It’s official. I don’t have time to post this summer. Well, it’s going to get better. After taking a couple of weeks to travel and do nothing, Wife and I got me into the new work routine and we tried to get onto a diet. After the first week on this diet, I gained weight. My response to this was to freak out and go completely strict on the diet. In the ensuing weeks, I’ve manage to lose 8 or so pounds. The diet involves a lot of clif bars (blueberry crisp and crunchy peanut butter) with a fairly restricted dinner and a popcorn snack at around 10-11. I’ve been using an app on my phone to keep track of calories and trying to stay around 1500. The exercise routine is running about 25 minutes during the week and about 30 minutes on the weekends (the time limit on the machines at school) and hitting the bikes afterwards. Wife has been joining me at the gym, and we’ve gotten good at keeping each other on track. My goal is to lose enough weight to make staying on the diet significantly easier during the school year when I will be needing all of my energy for studying.
Research has been a little crazy. I was hoping to have a little more time for literature review and preparation for my data collection in the next couple of weeks, but there was a pretty big snafu with my IRB approval involving some misplaced paperwork. This big issue aside, everyone has been very cooperative and quick on the turnaround (which isn’t normally the case, but it is nice to know you can easily get things escalated). The IRB and the people managing summer research have been great. I was actually in the IRB office and was trying to express my appreciation for their help. I said something like to the effect that they were being very fastidious, but that was great because I also appreciate them looking out for my research subjects. However, they were also very quick on the turnaround to me when they could which helped make my approval possible. I should point out that my situation is a little unique because I am doing data collection with actual people which most people don’t try to squeeze into a summer research project. I’m also doing my collection off-site which most people aren’t stupid enough to try to get through for a short summer research project. I am also doing a pediatric study, and people under 18 automatically get the extra special scrutiny for any research project at any IRB. That all being said, I got my IRB approval on Friday!
Wife and I have friends from my class, one of whom is moving. Not much to say here except I’m glad we did the move at night instead of during the day, and my entire body is sore two days later. I’m having a time even getting up off the couch, but I do want to workout today.
I still have some posts that I need to finish and publish. However, I’ve lost my eye for proofing lately, so I’m going to have to wait for Wife to get home today to look over them.
Three years ago, I was ready to start out on my new career. A change that I was not completely ready to make, but wound up having to make a quick choice. Luckily at that point, I had thought about medicine for a long while. The choice that I had to make was an easy one. Wife was by my side. For my birthday that year, she took me to one of those themed restaurants where the knights joust and sword fight each other. I entered school unprepared mentally and struggled a bit under the stress. However, thanks to some hard work and the well-stuck lessons taught to me by my high school science teachers, I succeeded at transitioning into my post-bacc work.
Two years ago, I had finished my first year of my post-bacc work. I was excelling at my classes, and was starting to prepare to take one more class over the summer before studying for the MCAT. When that did happen, it was me, a card table and several very thick books. I was strung out and playing video games every 4-6 hours just to maintain my sanity. One evening, I cooked Wife a meal and sliced through my left index finger. Wife was not there, so I had to drive myself to the quick care where Wife met me. Wife nearly passed out because she was so concerned for me. I did well on the MCAT. In the fall, I started to take some of the more recommended courses. And I applied to many, many medical schools.
One year ago, I got accepted to one of those medical schools. Wife found a new job and followed me here. We moved here over the summer and I matriculated. I ran headlong into a wall of knowledge. I tried to absorb everything. I drank from the fire hose. I did well in class. I did well in group discussion. I did well in lab.
Today, Wife and I have been married for three years. I have finished my first year of medical school. We are struggling to get our old place sold on a soft market. She drives longer than she should for a job that is not quite what she wants to do. She definitely could have found an easier life for herself. She has stuck by me as I picked myself up from a career that I hated and stumbled into a new career that I love.
Last night was a late one. I got a lot of studying done last night not wanting to be up late tonight with my last test being tomorrow. I’m so tired, it takes me a while to wake up on any given morning. On these heavy study days, I tend to kick back for a bit with a cup of coffee before trying to study. It would feel like the calm before the storm, but I’ve gotten good at focusing on the coffee and just relaxing a bit while I wake up. See you all on the other side.
Okay, not really. We wrapped up the nuerology module with a section on psych, the purpose of which seems to have been to demonstrate that I will never want to do psych. I got raked over the coals on that last neuro test, so I took some extra time to put into studying for the upcoming cardio test (which was yesterday).
To mark the shift from one module to the next, our first lecture was kicked off starting with a slide of the Tin Man. When faced with such references, I usually feign ignorance and make a joke about how we are going to learn about robot hearts instead of human hearts and some day I’ll be able to say that I got my MD from robot medicine school. This was not a joke that a lot of people got.
So, we are done with the brain and have moved into the heart and the rest of the thorax. This also means that we are neck deep into the physiology component. Phys really hasn’t had a chance to represent up until this point, but we are currently in full physiology mode. In fact, it got to the point where the faculty decided that they weren’t going to lecture us on physiology (cause you can teach people to lock themselves in a room alone until they understand what capacitance means). We had Q&A/Reviews following self-directed “podcast” learning. It seems like what works best is to work through problems to enforce the concepts…a lot of problems.
The physio component has given us plenty of opportunities to learn from problems in various ways. We had another problem based learning session in small group where we were to diagnose and treat for a case of heart failure (decompensation in a patient with decreased heart function following an MI). Then I went to my elective class in the emergency department where they demonstrated that what I had learned was wrong (well, wrongish…there are other things that you do first). The class also broke into groups of four to run an exercise in the simulator lab. Even in lecture, we are working through problems…reviewing the material from notes and the online videos.
