Bragging Rights

Let's face it, this blog is all about ME, so I am going to start this post about me. Growing up I always seemed to be on the losing team. Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer that we learn from our losses. However, it stunk. My little league softball team never won, my basketball teams never won, my high school softball team was always that seat away from last place. I always had fun, but have never experienced the true joy of 1st place.

Maybe this is why I married Derek?. He seems to be a number one kind of guy. He got his black belt in karate, and not just a black belt, like all the levels of black belt possible. He played varsity football as a line backer his 9th grade year of high school and they won state. And well let's face it, he got me, which makes that of course a first place.

So, the real story. I married a super amazing, sexy, intelligent, husband that is worth bragging about. Throughout his first year of medical school Derek had to fulfill a 6 month requirement of research. For this project he took his amazing engineering background and put it to use. He and 6 other guys, 4 medical students who all have amazing engineering backgrounds, and 2 engineers, did a program called "Bench to Bedside". In this program all the grad student engineers and medical students grouped together to create medical devices that would improve the medical field, and would be able to sell and make a profit. In the end there turned out to be 13 groups with about 6 to 10 students per group. Derek's group had many many ideas on devices to improve the medical field and had to narrow it down to 1. The device they decided on was the vacuum tenaculum. They decided to improve a medical device called a cervical tenaculum. Basically, it is a really sharp pointy thing that grabs a woman's cervix and pulls it open, and is really painful and is used in a ton of procedures. For the women out there if you've had an IUD placed, you've had this used on you. Anyway, their idea is going to fix this problem. This group of guys are simply amazing. They are all so intelligent and really want to improve the medical field. Last night was the night. They had to present their research to the judges. Did I mention that there was a huge amount of money in the pot that would go to the winners? All 13 groups came and family were allowed to come. I got a babysitter at the last minute and was able to go. I am so grateful I could be there win or lose. These guys did amazing. There was $70,000 total that would be distributed among the winners. There were 6 prizes of $10,000 and 2 prizes of $5,000. There were different qualifications for each. Needless to say, this amazing group took the grand prize home. They were the only group to win both of the prizes and came out with the most amount of money to create their medical device. These boys brought home 2 checks for a total of $15,000. Let's just say I came home singing "We are the Champions" very loud. Ok so that was in my head, but still!!! I am so very proud of Derek and his team. They did a great job! There is a lot of work left because they still need to get the device up and running completely and then get a patent for it, and then start marketing it to get it sold, but they did this HUGE accomplishment last night. I don't think I have ever felt more like a winner than I did last night, well except being married to Derek, every day he makes me feel like a winner. :) Without further ado, I present the WINNING TEAM!

Left to right.

Matt Sorensen (Medical Student), Creighton Petty (Engineer Student), Stuart Curtis (Medical Student), Erik Ostler (Medical Student), Derek (the HOTTIE), and Brent Call (Engineer Student).

Winning the $10,000

Winning the $5,000

The wives/significant others that are soon to be wives.

Me, Mindy Ostler, Jane Curtis, and I'm really sorry, but I don't know the other two names.

The 2 checks written to "Team 12", aka Derek's group.

The Welcome Sign: The Bench to Bedside Program.

The boys with both of their checks!

I do have to say, if anyone has seen "The Office" and the episode where Michael goes a little crazy and prints the big check, I totally understand why he did it. It is AWESOME! The feeling you get holding one of those puppies is amazing! :)