I would like to thank Dr Clarkson, Dr Katakam, Ms Phyllis, Ms Linda, and Ms Debbie for all of their hard work and for helping me further my life.
Service Hours: 12
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
The Semester is Over! The Grind is Not.
I have grown immensely as a person this year, and as a student. I have absolutely no regrets in getting my master in pharmacology at Tulane. I have sustained some great study habits, met some great people including the professors and everyone else involved in the program. This last month was one of the easiest in the programs, but I was still studying for the DAT for my goal of becoming a dentist. The year went by pretty fast honestly. I still remember the little details about the very first day, going in early, everyone foolishly sitting in one corner of the room, wondering who I would talk to for the whole year and who I talked to the first day. It's crazy to me that it's all over now. This is only the start and it was a great start for me. I really am glad I chose this program over any other master I signed up for. I finished all of my volunteering at KIPP and on easter weekend.
I would like to thank Dr Clarkson, Dr Katakam, Ms Phyllis, Ms Linda, and Ms Debbie for all of their hard work and for helping me further my life.
Service Hours: 12
I would like to thank Dr Clarkson, Dr Katakam, Ms Phyllis, Ms Linda, and Ms Debbie for all of their hard work and for helping me further my life.
Service Hours: 12
Sunday, March 31, 2019
The Shelf is Done, But Not Everything Is!
I thought the NBME shelf exam was pretty hard. Not that I didn't study enough, but some things I just didn't study properly. A lot of study tools were great, a lot I tried weren't so great. Some where so great, that I ended up studying something that didn't even appear once on a 113 question test. One of my favorite, useful, simple things to study was chemo-man. A very simple visual representation of various forms of chemotherapy and it lists the chemo drugs in a simple anatomical cartoon classifying them by something important: their side effects. Whether its the cardiotoxicity, or fibrosis, or cystitis, chemo-man really made it stick. I wish I studied more about anti HIV, virals, and fungals though! If I had focused more on that stuff (only a few questions) and looked at the cardiac and ANS various receptors and been able to differentiate which went where I feel I'd be way more confident. Not that I needed a high score to keep my grade anyway.
Now that's out of the way, I need to fill my month of April with volunteering and service in order to get my semester's 12 hours done. I'm no stranger to keeping stuff like this until last notice so I'll be fine!
Chemo man! himself!
-Ujaan
Service hours: 0
Now that's out of the way, I need to fill my month of April with volunteering and service in order to get my semester's 12 hours done. I'm no stranger to keeping stuff like this until last notice so I'll be fine!
Chemo man! himself!
-Ujaan
Service hours: 0
Saturday, March 2, 2019
The grind is (Almost) over
We're done with almost every single thing in this program. We just completed our psychopharm module, which I nearly completely aced. I feel that I've learned a lot this last 6 months, both in and outside of the classroom. Study habits, the need to relax, balancing the aforementioned and being able to be a social person all at once. All of these are important and I believe this has all been beneficial to me. I've improved immensely at my ability to study and put in work while maximizing the time I put in to my studying. This, contributed with the volunteering I plan on taking advantage of is crucial for me to improve as a student and more importantly as a person.
I think it's something that me and some classmates can be proud of: improving how we study, something that is important for us both now and in the future no matter where we proceed academically. I think in terms of study habits, work ethic and maturity, I think this year I have grown more in this one not even full year than I did in all 4 years in college.
The whiteboard. One of my essential study tools. I wrote all of this from the top of my head the night before the test
I think it's something that me and some classmates can be proud of: improving how we study, something that is important for us both now and in the future no matter where we proceed academically. I think in terms of study habits, work ethic and maturity, I think this year I have grown more in this one not even full year than I did in all 4 years in college.
The whiteboard. One of my essential study tools. I wrote all of this from the top of my head the night before the test
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Back to Work! A New Year. Not A New Me
It was really nice to be back home for nearly a month. Few headaches, meals cooked by my mom, waking up passed 2 pm every day, It was really nice.
