Week 1: Out the door, just in time

Leaving Ithaca in a mad rush comparable to the scene in Home Alone where the McCallister family sprints through the airport (except mine involved ascending State Street), I finally arrived at Olin Hall late Sunday night in a state of bewilderment.  A canopy of towering buildings loomed far over my head, and traffic rolled like a mighty river that I had to traverse ever so cautiously in this thriving concrete jungle.  Exhausted and relieved to have finally arrived, I immediately slept.
The next morning I awoke to the sounds of industrial progress, construction occurring right outside my window!  My first mission was to obtain a Weill Cornell Medical College ID card with my fellow first years.  The streets were simultaneously gritty and glamorous, a coexistence only possible in a metropolitan environment.  My ID card looks much less friendly than others since I was misled that there would be a flash involved in the photo (the flash did not occur).  Fortunately, the lack of smile on my ID was not consistent with the rest of my day.  We soon discovered the convenience and deliciousness of food cart breakfasts.  A fabulous doughnut and coffee later, I waited for my clinical mentor, Dr. Arash Salemi, in the Cardiothoracic Surgery wing's waiting room.  Unfortunately, my enthusiasm had to be saved for another day since I found out Dr. Salemi was already in the OR and wouldn't have free time to meet at all that day.  I gathered that there had been some scheduling confusion and that Wednesday was now the soonest we could meet so I bided my time in Upper East Side Manhattan the only way a scrub-less PhD student could, reading in Central Park.  Fine dining, rock climbing, and museum hopping have also helped me to stave off the pain of not being able to experience the clinical realm, not due to my own volition but because of some sort of vague miscommunication.
On Wednesday, I finally met with Dr. Salemi, an extremely approachable and energetic man, who immediately set up a game plan with me for my ultimate clinical exposure.  We covered his work in cardiac surgery, including the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), as well as what I studied, cancer metastasis, and how we could find some additional exposure in thoracic surgery and pathology to complement my specific interests.  I was given the times of meetings for fellows in Cardiothoracic Surgery as well as the Thoracic Tumor Board, which I will be attending in subsequent weeks.  I then learned Dr. Salemi would be out of town until Monday so I was given instructions to meet with his assistant Thursday to receive my scrubs and some relevant literature.  I did so the following day and have begun reading the Cardiac Surgical Pathology chapter of Cardiac Surgery in the Adult by Lawrence H. Cohn and L. Henry Edmunds, Jr.  This reading will definitely provide some much needed context for the remainder of the program.
To conclude, I am eagerly awaiting our second week and the prospects of actually attending surgeries and rounds now that I have the necessary garb and some direction.