The Mile-High City

Art in downtown Denver

I was excited to begin my Denver trip because it meant the end of my four-trips-in-two-weeks exhaustion. I left on Thursday at 2pm, meaning this was the first morning in weeks that I didn’t have to get up around 6am. Woo-hoo! After an uneventful 2 hour flight I called the hotel shuttle and checked into the Ambassador Hotel. UC Denver recommended this hotel due to its low price and free shuttle for the airport and Children’s hospital where we had our interviews. The place had ‘character’ though. There was a VCR in my room which cracked me up……darn I forgot to pack my VHS collection. The only option for food (since the hotel was in the middle of nowhere basically at a truck stop) was a Denny’s so I had an interesting dinner surrounded by truckers. One of the students that I talked to the next day had stayed at the same place and had her dinner paid for by a very friendly trucker. Luckily my oh-so-gorgeous wedding ring did its job and I was not approached.

Denny's Maple Bacon Sundae......no, I did not eat this. Yes, it's existence grossed me out

I hopped in the shuttle the next day with another interviewee and we were dropped off at the STUNNING Children’s Hospital. A big plus for this school is that all of the medical facilities, hospitals and buildings on campus were built in 2007 or later, so the places I would be having class and seeing patients would be very nice. A downside is that the medical campus is about a 20-30 minute drive to downtown Denver and it is not in the nicest city. An example of how kid-friendly and cool the hospital is is the fact that there are no wheelchairs, the kids who are sick enough to need transportation are pulled around in traditional little red wagons, with the addition of matching IV poles when necessary. The hospital really does not feel like a hospital and you can tell how comfortable the children feel there.

The entrance of the Children's hospital is bright, colorful, and has an ice-cream bar!

What's cooler: wheelchair or little red wagon?

I would say that the strength of the UC Denver program is the clinical experience. This campus is the main genetics care provider for all of Colorado and Wyoming, meaning that you see lots of case and lots of unique cases. There are 6 main clinical rotations that each student completes, beginning in the Spring of the first year. Clinical observation begins two weeks into the program so your exposure to patients begins right away. The students here said that they are really treated as member of the clinical care team, not as students, meaning that the expectations are high but so are the rewards.

They had a master lego builder make a model of the new hospital before it was built to show the kids what it would look like.

After my interviews were over around 4:00pm I decided to be super adventurous and hop on the local bus to get myself into downtown Denver. I was told that it would be a long and ‘colorful’ bus ride (what form of public transportation is not these days?) but I didn’t want to have flown to Denver and not actually seen the city. I definitely stuck out on the bus (wearing my interview suit) but no one bothered me and about an hour of traffic later I was in downtown Denver.

Downtown Denver

I got off at the 16^th Street Mall, a pedestrian-only mile long street lined by shops and restaurants. I decided to take the student’s suggestion and eat dinner at the Wynkoop Brewery, the oldest brewery in Denver. On my way to the brewery I passed the famous western clothing store Rockmount Ranch Wear. I popped in for a moment and was left coveting the GORGEOUS cowboy boots and awesome vintage shirts.

I wants me some cowboy boots

At Wynkoop I had a surprisingly awesome smoked chicken salad with mangos and cherry tomatoes for diner and an awesome wheat beer with hints of clove and banana. As far as the post-interview beer tradition goes I am now 6 for 6.

After dinner I went and hopped back on the bus and took the quite colorful ride back to the Children’s hospital. The bus did happen to pass the Colorado State capitol buildingwhich was cool to see (see my blurry photo below). The steps of the building are exactly a mile above sea-level! We also passed by no less than 5 medical marijuana dispensaries with some rather clever names and advertising for the best price per gram….wow.

The Colorado capitol with the mile-high steps!

I flew out the following morning and I am currently on my way back to Seattle where a mere 3 hours after my plane lands Sam and I are hosting at farewell party for our friends Jessie and Peter and their daughter Ailey. Peter will be stationed in Miami for a few years with the Coast Guard so all the high school buddies and spouses (spouses? Are we really this old?) are getting together tonight to send them off in style. Can I just say again how much I love my husband for holding down the fort and doing party prep? He’s the best EVER.

Oh Boston – How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Pretty streets of Boston

1. You are surrounded by lots of water, making me feel very at home in a Pacific Northwest-y type of way. Hey – I grew up on an island, water is important to me.

2. Your streets are beautiful; covered with bricks and cobblestones, lined with beautiful historical houses and modern buildings as well as trees and Narnia-esque lampposts.

3. You are a walking city and I am a walking girl.

4. You are filled with dogs, people with yoga mats and nerds (due to the high amount and caliber of Universities and Collages you boast) – my family will fit in well here.

