How to Find an Apartment in Morgantown

This week we've had three tests and I'm glad that they are finally over with. I've been busy studying as usual, but so far this semester seems more easy going than the spring semester. I can't tell if it's because I've gotten used to living here or if the course material is actually easier to understand. This fall semester, on most days our classes finish at around 3PM, which is nice to get out early and head home for a little relaxation before studying.

I'd like to make a post about housing while studying in Morgantown. I am by no means a housing expert, so I'll just go off of the limited knowledge that I've gained over the past year. When I was first thinking about this post I was considering actually naming different housing complexes, but since I've never personally lived at those places I can't really give a good impression of them. I hope to instead give some resources on housing in general and things to consider just for Morgantown.

Before I start, it's best to know what the layout of the area surrounding the campus looks like. I've made this small map here. I know, I know, my skills with paint are enviable.

I've taken this image from Google Maps and added a few notes. You'll see the Health Science Center (HSC) right in the middle. To the west, north and east, I've put three black circles. These areas are preferable when choosing an apartment. They are relatively close to the campus and are quiet neighborhoods. I've placed a red circle with an 'X' in it towards the south. These houses are where mostly the undergraduates stay. The housing there can be really cheap if you are strapped for money, but it will be hard to concentrate on Friday and Saturday nights. Also, this part of the campus is a bit isolated from the HSC and you may have trouble getting to classes in a timely manner.
I've also added a bar at the lower left. I left my car back in California so I walk everywhere I go. If you intend to walk to class I would recommend keeping within 25 minutes walking distance of the HSC.

From my experience, average housing costs in Morgantown will be $550-$600 monthly. This includes all utilities and trash service. Cable and internet are usually separate. I've seen some places go for as low as $350, but they are usually located downtown and you need to share the apartment with two or three other people. I currently pay $450 for my place that I found on Craigslist, although I am roommates with my landlord.

On-Campus Medical Center Apartments
http://housing.wvu.edu/graduate_student_faculty_and_staff_housing/mca
The first place I looked into before I moved to Morgantown was the on-campus Medical Center Apartments for graduate students. The location can't be beat because it's right next to the Health Science Center where nearly all of your classes will be held. You can get from your apartment to class in under 5 minutes. However, there are a few drawbacks to staying here. From what I understand, you need to be on a waiting list to get in. It might be 6 months before you know for sure whether or not you've gotten in. The other drawback is the higher than average cost, which ranges from $627 to $758 per month.

WVU Off-Campus Housing Resource
http://studentlife.wvu.edu/OffCampusHousing/roommateswanted.htm
The WVU website has an awesome bulletin for people who are looking for or advertising a room. Students who have a place but want to find roommates commonly post on here. The number of advertised places usually goes up during the end of the semester when students are graduating and need someone to take over their leases.

Google
Just go to Google and type in 'Morgantown Apartments'. You'll find a list of commonly advertised places such as 'The District', 'West Run' or 'The Ridge'. I personally don't know any specifics of these places. Look to see if they fall within the black circles on the map I made above and if they do, then compare their rates.

Craigslist
http://morgantown.craigslist.org/
You might be hesitant to try Craiglist, but it has worked for me so far. Well, I've had mixed success. As you may well know from reading this blog, the first place I went to had bedbugs. I expect that no matter where you go, there will always be undesirable things that landlords will not tell you about. I believe that my place was an anomaly and since none of my classmates had that problem, I assume that Morgantown is relatively bedbug free.
There are two places that you'll want to check out on Craigslist. Under 'Housing' you'll find a link for 'apts / housing' and 'rooms / shared'. Both will have plenty of places to choose from. As always, use your judgment and check the address to find out if the location is close to campus or not.


There are just a few other things to note while living in Morgantown.
-If you are bringing your car, you need to know that driving can be a harrowing experience in winter. The roads can get a thin layer of ice on them and people routinely crash or get fender benders. In addition, there are some major hills with steep inclines. In the winter, going up and going down those hills can get scary. Traffic during these times can come to a standstill.
-Roads can also become clogged during the morning rush hour and afternoon rush hour traffic.
-If you are walking to school, during the winter you'll need boots and a good windbreaker.
-Public transportation in Morgantown, while nice, is not always available or on time. I've used the bus system plenty of times. It's usually on time, but there have been times where I've waited at a stop for 45 minutes and the bus has never come. So, I would suggest that you not rely on the bus to commute to school. Using the bus is better for getting to the Morgantown Mall or the University Town Center.
http://www.busride.org/
-The Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is useful for getting around to the different campuses, such as going from the HSC to Downtown, but it's not all that useful for commuting to and from school.
-Bicycling in Morgantown is tough. The various hills make it difficult unless you have legs of steel. The HSC is located on a giant hill and it's a monster to climb. I would say that it's better to bike for recreation than to integrate it as part of your commute.

