JB's Colorado Trip... finally the post is done

(Orange Sneezeweed in the shadow of the Maroon Bells mountains)

Wendi said I had to write a post on my trip to Snowmass, Colorado for the wilderness medicine conference. Me, being the dutiful husband that I am, said I didn't want to. Wendi said I had no choice. So, I have been writing about a sentence a day for the last few weeks.

I've had a lot of people still asking me what kind of doctor I am going to be. I understand the confusion since I am on different rotations all the time (Labor and Delivery one month, Psychiatry the next, then Surgery, and then Internal Medicine). The bottom line - I am going to be a Family Medicine physician. I rotate through all areas of the hospital and clinic because I have to be able to do everything as a Family Physician. Seriously, how cool is that? I never have a "same old-same old" day because every day can be so different. I love it!

Now to confuse matters a bit... Our program allows us to have an AOC (Area of Concentration). This allows us to get a lot more experience in a specific area of medicine. For example, some residents choose Dermatology or Obstetrics. My AOC is Wilderness Medicine. I am a member of the Wilderness Medical Society. I am also in the process of obtaining a fellowship in wilderness medicine (for the physicians out there, you can become a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine by obtaining enough CME and teaching credits - send me an email if you are interested).

Anyway, back to my trip to Colorado. I left about a two and a half weeks ago. One of my resident classmates, Erik (and his wife and 2 year old son) flew into the mile high city of Denver. Erik's dad is a physician there and he and Erik's mother met us at the airport. We drove up to Snowmass Village that night. The elevation there is 9100 feet (2773 meters). This would have been nice to think about beforehand since I developed a mild case of Acute Mountain Sickness for my first three days. I basically had a moderately severe headache, would wake up at about 1 or 2 in the morning and then slept restlessly for the remainder of the night, and had severe exertional fatigue (I would be out of breath after only one flight of stairs). The way to prevent this is to take some medicine or acclimate slowly to the altitude and not fly from sea level to close to 2 miles elevation.

(This is an image of my morning walk each day)

The Wilderness Medical Society Annual Meeting was amazing. As boring as this may sound, I was in lectures from about 7:30 in the morning until 8:00 at night. The topics ranged from Hypothermia to Desert Survival; from Lightning Strikes to Bear Attacks; from Foot Care and Spinal Cord Injury to Parasite Infections and High Altitude Illnesses; from Plant Poisonings to Envenomations by Spiders, Snakes, Lizards, Marine Animals and even Birds (that's right, there is a poisonous bird!). If there was ever an area of medicine that was made for me, this is it.

(The location of one of the classes we took)

We did get outside a bit as well. The first two days, Erik, his dad, and I took a Wilderness Practicum course. We spent the days doing hands-on training for much of the above mentioned scenarios. I also took one lunch break to do a little exploring on my own. I bought a sandwich and took the ski lift to the top of the mountain. About halfway up, the wind started to pick up. The clouds blowing over the ridge became darker. I started to hear thunder getting louder and louder.

I had just slipped on my raingear I had stuffed in my daypack when I thought I would take a self-portrait. But just as I snapped a pic just as I saw some lightning at the top of the mountain. Not a great feeling as you are riding a chair with a metal rod and metal wires with metal towers about 50 feet off the ground. It started to pour down chilly rain just as I made it to the top. I jogged over to the Ranger Station to ride out the storm. I ended up eating my sandwich on the porch with the Ranger's dog. We also took an extended lunch to go to the Maroon Bells. These two peaks are some of the most photographed mountains in Colorado, and no wonder, they are beautiful.

We drove into Aspen a couple of times for dinner. Aspen is a pretty little town. They had musicians all over the place. Even the dogs stopped to listen. But man, is Aspen expensive! Gas was $5.35 a gallon! But what do you expect when there are Bugatti's driving around? (I did get a photo of me with the Bugatti, but it is on Erik's camera... oh, and for those of you not sure what I am talking about, the Bugatti is the most expensive car in the world - literally. The record is $8.7 million for a 1931 model. Now, the everyday, drive to work, 2009 model goes for about $1.1 million.)

We drove back through Independence Pass. This is a road just over 12,000 feet in elevation. It is well above the tree line. There are small snowmelt ponds dotted over the tundra.

We did eventually have to leave. I had a great time, but I did miss Wendi and Issac. It's good to be home, but I can't wait for the next trip.