5. You have a STELLAR Genetic Counseling program at an amazing university…..sigh, we could have a future together.

This trip to Boston was a blur. I am SO glad that I had time to explore on my last visit because I certainly didn’t this time. I left Seattle at 6:35am on Sunday. You want to see empty streets and freeways in Seattle? Drive to the airport at 4:30am on a Sunday. Side note: Husband I love you, thank you for waking up at ungodly times and driving me to the airport over and over again. I landed in Boston at 5:15pm after a quick stopover in Newark where I was VERY happy to get out of the air for an hour due to some awful turbulence at the tail end of my SEA>Newark flight.

I had rather stupidly thought I was landing in Boston at 2:45 which was actually my arrival time in Newark so I had to scrap my plan to take the subway in from the airport in order to make it to dinner with the current program students. I grabbed a cab, haggled a price, dropped my bags off at my hotel and hightailed it the few blocks to the bar where we were meeting for dinner. It is SO helpful to meet the students the night before an interview. They give you a lot more information about the program and the scoop on how to handle the interview the next day. For example, they let us know that one of the interviewers would ask us for five words to describe ourselves…not technically a tough question but it’s quite nice to have time to brainstorm before that one! I was starving and really tired of eating solo so it was great to get a good dinner along with good company and have all of my questions answered.

I think that BU is probably the strongest program I have been to yet. I literally like everything about it from the number, type and timing of rotations to how supportive the program directors are and how difficult but rewarding the classes would be. The national pass rate for the GC boards is 75% (yes I will have to take boards to become certified – yikes!), the BU graduate pass rate is 93%. These students emerge from the program truly equipped to practice with is very important to me. I also really clicked with the program directors and feel that I would definitely have the support to excel in the program while keeping a happy and healthy personal life. The only downside is the price of the program, it’s not off the charts but it is a private school so there is no hope of second year residency tuition decreases. This is the only downside that current students named but I think that I would certainly be getting the caliber of education that I would be paying for.

Boston University Medical Campus

As soon as the interview was done I walked through the rain back to the hotel to grab my bags. It is not fun to have to drag around luggage while dressed up in a suit in the POURING RAIN. It was literally raining about as hard as it can as I walked to the subway station form my hotel and my pants and suitcase were SOAKING but I was determined to save money and take the subway. The subway (called the T) was super easy and cheap and got me to the hotel very quickly. This is a city with great public transportation; most of the GC students and even the program director do not have cars. I grabbed dinner and my traditional post-interview beer (a delicious blueberry wheat) in the airport and then hopped on my 6+ hour flight home. I was SO happy to get back to Seattle and my husband and evil puppy (she has started to retaliate against my leaving so often…..one patch of carpet in our apartment has taken the brunt of this unhappiness. Two days at home and then off to Denver.

San Francisco!

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from over the Golden Gate Park (taken at UCSF campus)

The best of all these trips are definitely the ones where I get to see family. It makes the trips so much more happy and fulfilling.

I flew out to San Francisco at 9:30am on Wednesday and got to my grandmother’s house in the city around 1pm. I had a shuttle take me from the airport which after a sweet promo code online only cost $14. Our shuttle driver was CRAZY and drove ridiculously fast. I was really quite shaken up by the time the ride was over and had to wait awhile before my stomach was calm enough to eat lunch! On the upside it was GORGEOUS in San Fran. Literally 75 and sunny so I got to bust out my sunglasses again ;)

I had a great lunch with my grandmother and then we sat on her front sunporch and talked about her time at Stanford, her marriage to my grandfather, her career modeling during the 1940’s and much, much more. I realized that I have never really been able to spend quality time one-on-one with my Grandma Janet and it was great to get a chance to do that. We went out to dinner with my Uncle Barry, Aunt Karin, cousin Becca and her boyfriend Andy at a great place called Askew where they had yummy skewers of all different kinds and delicious sides. I wish we had one in Seattle (perhaps this will go in the pro column for CSU Stanislaus). After heading home I steamed my suit, got ready for bed and spent the night in my Mom’s childhood room.

I drove out to UCSF in the morning, borrowing my grandmother’s car and winding through Golden Gate park. It was a lovely drive and only about 15 minutes to the campus which is located on the side of Mount Sutro providing beautiful views of Golden gate park and downtown San Francisco from the classrooms and library. Also awesome: the on-campus Jamba Juice…I could get into delicious juicy trouble with my wallet here.