That's all for now. If I think up of anything else I'll be sure to post it here. You'll need to use a variety of resources to find your ideal place. There is no 'magic' place that is going to be super cheap, close to campus, quiet and furnished like a king's throne room. None of my classmates nor I have had a terribly difficult time with our living conditions, so there's no reason to fret about finding the perfect place. Happy house hunting!

A Trip to the Pathology Laboratory / Gross Room Part 2

I've been wanting to post about my experience in the gross room this week and I've finally found the chance to do it. Each of us students are assigned a week in which we'll go to the gross room everyday from Monday to Friday. So, in addition to regular classes and studying (well, lack of studying really) I spent a total of 21 hours in the gross lab at Ruby Hospital this week. It was a busy week to say the least, but I really got a much better feel for grossing than what I had before.

Before this week, the only grossing experience I had was observing the pathology residents and the 2nd year PA students do grossing and dictation. It was great to finally get some hands on experience and try it for myself. By Friday, even though I was still going much slower than everyone else, I had gotten the pattern of dictating down in my head. Of course, I only worked on the most simple of cases, but it was still really satisfying to make those first baby steps.

The easiest and most common cases that I encountered were the GI (gastrointestinal) biopsies. This is when the doctor looks down into your throat or into your bowels for any polyps or growths, cuts them out (they are mostly smaller than the size of a bb) and sends them to the lab for you to gross them. Typically, you'll receive 2-4 small formalin filled containers with tiny pieces of tan tissue from either the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine or rectum. I'm proud to say that I encountered so many of these that I can now give a simple dictation off the top of my head! This is an example of how a simple dictation is done here at Ruby.

Let's say we got some GI biopsies from Mr. John Smith:

Part A is received in formalin, labeled "Smith, John" and "esophagus." It consists of a 0.3 x 0.2 x 0.1 cm tan-white irregular soft tissue which is submitted in toto in cassette A1.

Part B is received in formalin, labeled "Smith, John" and "duodenum." It consists of two tan irregular soft tissues measuring 0.3 x 0.1 x 0.1 cm and 0.4 x 0.3 x 0.2 cm which are submitted in toto in cassette B1.

Part C is received in formalin, labeled "Smith, John" and "rectum." It consists of seven tan irregular soft tissues ranging from 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1 cm to 0.3 x 0.3 x 0.2 cm which are submitted in toto in cassettes C1-C2.

What's really interesting about dictating is that you aren't necessarily typing all of this on a keyboard. An experienced PA can both cut open specimens and speak about what they are seeing at the same time so they use a microphone to cut down on the time it takes to gross. Plus, when you're cutting open some specimens your gloved hands will get a bit... messy, and although it's not a problem to get the keyboard dirty I like to keep my workplace as clean as is reasonable.

So really, when you're speaking into the headset, what you're saying in the dictation is really this:

part a is received in formalin comma labeled open quote john comma smith close quote and open quote esophagus period close quote it consists of a zero point three by zero point two by zero point one centimeter tan hyphen white irregular soft tissue which is submitted in toto in cassette a one period

.....


Now we're getting into some foreign language skills! Learning to speak like this brought back some memories of when I was studying Japanese. It seemed awkward at first, and it was, but within a week I was able to get the hang of it and decrease my time by about half. Of course, the other more experienced PAs were still going twice as fast as I was, but it was good to finally be able to do it on my own.

In addition to GI biopsies, with the help of the other PAs and residents, I was able to work on skin biopsies, liver biopsies, bone biopsies and breast biopsies, but the biggest and most difficult one I worked on was the placenta. There are a lot of parts to the placenta that each need their own dictation. The parts that need to be looked at are the umbilical cord, the amnion, the fetal surface, the maternal surface and the parenchyma inside the placenta. It took a long time, but with the assistance of a PA working there I was able to gross it. Now, I can look back on it nostalgically and think, "Ahh, my first placenta."

