Andy Franklin

Guy Fawkes Night

The English are rather inclined not to partake in the mass celebration that drapes over America every year on July 4^th. The celebration that is denoted for its exuberant and colorful display of fireworks illuminating the night is absent from the skies above my beloved home and rightly so… we lost! From this, an impertinent question would then be "so what do the English do with their annual stash of fireworks?" Well they light them up and let them off on November 5^th, for November 5^th is Guy Fawkes Night.

Guy Fawkes was one of 13 conspirators, that back in the 17^th century England attempted to the destroy the houses of parliament along with the protestant King James and replace him with what they saw as a more favorable catholic monarch. It is commonly thought that that their devious plan was to dig a tunnel from a nearby house to go under the famous structure. When they were in the right location and with the king in residence the plan was to then set alight copious amounts of gunpowder that would ultimately take out the building and the protestant King. This act of antiquated political terrorism was therefore termed the Gunpowder plot.

Well the plan didn’t work; On the November 5^th 1604 the King got wind of this dastardly crime and ordered his minions to investigate the cellars underneath Parliament. Any attempt of Guy Fawkes to deny participation in the plot were seemingly quelled by the fact he was found within those cellars accompanied by 28 barrels on gunpowder. In the physical struggle that preceded his capture and in a last ditch attempt to bring the plot to fruition, Fawkes threw his candle lit lantern against the barrels, however fortunately for the King the gunpowder did not alight.

The capture and subsequent torture of Guy Fawkes along with the Kings averted assassination was and continues to be celebrated every year. In addition to fireworks, the celebration takes on the form of big controlled bonfires from which on top is placed a flammable effigy of Guy Fawkes. This effigy is now interestingly become known as simply ‘the Guy’ from which is where the American term for a generic male is derived from.

Knowing that Americans don’t need too much of an excuse to throw a party, I thought I would offer this to you this coming weekend, Happy Guy Fawkes Night everybody!

Andrew shares how he prepares for exams!

An Eskimo riding a bicycle, smoking a cigar, that’s one of the scenarios I currently have running in my mind in an attempt to memorize a collection of related facts for an upcoming exam. The Eskimo is not a lone cyclist however, on the contrary it’s a surreal merry little party up there right now, Mickey Mouse, Marry Poppins and Denzel Washington (don’t ask) to name but a few are also performing various tasks in the vain attempt to relate the sometimes obscure information in a temporary but cohesive manner. They perform their function for just enough time for me to hopefully click the correct answer and then they are unceremoniously expelled. Any proof that they ever existed is the percentage value on a screen that ultimately results.

We harbor these characters (or at least I do) within our minds along with a colorful collection of acronyms, mnemonics and whatever else we care to create to aid us in memorization. They all provide us with a softer way to consume the large amounts information we are subjected to. A word, half a word even will trigger our thought process to navigate swiftly though the tunnels of our mind to a pre-prepared treasure trove of viable information. An unraveled acronym or mnemonic will provide at worst a clue and at best the key to the hidden answer. I am sure it would be considered cheating if the process could be externally observed.

However perhaps we should take heed, be aware that in time, acronyms become jumbled, mnemonics less melodic and the neuronal tracks that lead us to our other creations faded. The friendly smiling face of Mickey Mouse who helps me today may well have a sinister grin tomorrow, for the answer should not based on ‘because my Disney friend said so’ but rather based on a profound understanding of fundamental facts and their application to the question in hand. Of course where’s the fun in that?

Best of luck to all in the exams, whichever way you navigate to your answers.       

Andrew Franklin

Medical school is a demanding beast, relentless in its expectation of its subjects to apply themselves fully and continuously for excessive periods of time. Its demands at the peak of study can be considered to bear on fringe of the impossible or even the absurd. Medical school takes away, but it also gives back. The conventional argument of enduring such an unbalanced existence is that we are all working towards our dreams, our sacrifices now will equate to our future success and ultimate contentment. While this belief holds true and enables us to persist with the continual reassessment of our worthiness as future podiatrists there is something else, something more simple and delightful that medical school gives back.   

They don’t come by very often (and first years, they will be sadly taken from you in the 2^nd semester), but when they do, the only proper thing to do is waste them!  I am referring to those little nuggets of time when all is well, when we can sit and watch mindless TV just because we can. When we are not consumed by the unyielding notion that we should be perpetually studying and time simply loses its importance. It’s the weekend after exams and apathy should not only be tolerated but also indeed celebrated. For that brief moment we become the common man and woman, a weekend becomes the justified rest stop for the arduous endeavors of the previous five days. It provides us a window of a previous life or perhaps even a future life and then just like that it disappears once again.

So medical school will provide us with a wonderful profession, a great career full of great challenges and experiences but lets also acknowledge those blissful pockets of guilt free laziness that blesses us every now and then along the way. 

Exam Week...

Spoiler alert, OCPM has the best test schedule of any school I have ever been to, hands down. 

I'm pretty close with my family and as such we spend a lot of time on the phone talking about things that are going on in each other's lives. Coming in to this week I knew my family was getting worried seeing how this week sparked the beginning of my first grad school exams. As families often do they call when big things are going on and if they want to know how you are doing and so on and so forth. 

Just to be clear I do love their phone calls and all their well wishing, it has done me good so far and I'm sure will continue to benefit me for many years to come. 

When they call and ask how tests are going I say,"Great," and they ask, "So, what tests do you have this week?" Then, when I say I have 5 tests this week there is a long silence on the phone...followed by, "How are you handling it all?"

Truthfully, it's a pretty great system. For the exams, you have one class's exams per day, and then a day's rest in between tests to really focus on the next exam. It's fantastic! In undergrad I had what seemed like exam after exam, and most classes gave a test every other week, so I was swamped. So to only have one week every month and a half and only one class's exams per day it really gives me a chance to get a good grip on my class, internalize the information and commit it to permanent memory. 

