Remember my awkward classmate from my last post?

During your first and second years of medical school, you work with standardized patients who help teach you how to complete a variety of physical exams. These people are paid fairly well for all of the basic exams (heart, lungs, abdomen, et cetera). However, the people that get paid the best are those that are willing to teach the male and female anatomy exams to medical students.

For these exams, you learn how to complete them with a partner. And my partner just happened to be a very sheltered and awkward classmate.

In particular, he had never, to my knowledge, had a girlfriend. And, if I was a betting women, I would put a great bit of money on him never having seen a woman before in a state where she was not fully clothed.

Did I mention that he was my partner for the female anatomy exam?

We walked into the room, and our patient instructor at that point still had her gown covering her. However, she then told us that she wanted us to be “comfortable with the human body,” so she proceed to drop the front of her gown and sit there with her breasts exposed while talking to us about women’s health and the exam before demonstrating everything that we had to do.

She obviously was quite perceptive, since I have never seen someone look so incredibly uncomfortable before in my life. All of the color washed out of his face.

And all of that was before we had to demonstrate our knowledge by performing the exam.

Perfect Shape Blackberry Scones

you won’t want a store-bought scone again

Ingredients

• 3 c flour
• 1/2 c sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp orange zest
• 3/4 cold butter, cubed
• 1 c buttermilk or sour milk (mix 1 tbsp lemon juice with enough skim milk to make 1 c and let sit for 5 minutes)
• 6 oz blackberries
• Skim milk
• Powdered sugar

How-to

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and orange zest.
3. Cut in butter (like making pie dough) until you have pea-sized crumbles.
4. Stir in blackberries and then buttermilk or sour milk. If you’d like the nice purple color, mix this with your hands so the blackberries smush a little. Mixture should be lumpy.
5. Using a tablespoon, place large spoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart (you’ll get about 12-16) and bake for 15-18 minutes. Remove and let cool.
6. Mix together skim milk and powdered sugar to make enough frosting to drizzle 1 tbsp onto each scone.