So, that is how my week went. I didn't get a chance to do much studying, but I lucked out because this is a three-day weekend. I'll definitely be able to catch up thanks to Labor Day.

Also, I received an email back from the AAPA. Unfortunately, they said that I could not use any data from the job hotline, as it is exclusively for members only. So, I can't write a post about in which states are PA jobs opening up.

But, I do have other great news. Our program director, Cheryl, came back to the university after having attended a couple of conferences and at one of those places she met a representative from the place that I briefly shadowed at in Fresno/Clovis CA, called Pathology Associates. The representative was on the lookout for new PAs to hire and she did me the favor of mentioning me. Since I'm originally from Fresno/Clovis, it would be an ideal place to start working as a PA as soon as I graduate. Could it be that I'll already have a job lined up before I even finish my first year in PA school? I'm really excited for this great opportunity.

So, thanks to all of the PAs, residents and our program director, I've had a busy but awesome week. PA school is great! (Did I just say that?)

First Impression of the Fall Semester Classes

Now that the first two days of class have come and gone, I'd like to write some initial thoughts on each class.

Path 693 - Advanced Microanatomy
In this histology course we will be looking through microscopes to be able to identify types of tissues and eventually recognize different pathologies of tissues. This class seems like it's going to be pretty interesting. It's almost like the microscopic counterpart to our anatomy lab during the spring where we dissected cadavers, but this time we are looking at the microscopic world instead. If given the choice of either studying from pictures or from texts, I'd choose pictures every time, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. This first class we just had a review of what most of the tissues in the body look like under the scope and we will be expected to identify them based just on looking at the slide. Some of them are pretty tricky, such as differentiating between thymus and parathyroid. Just as with the gross anatomy lab, I'll probably come in on the weekends to review for this class by looking at the slides in my free time.

Micb 702 - Microbiology
I'm lucky to have taken both a basic microbiology course and a medical microbiology course during my undergraduate years, so this will be my third time taking a microbiology related course. So far, the lectures have been a lot of review for me, perhaps even basic. The course is broken down into 4 sections which we'll be covering in order; immunology, antibiotics, "systems" approach to disease and oral microbiology. We share the class with the dental students, so the last quarter of the semester will focus on the oral bugs like Candida albicans.

Psio 743 - Fundamentals of Physiology
This so far looks to be a very intensive and in-depth class on physiology. Many of the topics that we've covered so far I had already learned during cell biology; things such as homeostasis, microtubules, organelle function and nutrient transport. But, the pace of the class has been blistering fast. This class would probably be better aptly named as, "Esoterics of Physiology" because later on in the semester if I can't keep up I am sure I will get lost.

Path 620 - Clinical Pathology
This class also looks to be challenging for me. It is a class that explores many of the tests done by clinical instruments. I'm sure that my classmates who are medtechs will have little difficulty with this subject. We will need to know given reference values, procedures and understand what results mean for all sorts of laboratory tests such as urinalysis, clotting tests, Pap tests, genetic screenings and so on. There is a ton of data for this class and I may have to rely on some more intensive memorization sessions for this subject.

Mtec 465 - Clinical Laboratory Management
Although it's not technically a science class, it still looks like an interesting one to me. As PAs, we will often be put in supervisory positions or move on to management positions and this is a class on how to manage a laboratory. Things like how to hire a person, how to get through all the various paperwork of running a lab, how to comply with regulations and how to make a budget for a laboratory will be covered. As of right now, I'm more interested in learning how to gross tissues, but there is a certain allure to working as a manager. I've never taken a management course before, but it seems that many of the topics that we'll be covering on paper we already do in our daily lives without thinking about it.
For example, we covered in class today about the concept of Management by Objectives, or MBO. It's a step-by-step process in which one sets specific goals to be accomplished so that everyone knows what their role is and how they can achieve it. Every step needs to be documented on paper such as; 1) what the objectives are, 2) a way to measure the degree to which the objectives were reached, 3) when they were reached and 4) how well did everything work out. We do all of this in our heads everyday without thinking about it. Take for example buying a computer. You need to ask yourself, why you need a new computer? (eg. because the old one broke down.) How are you going to get it? (eg. look online for the best deal that suits your needs.) How are you going to pay for it? (eg. stop eating out at restaurants for a couple months.) How are you going to become proficient with it? (eg. use it right after you buy it so you can get used to the new version of Windows-omega) When were you able to use it proficiently? (eg. two days after buying it.)
Anyways, the above scenario is just something that we automatically do every day, but in this class we are going to be putting those thoughts onto paper. This "must write down on paper" mentality must be one of the reasons for rampant bureaucracy, but it will be interesting to finally learn it.

