The Windy City

Last weekend I flew to Chicago with one of my classmates, Tim Jennings, to present some research we had done between our 1st and 2nd years of dental school.  We worked with the department of General Dentistry to do some research and come up with a protocol for oral care of ventilated patients in University Hospital to reduce the incidence of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia.  To those who know, it’s a really big problem.  To those who have no idea what I just said, basically we did a bunch of reading, writing, picture taking, graphic design, and when our work was all done, Call of Duty playing. 

The Special Care Dentistry meeting was held in Chicago at the Swissotel, but because they had no rooms with two beds, we stayed at the Fairmont.  It was a super nice place with an awesome view, but it was also super ridiculous how expensive it was.  $15 a day for internet??  $6 for a glass of orange juice?  $45 for breakfast?  Good thing the school paid.  I’d rather stay at La Quinta.

 

The hotel was even so nice as to leave a welcoming committee for me on my bed.  Surprisingly they didn’t charge me for killing it.

In a memorial to our research days, we played lots of xbox.  So much so, in fact, that our eyes were bloodshot and we had a really hard time focusing on objects.  Tim even started hallucinating.

The meetings were good.  We had to present our research with a poster and other materials that we had developed for the hospital, and ended up getting 3rd place overall.  We got 50 bucks for it, so it was all worth it.  We hit up a few lectures as well, and got free shwag from the vendors.

We spent some time walking around downtown and it was dang cold.  The thickest piece of clothing I own is a sweatshirt, so that didn’t help matters.  The buildings and architecture were very cool. 

Chicago-style dogs…don’t eat the chilis.

The mysterious Bean…

 

Chicago Deep-Dish.  My heart stopped beating during my second piece. 

The next day we struck out for the Field Museum, a good 2 mile walk along Lake Michigan.  The ice-cold wind from the lake made it a brutal trip.  The Museum itself was amazing…you could spend days in there and still not see everything.  If you ever find yourself in Chicago, go check it out.

I loaned my gold nuggets to the museum.

After various flight delays and the usual travel hassle, we finally made it home a few hours late.  It was a fun experience to be there for the SCDA conference and to see what we could of Chicago.  I thought it would be tons of fun the whole time, but after the 2nd day I started missing Ash and Kimball; so it was great to finally be home with them.