APPEs at Wind River Wyoming

Here is a list of things you should have if you are here for Block 7, aka the coldest months. 1. A car with AWD or 4WD.           If the car does not have either make sure that the car has a pretty new battery or else it will most likely die while you are up here.           This didn't happen to me, thankfully, but my sister (who lives in SD) switched with me. Since it still gets pretty cold there, a pipe in my car burst:)  2. Snow shoes 3. The house has everything you need except for blankets!! Plenty of sheets, and dishes. You might want to bring your own pillow!  4. A big snow jacket 5. Gloves that are good!! Preferably mittens 6. Scarves 7. A gator for skiing 8. Ear warmers  9. Good warm socks, and ones that would be good for skiing  10. AN ICE SCRAPER Just make sure to have plenty of layers!!! The coldest it got while we were there was -23 degrees!! 

This week we started in Riverton!!  There are three clinics (Riverton, Ethete, and Arapahoe) Our main clinic is Ethete, but this week Katherine is wanting us to go to the other clinics to present the information about the Rabies Vaccine. Everyone at all of the clinics are so friendly.  Monday, we presented the Rabies vaccine brochure, and then stayed at that clinic to experience it. The pharmacist in charge there was awesome. She showed us a lot of stuff on the computer, and all of the staff were so friendly. We then left around 3 and went to Walmart to get some stuff for dinner! After we ate dinner we watched the Bachelor, DUH! Tuesday, we went to the Arapahoe Clinic to present the rabies brochure to Pod 1. Again, these people were so friendly, and then we headed back to the Ethete clinic to finish working on our pain patients. After rotation we went home and relaxed, and then decided to go to Cowfish for dinner. I got the ravioli, and it was so good. I think what I got the f...

This week it started to warm up!! It got all the way up to 40 degrees.   We just had rotation Monday, and it was the premiere of the Bachelor so of course I had to stay home and watch that!!  Tuesday, we got off early, and I decided to go into Lander! I got some coffee from the Lander Coffee Co., in the Palace Pharmacy parking lot. I then went into the Palace Pharmacy to look at all of the cool things. After that I went to a place called 23 Squared to look for more local things! Then the UT student and I went back to Liquid Courage for music bingo! They have this once a week at 6:30. And we won twice!!! out of three winners:)  Wednesday we just had another chill day! They have a fresh market 2 minutes down from the house, across from Hines, every Wednesday from 3:30-5:30. A lot of cool thing to get from here. I got a some bread and butter pickles that were homemade, and a bar of soap!  Thursday we went to rotation and the went to a place call Mulino's (italian) ...

Our week started on Tuesday!  Me and one of the UT students went into Lander to go to Ace Hardware, I had to ship something. We ate dinner at the "Thai Kitchen" and this place was interesting. We think the food was made in a microwave, but the food was honestly not terrible. There was only one worker in the entire restaurant though. She seated people, took orders, and cooked. Very interesting.  Wednesday we had rotation, and then went to Riverton to take a yoga class! It was a booty class, and it was Native American Yoga. So cool to experience this, and learn about the culture. The class was at 6:30pm, and if you have any question you can ask Leslie (the tech at the Ethete clinc) and she will tell you all about it!!  Thursday, we had rotation and then we went in Lander again for a pottery making class. This class was from 5-7, and we had an instructor that taught us everything. It was $15. She wanted us to come back to finish the pottery, but we ended up not because we wo...

Week one of rotation was great!  We are at the Ethete Clinic, and our preceptor Katherine is amazing. She let us put glucose sensors on for 10-14 days, me the dexcom and Morgan the Libre.  This week flew by, and we asked to have Friday off so that we could have a 4 day weekend and go to Utah!  On Thursday, before we left for Utah we went to trivia night at the Gannett Grill, or also known as Lander Bar. It's so fun and they have a different theme every week. This grill has the best food, and so many good salads. Everyone also raves about their burgers but I did not get one. Definitely try their fries with Fry sauce. YUM On Friday we woke up to drive to Utah:)... We left around 8am because it was going to be a 6 hour drive. We stopped at the Lander Bakery for breakfast, and it was so good!  However we were unable to go because after driving for an hour we basically got stuck in a blizzard, so decided it was probably best to turn around. I am glad that we did turn arou...

 Hi!!  Today is 01/08/2024, and it was the first day of our rotation!  So crazy that it is already 2024!! But I wanted to make this post to talk about my travels!  I knew that I wanted to drive, so that I could have a car that was reliable in the snow. My sister actually lives in South Dakota, so I met her and she let me use her car since it was 4WD (which I highly recommend if you are here for block 7). I started out in Greenville, SC since I left on the 29th of December. I drove to Knoxville, TN to pick up one of the UT students. We then headed to St. Louis, MS. I would recommend to not stop here. We had a hotel booked, and once we got to it we had to rebook at a different hotel. It can be a very sketchy town, so I am glad that I was not alone.  We then decided we were going to just drive the rest of the way to Colorado Springs, CO instead of stopping again. It was about 12 hours, but I am so glad that we did. We went to colorado springs to visit my sister, a...

Rotation: After five short weeks of learning, exploring, and traveling our rotation has come to an end. This was sadly our last week in Wyoming. The clinic activities this week included finishing our Journal Club and presenting it to Katherine and the pharmacy staff. The Journal Club was on the use of Belbuca (buccal buprenorphine) for chronic low back pain in opioid-naïve patients. Presenting this article as a Journal Club sparked lots of conversations about pain management and the complexities of treating chronic pain. We both learned so much about pain management on this rotation from completing this Journal Club and from presenting patients at the Pain Committee Meetings!  During our last week, we also went to the FedEx in Riverton to ship a box of our things home. We had to do this because we both had ordered Halloween costumes that would sadly not fit in our suitcases. Since we flew to Wyoming, we did not want to have to purchase another bag to put these in, so we decided to ...