There are two other classes that we also have but they haven't begun yet, so I'll write about those when the time comes.


It's interesting to note how even though all PA students in all of the programs across the country are awarded a Master's Degree upon graduation, there seems to be some variability between the types of courses between each program. Even at WVU the courses that previous students took here isn't exactly the same as the ones we are taking now. It seems that previous graduates didn't always used to have an advanced microanatomy (histology) class, but those previous students were eager to correlate what they were seeing grossly with the microscopic world, and so the teachers were kind enough to create this class for us now. As awareness of the role of pathologists' assistants becomes ever greater, programs are growing and evolving all the time to keep up. If any of you readers have attended or are attending a different PA program from another school, I'd be interested in hearing what your classes were and how they are similar or different from the ones here at WVU. Feel free to leave comments!

Tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of my life.

It will also be the first day of the fall semester. It's about time we got back to work. I was becoming tired of filling my days with mind-numbing time wasters like internet surfing and getting lost on youtube.

Today I was reading all of the schedules and syllabi for our classes online and I can tell that this semester is going to be busier than the spring semester. I'm not opposed to being busy, I just don't want to be so busy that it begins to affect my performance negatively. (*cough* summer semester *ahem*) So while I am enthusiastic to begin our studies anew tomorrow, a part of me is filled with mild trepidation.

In an effort to preserve my sanity, I will try to change my studying methodology. In the spring, I made hundreds and hundreds of flash cards using a program called "Flash Card Manager". You can do a simple google search to download a trial version. Flash cards really helped me out for the anatomy course and even the anatomical techniques course. The drawback of having made so many flash cards is that the process of making them took up about the same amount of time for ice to melt in the Antarctic. I'd wager that as much as 1/3 of my studying time during the spring semester was spent just on creating those cards. They proved to be worth it though, not just for my test scores, but now I have a personalized flash card resource for whenever I need to look up something that I had already studied. This semester, instead of focusing on flash cards, I'll make an effort to add my own notes and scribbles to the powerpoint lecture handouts. It won't be as refined as before, but it should be able to pull me through while maintaining some semblance of a work/play balance. (90% work / 10% play is good enough for me.)

As mentioned earlier, I was looking through the schedules of our fall semester classes and one seems to have piqued my interest. Our clinical laboratory management course will have us working on quite a few reports and projects, such as trying to balance a budget and how to choose which laboratory tools and software to use. I think that this course in particular will offer us some interesting role-plays to work through. Upon graduation, most PAs begin their careers working at the bench. After a couple of years they may move on to higher supervisory or managerial positions. In the off chance that we accept a rural position and we are the only PA in the laboratory it's good to know that we'll be better prepared to deal with how a laboratory is run in addition to all of the usual things that PAs do at the bench.

Still no word back from the AAPA about my request to list states with PA job opportunities. I'll need to get on their case.

Fall Semester Schedule

Well, I was really looking forward to writing a post about which states that PAs are especially needed, but honestly I don't have the material yet.

As a student of the PA Program at WVU, one of the first things that we did at the beginning of our matriculation was to become members of the AAPA, the American Association of Pathologists' Assistants. Us instant-cup-ramen eating students are given a lucky break in that application fees are lower for us, but I can't remember the figure off the top of my head. Anyways, the AAPA website has a very useful page that only members can see which is a job listing specifically for pathologists' assistants. Laboratory managers from across the country can post an advertisement on the AAPA Job Hotline page for a fee and have quick access to every potential pathologists' assistant applicant. Right now, there has got to be a little over 2 dozen job listings. (If you come from a nursing background you are probably laughing, but it's quite a good number for how few PAs can be accepted into and graduate from these programs.) I wanted to report which states these advertisements are coming from, so I sent an email to the AAPA. I requested their permission to post on my blog how many advertisements per state were there, but unfortunately I haven't received a reply yet. When it comes to private information, one can never be too careful, so I'll try sending them another email within a week if I don't get a reply.

Now that we have successfully registered for the fall semester, I had the time to write out a simple schedule of our classes. Looks to me like it's going to be another busy semester, as expected. 

