Articles Posted by leodruker

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Endings and beginnings

This seems like a fitting time for an end-of-year and middle of the third year of medical school summary. First, how about a photo? This was taken in Roanoke at the end of one of my recent rotations, during a giant snowstorm that dropped about two feet of snow on us. It was beautiful. Cold, ...

Awamaki Tour

After taking the train from Machu Picchu back to Ollantaytambo, I had another few days before coming back to my hostel in Cusco, and after crisscrossing the town and climbing both the official “sanctioned” Incan ruins and the much better, higher, and less expensive “un-official” ruins complete with flimsy guardrails and a few areas where ...

Machu Picchu

Probably one of the highlights of my trip was Machu Picchu. I’ve traveled to a lot of places, but that first glimpse of the ancient citadel as the mountain was slowly emerging from the morning mist left me literally speechless. After being in Cusco (and trying to acclimate to the altitude) for a few days, ...

Cusco – Cooking Class

On my last day in Cusco, after eating my weight in food over the previous two weeks, I really wanted to see how at least some of that food was made, so I found a cooking class that included a tour of the San Pedro Market. There were a few companies offering classes, but only ...

Walking Around Cusco

A few days after I took the second of my two board exams after finishing my second year of medical school, I took off for a short vacation to relax and not think about anything school related before starting my first clinical rotation of third year. Applying the same principle to all my travels, I ...

The Cascades Waterfall

Since I haven’t been able to go out and explore the area nearly as much as I wanted to over the past year, I’ve decided that I’m going to attempt to go out on a hike of some kind at least one day every weekend, and since it’s also board cramming season, a few friends ...

McAfee Knob

With board study season upon us and with my inability to learn pretty much anything without having someone to talk things through with, I wanted to combine the two and luckily enough two friends agreed to join me for a hike up to McAfee knob. The plan was to quiz each other on a few ...

The scenic route

How did I end up as a first-year med school student at 32? A few dumb decisions, a detour or two, and learning how things work out – eventually. When I was in High School, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Having doctors in my family going back several generations, I was always ...

Cherry Blossoms

This past weekend, after completing my last final exam of the second year of medical school, I returned to NOVA to see my family for a few days before going back for the home stretch before taking my step 1 boards. While there, we ventured to D.C. for the annual Cherry Blossom festival and knowing ...

End of Year 2

I just took the last final exam of my second year of medical school, and it’s an interesting feeling. While there’s definitely a sense of accomplishment, considering how much work went into even getting accepted to medical school, much less completing the first two years successfully, there’s a much stronger sense of just how little ...