Still Couponing

I realized that I haven't blogged about couponing in Oregon in quite some time. My last post contained all the nitty gritty about my favorite places to use and find coupons. We haven't had a newspaper subscription while in medical school, so I have mostly used internet coupons, coupon inserts from family or colleagues, or purchased on ebay clipped coupons if there's a really good deal that we will use in our house.

I love shopping at Rite Aid. There is one near my house and one not too far from work. Rite Aid has excellent deals on toiletry items and sometimes candy or food. My last shopping trip to Rite Aid included using internet coupons to purchase these five Garnier hair products for the price of one on sale, or about $0.60 each. I definitely buy more shampoo than conditioner, because we don't use conditioner fast enough to keep up.

The coupon blogs that I follow on my Google Reader alerted me to a deal on Mahatma rice packages. These little rice packs were on sale for $0.99 and there was a 50 cent coupon available from a newspaper coupon insert. Safeway in Oregon will double any four coupons up to 50 cents at each shopping trip. So I can use these coupons to get free rice for the Food Drive. Yay for charitable couponing!

I've talked to a few people about my couponing, and each time they tell me they just don't have time. I will admit that it takes some effort. I have coupon blogs updating A LOT on my google reader, but they do most of the work for me by finding deals and matching them to coupons. I usually just click and print or visit an online coupon clipping service. Besides that minute effort, the only other work is shopping for the right products; and I'm pretty sure I can spare some time to shop!

Coaching Five Minutes

Last weekend Scott coached the young men in our church in a stake youth basketball tournament. There were many teams in the tournament so each game had two, five minute halves. The clock ran without timeouts or pauses. Barely any fouls were called by refs. The youth were pretty much expected to call on themselves.

Scott coached two games, with the last game coaching against his friend from medical school who also went to BYU. Our Pioneer team was undefeated until that point. We are pretty proud of what they can do in 10 minutes!

Scott's only regret was that he didn't wear a suit and bring a clipboard to throw at the end.

I've Been Beavered

The OSU Food Drive has begun again, and again I was asked to help co-chair the event. I'd like to say that this year I came back with bigger and better ideas. That would not really be true. This year I came with all sorts of efficiency plans... which may be less than effective. We'll see.

What do I get in return? I get beavered (someone pays for me to wear that awesome hat all day)! I'm feelin' the love.

Med School Update: The Lottery

The third year of medical school consists of rotations through each of the medical departments, such as surgery, pediatrics, family medicine, etc. At COMP-NW these rotations are based out of a metro-area in the Northwest, mainly cities along the I-5 corridor. The school has coordinated with hospitals and clinics in these areas to have student doctors do their clinical rotations. This year there were about one-third of the rotations located in Portland and another third of the rotations located in the Willamette Valley region (Corvallis, Lebanon, Albany, and part of the coast). In order to find out which location a student would be based out of for third year, there is a "lottery."

Before January, the only associations I have of the lottery were gambling and a short science-fiction essay written about population control. Neither gave me a great impression of what we were up against when preparing our future for next year. The actual lottery process was not terribly painful, though.

To begin with, students received a schema of what rotations were available. The schema came in an excel workbook, looking like the example image below.

Keep in mind this process is not used at every medical school (every school is different) and this picture is only an example of a process that may change in subsequent years. The schema was sent in early January and students were informed of lottery results last week.

After having time to review and rank rotations, a day was set apart for students to submit their rotation preferences. When Scott and I reviewed these rotation schedules together we considered 1) location, 2) housing, 3)order of rotations, 4) scheduled vacation time. Students are only alloted one vacation time per year, and I plan to book it up! When considering the order of rotations, some students strategized to have their elective rotations near the beginning and some choose to have their elective near the end, depending on what specialty their are interested in and if they wanted first impressions or last impressions.

The system isn't perfect. At COMP NW many of the students received their first choice rotation schedule (location and schedule of departments). However, those who did not receive their first choice didn't even receive a rotation of their top preference. I'm sure the school will continue to work with student body officers to improve this process for other classes.

With all that said, we will be staying in the Willamette Valley for Scott's third year of medical school. We are excited for the opporunity Scott has to network with residency doctors in Corvallis and for me to continue my great job and MBA program! Now the only challenge is keeping in contact with our moving circle of friends and preparing for fourth year electives and residencies. Oh! but first there's boards!