Anyway, I'm back in New Orleans and focusing on important things now and working on being more productive and moving my life forward. Breaks are all good, but if a break was prolonged that would defeat the purpose of it. I ended last semester with the grades that I came here to get, and was proud of myself and thought I earned the messed up sleep schedule. Now it's up to me to keep up with what I've already built on and prove to myself that this is the caliber of student I am now.
The passed module was diabetes and endocrine pharm, something I find relevant since there are many people in my family who are diabetic. It was interesting to learn about the complex mechanisms of insulin, glucose, obesity, and diabetes. I had no idea diabetes spanned SO many different diseases and side effects. I need to keep my diet in check and stay physically active to maximize my GLUT-4 translocation and keep my PTP in check!
Oh yeah, and keep my grades up, and feel smart and hard working.
-Ujaan
just a little picture showing the potential complexity of pancreatic cells and diabetes
edit. service hours: 0
Anyway, I'm back in New Orleans and focusing on important things now and working on being more productive and moving my life forward. Breaks are all good, but if a break was prolonged that would defeat the purpose of it. I ended last semester with the grades that I came here to get, and was proud of myself and thought I earned the messed up sleep schedule. Now it's up to me to keep up with what I've already built on and prove to myself that this is the caliber of student I am now.
The passed module was diabetes and endocrine pharm, something I find relevant since there are many people in my family who are diabetic. It was interesting to learn about the complex mechanisms of insulin, glucose, obesity, and diabetes. I had no idea diabetes spanned SO many different diseases and side effects. I need to keep my diet in check and stay physically active to maximize my GLUT-4 translocation and keep my PTP in check!
Oh yeah, and keep my grades up, and feel smart and hard working.
just a little picture showing the potential complexity of pancreatic cells and diabetes
edit. service hours: 0
Friday, November 30, 2018
November: Thanks Giving and Thanks Taking
Hey everyone.
I just wanted to start this post out talking about November. Since I was a kid, I always associated this entire month with one particular Thursday: Thanksgiving. My parents moved to Orlando from Bangladesh in the 90s, and thanksgiving is always a tradition at our household, including my large family (my dad is 1 of 10 siblings!). It's always fun, and it's the one day of the year my mom cooks more American type food. Even so, she manages to put her own spice to it! Literally... just look at that turkey! She made two and this was the second one.
Also in this month was one of my strongest med pharm performances. Med pharm is the highest weight class, and it felt very good to get an A in the module which Dr. Clarkson called the "Mother" of all of our content modules! It feels amazing when studying pays off, and I wholeheartedly enjoy the feeling more than just about (almost) anything I do.. despite how stressful the process of studying can be.
This was also the month I got on top of my service hours. I participated in the edible forest project, which is meant to plant fruitful trees on the front yards of New Orleans residents. It was fascinating for me, a lifelong Orlando resident to see how people in New Orleans live. The people are good hearted despite all the adversity they must put up with. It was a great feeling to help people be able to potentially have a free source of healthy fruit and vegetables down the line. I also participated in volunteering two times for second harvest aiding in sorting dry food to be shipped out. It was nothing glamorous, but I felt it was appropriate given the time of year, and felt a sense of accomplishment in aiding in food distribution to the people of this city who need it the most!
just look at this table! chicken and beef curry on the side for any uncles and aunts not in the mood to step outside our usual food boundaries.
November Service Hours: 12.5
Total Service Hours: 12.5
-Ujaan
I just wanted to start this post out talking about November. Since I was a kid, I always associated this entire month with one particular Thursday: Thanksgiving. My parents moved to Orlando from Bangladesh in the 90s, and thanksgiving is always a tradition at our household, including my large family (my dad is 1 of 10 siblings!). It's always fun, and it's the one day of the year my mom cooks more American type food. Even so, she manages to put her own spice to it! Literally... just look at that turkey! She made two and this was the second one.
Also in this month was one of my strongest med pharm performances. Med pharm is the highest weight class, and it felt very good to get an A in the module which Dr. Clarkson called the "Mother" of all of our content modules! It feels amazing when studying pays off, and I wholeheartedly enjoy the feeling more than just about (almost) anything I do.. despite how stressful the process of studying can be.
