. Whether it is having dinner with a friend or talking to family or taking a walk, these breaks help me clear my mind before I get back to studying. Typically, I am a lot more productive after these breaks compared to if I study for several hours in a row. Plus, Grenada has some of the most picturesque beaches and waterfalls in the world. So, definitely take advantage and explore the island that you call home for about two years. I understand that doing well in school is important, but spending an hour at the beach/waterfall over a weekend is not a crime. 

Grand Anse Beach 2015

Annandale Waterfall 2015

6) Try to finish labs and small group discussion preparation work over the weekend and leave reviewing lectures for the weekdays. Especially during Term 1, I used to finish histology lab preparations and most of my anatomy lab preparation while I was reviewing the associated lectures over the weekends. It made my life a little easier during the week. 

I am no expert in time management, but these tricks helped me during medical school and hope it helps you too! 

Floods, Fire alarms, and oh yea Unifieds

This week has been one of a kind. On top of studying for unifieds, the fire alarm went off in my apartment building at 4 am last week. This has happened before, but it usually was in the day time. So, students were either in class and not sleeping. Hopefully the 4 am building fire alarm doesn't happen again! On top of that, we had a leak that started a few weeks ago and progressively got worse and worse in the suite. The weekend before unifieds, my roommates and I had to deal with the problem to prevent complete flooding of our apartment. Thank you to the housekeeping team who mopped our floor multiple times and the maintenance department who FINALLY fixed the problem!

Ok, enough of that "negative nancy" talk. Let's talk about unifieds. We had unifieds last Monday for Genetics, Neuroscience, and Physiology. For term 2, unifieds are 20 questions each and 30 minutes per exam. For neuroscience and physiology, unifieds are worth 10 points. So, essentially each question on those exams are worth 0.5 of a point. For genetics, the score on unifieds is worth 20 points. So, each question is worth 1 point. As stressful as they are, unifieds are a nice way for students to determine whether their method of studying is working out well for them. If not, students have time to go see advisors/professors and revise their study strategy. Personally, unifieds went well. Better than expected, but I definitely have areas that I want to improve upon before midterms.

Last weekend was a complete study weekend before exams. So, I did not have enough time to cook for the week, but I did finish grocery shopping. After my exam on Monday, I was sleep-deprived, tried, and hungry. So, making stir fry was the first thing that popped into my head. I made a large batch of stir fry with beans, baby corn, green pepper, and onion. Delicious!

I'm so glad it is Friday! Aren't you? Happy Friday! :)

Unifieds, La Boulangerie, and Meal Prep

Last weekend was just a blur. On Friday, I made a list of things that I wanted to get done before Monday morning. Although I studied majority of the weekend (because we have unifieds coming up in less than a week (ekkk!!)), I felt like Sunday night just popped up suddenly. I like to do my second if not third review over the weekend following the lecture. Last week, there was a lot of pharacodynamics and pharacokinetics material that was covered in Physiology. Integrating concepts and analyzing the material took majority of the time. Although tired, this week is going well so far. We have a few more days of lectures before unifieds. So, my peers and I are trying to manage the material.

La Boulangerie

Despite have a study weekend, I did manage to take a study break on Friday to try out an Italian restaurant called La Boulangerie. To my friends who recommended this restaurant, thank you! The food was delicious and it was just what I needed after a long week! The restaurant is known for their pasta dishes. The service compared to other restaurants in Grenada was fast and the quality of food was good. We will definitely be eating at La Boulangerie again!

Meal Prep

On Saturday, we finished grocery shopping and I cooked on Sunday evening. I made an Indian dish called Chole for dinners this week. I am planning on eating it with flatbread similar to pita bread called naan. In addition, I am planning on making a second dish late in the week so that I don't have to worry about cooking right before unifieds. 

Hope everyone is having a great week! 

Neurogeneticophysiology and Meal Prep

Yes, I am aware that I made up the word, but neurogeneticophysiology basically describes my week. Last week, we began the three core classes for term 2: Neuroscience, Genetics, and Physiology. I think all three classes are really interesting, so I am looking forward to the classes. Last week we had our regular 4 hours of lectures per day and then a 3 hour clicker/practice question session on Friday. This week, we have the same schedule in addition to 2 small group discussions. So, the work load is definitely building up! 