I'm sure you are all in awe of my prowess with Excel. The Path 610 course won't begin until September 19th so it isn't listed here. We will also be attending pathology conferences with the medical school residents from time to time, so I expect those will be scheduled Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings. Wednesdays look to be a little lighter in load, but I know already that we will be using that time for catching up on studying. Unlike the first semester where some of our classes ran until 6PM, this semester, all of our classes finish by 3PM. I think of it as a mixed bag. We will be finishing classes earlier but our mornings are going to be more compacted. Altogether, it's 17 units, but they are going to be some pretty tough units. School starts on August 22nd, so I should study ahead of time during this final week of vacation.

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Update 8/20/2011

Looks like my original schedule was just a tad off. For those of you who are really interested, here is the actual schedule for this year.

Interviews galore this week.

Well, just a little over one week of vacation has passed since the final exam. I'm spending my time here in Morgantown, incidentally, to the benefit of my school's PA Program. The professors here are completely swamped with interviews for next year's class and lucky for them, I and a few other students have volunteered to help out.

Some of you who are reading this might actually be one of the candidates to come for an interview. Many of you so far have commented that the directions for getting to room 2149 were really helpful, so I'll post a convenient link to it for you all right here.
http://pathotoko.blogspot.com/2011/06/interview-process-for-wvus-pa-program.html

I'd like to mention my thanks to all of the applicants who have come so far! It's always my pleasure to introduce a little of the PA Program at WVU to you all.

This week I'm volunteering to help out with 1-2 interviews per day from Monday to Friday. I'm sure that I'll get many more chances to meet some of our aspiring applicants.

Aside from the interviews, I must confess something. I've fallen into temptation once again. That is, it's only been one week off of school and already I'm reading textbooks again, even though it's our break time. I can't seem to help it. It must be in my genes.

So I ordered some of the textbooks that we'll be using for the fall semester and I've read a couple of chapters into our microbiology text. This class, I believe, is going to be surprisingly interesting. We PA students will be mixing with the dental students to take a microbiology course which has an emphasis on the oral flora. So far, the text has been very basic. It's either that or my experience in microbiology during my undergraduate years
must have somehow stuck in my mind. In any case, the text is an easy read and a great refresher for all the basics that I learned back then.

As much as I love pathology, it needs to be said that I have a soft spot for microbiology as well. My mother was the one who introduced me to the laboratory sciences. I would accompany her to her workplace at the Fresno County Public Health Department during the summers of my elementary school years and it really impressed me. What 6th grader wouldn't be awed by bacteria? I even did my science fair project on it. Later on in college I volunteered to help with research at the microbiology lab at Fresno State University and then moved on to working at the microbiology department at Fresno Community Medical Centers, so microbes and I go a ways back.

I must say that it was always fun working with the clinical laboratory scientists/medical technicians, but there was always the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that if I screwed up I'd contaminate the whole lab with a lethal pathogen causing the evacuation of our entire city and leading to the destruction of the world as we knew it. Nonetheless, good times were had.

Alright! The summer semester has finished!

And none too soon. My head was beginning to go bonkers from the non-stop studying.

But, it also feels strange to have stopped studying, if that can be believed. My schedule up until Friday at 10AM (the time of the final exam), had been filled solely with studying pathology. I always knew what I would be doing in the mornings, afternoons and evenings of everyday. My daily calendar was filled with studying and my life revolved around it.

Now, with the conclusion of the final exam, all of the sudden my daily schedule seems to be out of synch. Where once I never had to plan on what to do (as it was always just studying), now I am actively looking for ways to fill my time. The whole world seems to be open with possibilities for these next four weeks until the fall semester starts. I wonder if this is how people feel when they retire. It's almost as if something inside is missing. It must be that habits are hard to break and once a person who has been ingrained in a certain way of life is taken out of their familiar environment, they feel out of place and perhaps even empty. If I'm already rambling-on about this subject after only 7 weeks of intensive pathology studying, I wonder how it's going to be when I finally retire 30-40 years down the road. I'm done for. I can understand a little bit now why some people choose to never retire. I'll just have to wait and see if I'm one of those people.

But in the meantime, I as well as all of my classmates have plenty of things that we need to catch up on. I've decided that I won't be going back to California this vacation in an effort to save money. Although a big part of me would like to see Hanako and my family, my previous experiences living away from home have given me the fortitude to live independently. I'll be just fine here in Morgantown and I'll find plenty of things to do. Or, I might just start studying again in preparation for the fall. Oh, I wish that were a joke. I'll give myself two weeks.