This was also the month I got on top of my service hours. I participated in the edible forest project, which is meant to plant fruitful trees on the front yards of New Orleans residents. It was fascinating for me, a lifelong Orlando resident to see how people in New Orleans live. The people are good hearted despite all the adversity they must put up with. It was a great feeling to help people be able to potentially have a free source of healthy fruit and vegetables down the line. I also participated in volunteering two times for second harvest aiding in sorting dry food to be shipped out. It was nothing glamorous, but I felt it was appropriate given the time of year, and felt a sense of accomplishment in aiding in food distribution to the people of this city who need it the most!
just look at this table! chicken and beef curry on the side for any uncles and aunts not in the mood to step outside our usual food boundaries.
November Service Hours: 12.5
Total Service Hours: 12.5
-Ujaan
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Advances, and the Future
One of the courses we have to take here at the Tulane Masters in Pharmacology program is the advances in pharmacology course, which is every Wednesday at noon. It involves being with a group of students and being assigned a "landmark paper" in the field of pharmacology, in other words a paper containing studies or trials concerning medicine which establishes the profoundness of their indications, relevance, side effects, and contraindications.
Something of note is that the paper assigned is always relevant to what is being covered in the current module in class. So recently, I have gone to present for two weeks in a row and both of my papers that I was assigned covered various antihypertensive drugs, such as valsartan, nebivolol, candesartan, and hydrochlorothiazide. Something I find useful about this class is that it can either reenforce or introduce me to a topic that will be of relevance come test day and help me keep up with the material better.
In the future months, I need to up my service hours greatly. I focus too much on studying when the tests roll around, and not enough on serving the community when the tests are farther away. This is something I need to change and it's time to do what I can to change that.
example of what we've observed in an advances paper, detailing the effects of monotherapy vs multi drug therapy
service hours: 0
total: 0...
Something of note is that the paper assigned is always relevant to what is being covered in the current module in class. So recently, I have gone to present for two weeks in a row and both of my papers that I was assigned covered various antihypertensive drugs, such as valsartan, nebivolol, candesartan, and hydrochlorothiazide. Something I find useful about this class is that it can either reenforce or introduce me to a topic that will be of relevance come test day and help me keep up with the material better.
In the future months, I need to up my service hours greatly. I focus too much on studying when the tests roll around, and not enough on serving the community when the tests are farther away. This is something I need to change and it's time to do what I can to change that.
example of what we've observed in an advances paper, detailing the effects of monotherapy vs multi drug therapy
service hours: 0
total: 0...
Sunday, September 30, 2018
The Interesting Case of Penicillins
A lot has happened in my life in the last month, leaving my home state of Florida to live on my own for the first time in a beautiful historic city known as New Orleans. I have more to say than I have time to type right now concerning my opinions about Tulane, the city, and my life in general, but I am going to use this blog to write about something more interesting than all of that: penicillins.
It is interesting to note the differences in penicillins, whether it's the natural penicillins V and G, which have narrow spectrum of activity against both gram positives and gram negatives. Also noteworthy is how a different class of penicillins, which includes piperacillins and ticarcillins only affect gram negative bacteria... completely enticing!
But in all honesty, it really is intriguing how diverse the mechanisms and properties of the different classes (natural, anti-staph, amino, anti-pseudomonal) of penicillins are. It reminds me of another beta-lactam drug family: the cephalosporins...
Penicillin G itself.
-Ujaan
Service hours in September: 0
Total service hours: 0
It is interesting to note the differences in penicillins, whether it's the natural penicillins V and G, which have narrow spectrum of activity against both gram positives and gram negatives. Also noteworthy is how a different class of penicillins, which includes piperacillins and ticarcillins only affect gram negative bacteria... completely enticing!
But in all honesty, it really is intriguing how diverse the mechanisms and properties of the different classes (natural, anti-staph, amino, anti-pseudomonal) of penicillins are. It reminds me of another beta-lactam drug family: the cephalosporins...
Penicillin G itself.
-Ujaan
Service hours in September: 0
Total service hours: 0
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