UCSF campus

I really, really like the CSU Program. It is a collaboration between the California State University Stanislaus (administrative), University of California San Francisco (teaching), and Kaiser Permanente (Classes/clinical). Ironically most students will never step foot on the CSU campus in Stanislaus and with this in mind it is probable that the degree will be given in name by both CSUS and UCSF in the future. The program was established to fill a void in Genetic Counseling education in Northern California when the Berkley program closed in 2002 due to political/funding issues (at the time there was no Stanford program).

One downside to the program is that there really is no ‘home base’ for the program or students. During the first year there are 3 days of class per week (the others days spent on clinical rotations, advocacy experience and thesis research) and two of the class days would be spent on the UCS campus and one at Kaiser Permanente Oakland during one semester and the flip (two at UCSF, one at KP Oakland) during the other semester. All of the students that I talked to use the public transportation system and live next to one campus and close to a good transportation route to the second. This is not a huge detractor, but would add a little more craziness to my schedule.

One thing that I love about the program is that the classes are overseen by genetic counselors but taught by faculty that are experts in the field or disorder that we would be studying. Both campuses also provide wonderful clinical opportunities. Another very important plus was that I really got along with the program directors that I interviewed with and as I interview at more places I have come to realize how important this will be for my experience. The directors are the one who really help you through the process and keep you on track in all of the aspects of the program (between classes, clinical rotations, projects, presentations, grand rounds, advocacy experiences, the thesis project, case conferences, etc we will have a lot on our plates).

I left the UCSF campus very excited about the program and drove back to my grandmother’s house to fill her and uncle Barry in on my experience. We had dinner together at my grandma’s kitchen table (where I have many fond childhood memories of eating smacks cereal while drinking juice out of a ‘world’s best grandpa’ mug). After dinner Barry drove me to the airport which was wonderful and much appreciated after so many trips getting myself to and from unfamiliar airports. Family are the best and that is a huge reason why going to school in San Francisco would be so wonderful….a chance to connect with family members that I have never had the pleasure of living near enough to see very often.

I have been admittedly awful at taking photos on the last few trips, I blame this on being really strapped for time and not wanting to be a total geek whipping out my camera while doing tours of the schools. So most of the photos I have posted here are not mine except for these last two. My grandmother has this beautiful photo of my mom in her room, taken when my mom was probably around two years old. I look at that photo and see my little sister Elly looking back at me. Seriously. The only way to tell apart baby photos of my mom and Elizabeth and Elly are by the decade of clothing they are wearing (whereas I stick out like a tow-headed, straight-haired sore thumb….but don’t get me wrong, I was damn cute too). So enjoy these look-alike photos of my mom and Elly that are on display at my grandmother’s house in SF…..at least I think the second one is Elly, it’s possible that its Elizabeth (sigh).

Young Susan

Young Elly

Where my readers at?

Athena enjoying my post interview tradition: a delicious cold beer (usually consumed at whatever airport I am flying out of that night).

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to see who is reading. I am using this blog in large part to record my trips and help me look back at my impressions of the program when/if I end up trying to decide between schools. But in the meantime if you are reading feel free to comment so I who is out there in cyberspace following along (besides my faithful and awesome mama). I hope this is helping people stay connected to whats up with me considering that I have been working, traveling or interviewing every day for over a month now and I miss my friends and family!

I'm back (well not back in Seattle, but back to blogging!)

Hello Everyone!

I have been quite bad about writing but I blame it on short plane flights and absolutely no free time other then said plane flights. Right now I am on a long return flight from Boston so I am yours for as long as my faithful battery lasts.

So – back to Utah (which feels like a million years ago but was actually about a week ago…I think). I was really nervous going into a day of group interviews, but due to the fact that pretty much all genetic counseling interviewees have awesome personalities and are super friendly – things went well. We had 4, 45 minute group interviews with one or two interviewers with three interviewees. We all took turns answering questions and although we really had to be paying attention to each other and on point the whole time it was quite nice to have time to formulate my answers when the others went first.

The Utah Program is great. The facilities are wonderful and there are lots of hospitals, clinics, the school of medicine, etc right on campus. Salt lake City might not be the most stimulating place, but the campus feels much more liberal and the city is the hub of medicine and genetics for several surrounding states, providing a wide variety of clinical opportunities.

I must take a second out of this post to show some photos of the Hunstman Cancer Institute. It was founded by Jon Huntsman whose company created the 'clamshell' container for fast food hamburgers along with other products making him a billionaire. It was literally the most beautiful medical building I have ever been in. They literally have weddings in the restaurant on the top floor, its that gorgeous.

Huntsman Cancer Institute

Every part of the Huntsman buildings are beautiful!

I had a short and happy trip home, went to work for one day and then it was off to San Francisco!