In terms of the 3 hour clicker/practice question session, I have heard mixed reviews about it. Some argue that it is a waste of time especially after 4 hours of of lecture on Fridays. Others say that it is beneficial to evaluate yourself at the end of the week to identify what to focus on during the weekend study. Personally, I think I fall somewhere in between the two extremes. I appreciate the fact that the school has implemented these sessions to provide us with more practice/USMLE-styled questions. However, I think it would be helpful if the instructors either provide more questions or explain the correct answer choice thoroughly during the sessions. I have to say, though, I did tailor my weekend reviews based on concepts that I missed during the clicker session. The clicker sessions are also motivating me to study harder during the week and attend the sessions prepared. 

Besides trying to keep up with the course material, I also meal prepped last weekend. I made an awesome Mexican rice dish with black beans, corn, onion, tomato, and green bell pepper. I cooked the veggies with spices on Saturday night and stored them in containers. Then, every night for dinner, I quickly mix together some rice and veggies, add some spices to make it spicy (as you can probably tell, spicy food and I go well together), and warm it up! I knew this week would be busy, so I made enough for the week.

Now I am off to study some pharmacodynamics for physiology! Happy first week of September! :)

The First 2 weeks of Term 2

2 finals, 2 meal prep dishes, and 1 beach sums up my week so far. Last week, we finished up two courses: CPM (Community and Preventive Medicine) and Bioethics. We had finals for those courses this week. So, this post is about my perspectives of the courses and a few tips for future students.

CPM
Since college, I have found the study of public health to be very interesting. So, I thoroughly enjoyed the topics that were covered in CPM. From heart disease prevalence to prevention methods to filling out death certificates, this class introduced the class to a wide range of public health topics. In terms of studying, I attended lecture, reviewed the lectures, and reviewed the lectures again over the weekend. The material is not hard, but students do need to be prepared for the exam. Here are a few tips for succeeding in the class:

1) Attend the review lecture. (typically last lecture of the course) This helped me the most!!!
2) Make sure to go through the 100 slide review guide that the professor is nice enough to give to students.
3) Definitely, definitely learn how to fill out a death certificate during the workshop/lecture.
4) Make sure you understand the material covered in the vaccine lecture because it is not only important for the class, but will also help during clinical practice.
5) Know the definitions and differences between epidemic, endemic, outbreak, and pandemic. More importantly, know how to apply it to a clinical setting.

Bioethics
Over the last 2 weeks, I spent much more time studying Bioethics compared to CPM. This class discussed quite a few ethical situations that affect health care regularly. Majority of the lectures left the class thinking about 2 questions: How would I respond if I was the physician? How would I want a physician to respond if I was the patient? Here are a few things I did to study for this class:

1) Attend lecture, review lecture, and review lecture over the weekend
2) Read all the articles. Most of them are quite interesting! There were questions on the exam about the main points covered in the articles.
3) Prepared for both small group sessions by formulating an answer for each question on the discussion worksheet.
4) Read the course companion. To be honest, I wish I had read the companion when I was going through the lecture, rather than leaving it for the last few days before the exam.
5) Made flashcards for definitions and theories. This class has a ton of terms and lists that students need to know how to apply. So, flashcards were the easiest method to learn.
6) Discussed the practice quiz questions with a few friends.

To be completely honest, I was stressed about finding out my bioethics grade as were many of my friends. A huge thank you to J and my family for listening to my worries over the last few days! You are awesome!! To de-stress from the 2 finals, we went to the beach (yay!). I don't think I could ever get tired of these sunsets. So beautiful!

#nofilter

Once we were back, I was in the mood to cook something. So, I experimented with a pan-asian recipe with green beans, bell pepper, and onions over rice. Simply Delicious!! :)

Happy Wednesday! :)

Finals and Meal Prep!

It feels like we just flew back to Grenada and we already have final exams on Monday and Tuesday. We just finished up 2 courses (CPM and Bioethics) which are 2 weeks in length. Once we take our finals early next week, we start the core classes (physiology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience) for term 2. I promise to do an update about each of the courses once I take my exam!

Because we have finals next week, meal prep time may be a little compromised this weekend. This week, I decided I wanted something healthy, warm, and fast to make. So, I'm made stir-fry. I am a huge fan of pan-asian food, so this is just what I need for a pre-final weekend! I already had a few ingredients and wanted to use up some veggies before they become moldy. I'm convinced that the more number of ingredients I add to stir-fry, the better it tastes. So, I never use a standard recipe for stir-fry. Usually, I taste the dish while it is cooking and add spices or hot sauce or stir-fry sauce as I go.

We quickly finished up our weekend grocery shopping and got back to studying. In the evening, I chopped up all the ingredients and let the veggies cook while I read some bioethics.