I'm not going to lie, the exams and classes are hard, but OCPM has really found a way to ease the pressure a little bit and really help the students get a grip on the material and be able to do the best they can. 

Andrew Franklin

So four weeks into the new academic year and I have to say it has been rather pleasant so far. Of course its always hard to tell how well things are going before the first set of exams, but to be frank I’ve rather enjoyed the freedom (in the absence of clinic or simulated patients) that pertains to having no classes scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursday. The price of such a luxury does result in long days sitting in a classroom on Mondays and Wednesdays, but I’ll take it for the indulgence of a cheeky lie-in every now and then. I don’t want you to think that such a schedule has been completely wasted with an extra few pushes of the snooze button. On the contrary I have made some endeavors to be somewhat productive. For example I am lucky enough to be a member of a research group working for Dr Yavuz. Along with some fellow 2^nd years and 3^rd years we are collecting data on diabetic patients. I wont go into details of the research but from a student’s point of view it’s been a great experience to interact with patients and practice our under-developed pod-med skills.

These past first four weeks have also had a sport theme for me, and while I continue to hack at dimpled balls in a vain attempt to at least look somewhat presentable on the golfing green or more so the rough. I have also plied my trade with the OCPM soccer club. We have been meeting regularly every Sunday morning at the Independence high school for an informal ‘kick-about’ for some time now. It’s been a great way to get active and get the lungs going for at least a little while. I encourage anyone who is interested in ‘the beautiful game’ to come along and get involved, before it gets too cold (although we will then move to an indoor league). Incidentally the soccer club also had a trip a few weeks ago down to Columbus to watch the MLS game between Columbus Crew and Philadelphia Union. And although I would always argue that it’s no EPL (English Premier League) it was a great day out with many OCPM students attending and the home team taking the points.

My other recent sporting escapade has been at a local rock gym, there is something rather rewarding about the challenge of negotiating yourself up a wall, there are levels for every ability (I started on a ladder!) and wonderful way to distress from school.

With exams coming up I think such activities will be temporarily curtailed for now, but it’s nice to know there are many avenues outside of school that we can all take part in. Good luck in your studies.       

Andrew Bernhard, 3rd year @ OCPM

So, I’ve been on this site for a couple months now and haven’t really talked about myself much. Also, I now have the opportunity to add posts specifically for the OCPM community. I feel like that’s a bit of a privilege, so I couldn’t pass it up. Now, I’ll use this post to introduce myself to anyone who is reading and state what I plan to do here.
My background is deeply rooted in the sciences. I graduated from John Carroll University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology with a chemistry concentration. I enjoyed my time there and appreciated the broad liberal arts education, while my religious courses taught me to be more open minded. One professor, Dr. Miles Coburn, really influenced my interest in evolution, global climate change, and biodiversity, while John Carroll’s brand new science center provided some sweet facilities.
From 2007 to 2009, I worked at the American Red Cross as a lab technologist. I helped supervise a team that was responsible for maintaining a quality blood supply, through quarantine and labeling. The Red Cross taught me the importance of precision and accuracy in every task, as well as the troubles with multitasking.
Since 2009, I’ve been at school learning how to be a doctor. I do well, academically, but I never worried as much about that. What I am more proud of are my extracurricular activities and relationships. I am the student body secretary, a tutor, teaching assistant, DPM mentor, and, now, professional blogger. I try to give back to the school, and students, as often as possible. Personally, the friendships I’ve built at OCPM, I think, will prove to be lasting.
Outside of school, I love my wife and dogs. I like playing ukulele and reading about science, religion, and rational thought. All very exciting things.
If you’re at OCPM, just say hi. I’m easy to get along with and pride myself on answering any question you may ask. I’m very bald, fairly pale, and I’m usually trying to wear some sort of “ironically funny” tee shirt, or so I’ve been told. I plan on using this site to share goings-on in the OCPM community, interesting journal articles, and other podiatry topics.
Thanks for stopping.

2nd year student Andy Franklin

Hi my name is Andy Franklin, I am a second year here at OCPM, and it’s certainly a great feeling to be able to say that “2^nd year”. At times it had felt like we were destined to be perpetual newbies. The year was a long one, and certainly challenging but with that invariably comes the inherent pride to say that I, along with my peers made it! Bring on the next year.

My route to OCPM may be considered less than conventional. I was born in Essex, England and in various parts of England is where I resided for the first 26 years of my life. I had chosen a career in Chemistry and had come to the US to work in a research lab at Florida State University. My plan was to come to the states for a year or so and then head back to the motherland. Overtime however two notable things happened. One was that I was getting to rather like my life here in the states and the other more pertinent issue was that I was becoming less satisfied with my life as a chemist. To cut a long story short after a lot of searching I found myself here at OCPM.

Looking back on the first year with perhaps a hint of a rose tint, it was a great experience, the work load certainly asked a few questions of us all especially in the second semester but I guess no one said it would be easy. Looking at all the new first years coming in it reminds me of my experience not so long ago; making new friends, getting used to the work load and getting used to the Ohio weather were some key issues in those early months (to be honest I’m still trying to become accustomed to the weather) I would have to say that the summer term was certainly my favorite for obvious reasons, not only does the sun shine but the credit hours are considerably reduced and so you are able to rediscover the things you enjoyed when you had a normal existence. For myself and a lot of my friends that was playing golf, there are some great courses here and while I remain a less than the average player it’s a great why to get out and enjoy the surrounding areas with friends. 

Well as the new academic year beckons, I wish a sincere good luck to all the students here at OCPM. I look forward to sharing my views and experiences with you throughout my 2^nd year.