Our 20th First Day of School

That's right--today marked the beginning of Jeffrey's and my twentieth year of formal education, but somehow that first day of every year still gives us butterflies in our stomachs!

After waking up and getting ready, we ate a quick breakfast together, knowing that we might not see each other as much as we used to due to our new schedules.

An obligatory "First Day" picture in our doctor clothes...
I spent the morning in orientation lectures and in the afternoon we began a didactic course about esthetic dentistry. That course will end 10 days from now with a practical examination and a written final. Starting off with a bang!

Jeffrey, who had not been given a definite schedule until this morning, took a pair of scrubs with him to school just in case he needed them. It turns out that his planning ahead was justified when his attending doctor asked Jeffrey and the other 3rd year medical student, "Who can fly to Little Rock this morning to pick up some lungs for a transplant this afternoon?"

The other boy volunteered to go on that unusual errand, so the attending told Jeffrey that he could scrub in to watch/assist on the transplant surgery! Jeffrey was given a couple of hours to change clothes and eat something before the surgery would begin. At this moment, he is probably watching someone's heart beating in an open chest. Incredible!

Unfortunately, he won't be home until late tonight because the surgery will take about 5 hours...but it's not every day that you get to see a patient get a new set of lungs, so Jeffrey is so excited to even have the honor of watching the surgeons give this man or woman or child a new lease on life.