Some of veggies that I cut

If I have time, I might make another dish after my final on Tuesday so that I have enough for the week! For lunches, I am keeping it simple. I saved some of the veggies that I used for the stir fry. So, I am making a cheese or veggie sandwich during the week. Hope everyone is having a great weekend! :)

Meal Prep Week 2!

Wow, I can't believe that the first week of term 2 is already complete. Because our course load has been manageable so far, I have had more time to cook and prepare meals that I enjoy! Yesterday, we finished up our usual grocery shopping and today, I set aside a few hours to make a few things that I plan to eat during the week.

Potluck
Today, our friends hosted a potluck party at their apartment. We were in charge of making/bringing chip dip. So, instead of just buying a small container of salsa, I thought I would make a vegetarian 7-layer dip. While grocery shopping, I picked up a few extra ingredients. Then, my roommate and I put together a great dip! The recipe was a combination of a youtube recipe video and our 10 pm creative minds! :)  It was super easy to make and all the ingredients can be found at IGA.

Meal Prep
Due to the hot and humid weather, I thought that I would prepare a light, cooler dish for dinners this week. So, I thought a pasta salad would be a great option! While the pasta was cooking, I cut and mixed veggies and fruits.

Then, I mixed everything together and added a spices to give it flavor.

For snacks, I have apples and I am thoroughly enjoying the yogurt/granola combination. So, I am going to stick with that this week!

I also cut up a head of lettuce so that I can add a few other ingredients during the week and make sandwiches for lunches.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Week 2, here we come! :)

Term 2, here I come!

After a couple of flight delays due to a lightening storm, we are safely back in Grenada to start Term 2. For future students, it is important to have the electronic form submitted to SGU, the letter addressed to the immigration officer, and student ID to make immigration as smooth as possible in Grenada. Also, if possible, try to keep the same electronic devices that you submit to SGU for your electronic form. It will make your life a lot easier. Over the last few days, I have been running errands like registering for Term 2, buying groceries for the week, unpacking, and of course meeting up with friends from last term!

Academics:
The first few weeks of Term 2 consist of a 2-week course introducing students to the importance of bioethics in the field of medicine and community and preventative medicine. I, for one, am excited for these classes. The course load for the next two weeks are relatively light compared to the rest of the term. So, I am slowly easing my way into term 2.

Meal Prep:
As per my usual med school schedule, I meal prepped on Sunday this week. I made a chickpea-based dish with a ton of veggies that I plan to eat during the week. I also cut up some lettuce and added some veggies to that so I can have salads during the week. As a snack, I have yogurt and granola and of course fruits! Instead of icecream, my family gave me a few treats before I flew back to Grenada. So, I can enjoy that during the week! :)

Carnival
The last few days have been a national holiday in Grenada. My roommates highly recommended going to see the festival and I am so glad I took their advice. A group of friends and I took a cab to the city, saw the singing and dancing, and embraced the cultural traditions. One of the first things that an orientation leader told me during 1st term was to spend time exploring the island and mixing with the locals. Although I hold studying and my academics as my first priority, we are here in Grenada for 2 years. So, we might as well learn and embrace the Grenadian culture.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week and best of luck to the Term 1's who start orientation today! :)

Meal Prep in Med School

Hi Everyone! Today, I thought I would do a post about meal prep. As a medical student, meal prep not only helps me eat healthy, but it also saves me time during the week. During the first few weeks of Term 1, I found myself cooking on a regular basis or eating out and it was taking time away from studying. So, I had to manage my time better and start preparing meals ahead of time.

We previously talked about how IGA typically gets a shipment on Thursdays. You can read our grocery store experience here. So, we tend to finish our grocery shopping either Friday or Saturday. That allows us to meal prep on Sunday.

I usually plan what I am going to eat for the week before going to the store. There are many people who meal prep everything they are going to eat for the week. Props to them! For now, I try to meal prep dinners and lunches. For breakfast, I almost always have milk and yogurt or cereal in my kitchen. For snacks, I try to stick to fruit, but I know I slack, especially if it is midterm week! I definitely have a sweet tooth for ice cream! More specifically, Mint Chocolate Chip! :) I'm not the most experienced chef, so before starting term 1, I put together a word document of enjoyable, healthy, easy meals that I know how to make with a list of ingredients. Usually, I make 1-2 large main dishes that I use for dinner during the week and sandwiches and salads for lunches.

Then, on Sundays, I make sure I set aside a few hours of my day to prepare my main dishes for dinner and cut up fruits/veggies that I am going to need for lunch.

During the week, it only takes me a couple of minutes to put together a great meal! :)