The physio-heavy exam was pretty brutal. Each question seems to take about twice as long to think through as most of the other problems, which makes sense. A lot of anatomy and histology can be straight up recall. Sometimes in might be application for a clinical case. But physiology winds up being 4 or 5 answers that you have to consider in the context of the question…carefully.
Anyway, The test is over I’ve got a quick weekend to breathe before a group presentation next week. Then a week and a half before my next series of tests. Histo, anatomy and didactic exams over a period of two days covering the material from pretty much the entire module.
That’s one semester down. Probably something like 21 to go…if you count half years as semesters.
I need this break.
I’m also trying to nail down something for summer. I’m going to be doing research hopefully. I am applying to programs and speaking to some of the research organizations affiliated with the school. It is actually pretty exciting stuff.
I want to post some over break, but for now just know that I am on a well-deserved break.
Alright, everyone take a deep breath and begin relaxing…NOW!!!
I have a million of those jokes.
It turns out this blog is a good barometer for how quickly time is going. Last night I was talking with a friend about time slipping away. So much is going on in such a short amount of time, that you just don’t realize where the days go.
I had no idea, but the last post was practically two weeks ago.
I have a test this week. The neuro/psych module is well underway. We have wrapped up gross anatomy lab for the time being and have started a brief neuroanatomy lab section. We have had about two labs a week for the last little bit. Basically we float around from station to station. There are around 6-8 students per station where we review tag sheets of items to identify. Occasionally an instructor stops by, and we’ll review a few sections of the brain. The instructor will walk through the internal structures that can at times seem like two tiny objects of very similar shades of the same color on contiguous field of another similar shade of the same color. It really isn’t that bad, but you do have to appreciate how complicated the brain is considering how similar most of its structures are. Much like histology there is also a lot of two-dimensional presentations of three-dimensional structures, so there is a lot of spatial reasoning (the non-dominant side of the brain) that must go on.
One of these past weekends, I had a nice break from studying. Our class went out to one of the local homeless outreach organizations and set up a health fair. The first year dental students were there as well. We had booths talking about dental hygiene, foot care, health in general and stress relief. There was also some high school students who I think were on the back-end of a coat drive, handing out supplies for the upcoming winter.
I was in the stress relief booth which was pretty slow until a second year student stopped by with a blood pressure cuff (i.e. sphygmomanometer). The main point of the booth was to promote stress relief practices (diet, exercise, socializing) and for us first years it gave us a chance to learn and practice taking blood pressure. I had actually done this in my freshman A&P course that I had taken right before coming to medical school, but doing it on other people…who are waiting…is much different than taking your own in lab.
Most of the last few weeks have been spent with my notes. I’m actually quite stressed about this upcoming exam. I think I’m getting the material down, but I’m just repeating a lot of this stuff over and over again to make sure that I know everything. The good and bad news is that I have the last time slot for my practical this time around. This means that I won’t be in one of the groups getting the test out of the way, but I’ll have 3-4 hours to study in between the written and practical exams.
I’m going to get back to studying. I actually wrote like half of this earlier in the week and just now realized that I left the draft just sitting here. Hope everyone is doing well.
And don’t let the stress get to you…
From Real Genius. Go rent or buy it at your local video renting/buying place.
I’m a little too busy to track down the picture that I have of a 3×5 index card, but I’ve gone through roughly 500 of them. I have a test on Friday and it is only marginally more material than last time, but has somehow generated a great deal more notecards. I spent the entire weekend writing flash cards…with the exception of Friday evening when my eyes were dilated from an eye exam.
We are covering a lot of genetics, regulation of gene expression, molecular biology techniques (including a lot of leading edge stuff that is pretty new), a lot of cancer stuff (oncogenes vs. tumor suppressors, apoptosis) and some cell biology (endomembranes and cytoskeleton).
A lot of stuff is running together. We are covering a lot of the same genetic diseases in the different lectures, so the clinical vignettes are bleeding together. Even some of the lecture material gets repeated a good bit.
I have a handful of posts that are waiting to be written. I’m going to queue up some quick drafts to encourage me to write them after the test. I had a good one that I was trying to write on some of our lecturers which isn’t turning out how I liked. I’m going to rework it later as well as some other ones. I’ll try to post some quick stuff this week.
Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone. I’m going to go flip through some cards.
When I was 11 or 12, I had to go to the dermatologist. I think this was the time I went because I had a rash of unknown origin. My mother took me to see a dermatologist that we knew through church who informed us that what I had was in fact poison ivy. I had apparently picked it up at the Boy Scout Klondike Derby somehow. We didn’t think anything of it because I was only out for the day and in cold weather gear, but I had apparently picked some up on my hand and transferred it to my ankles or had gone through some pretty tall brush while running around. It was no big deal, as a scout I eventually gotten enough poison ivy rashes that I eventually stopped reacting to it.
This was my first time at the dermatologists and not too happy about having a rash during my pre-teen “this is the end of the world” years. However, once in the office I was immediately put at ease by a grumpy old physician who was complaining about having to sit through the third Godfather movie and how they should have just stopped after the second one.
I thought this was hilarious. Of course, I was 11 or 12 and did not fully understand what a travesty the third Godfather movie was.
I had to go back a few times while growing up, and I really enjoyed seeing him. He and his family were also very involved with our youth group at church.
When I got accepted into medical school, I was told that this doctor actually had done his residency at my new school, and I was excited to have a connection like that with my new school.
This morning, he passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was given 4-6 months when he was first diagnosed. He fought it, full of what I’m sure was piss and vinegar, for a year and a half. The last I heard from him was that since he was on oxygen 24/7, he was going to put together a marine based crime-fighting unit to protect the citizens of community.
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt van Rijn
The test went well today. I already know what I made, but I won’t be sharing that here. I grabbed lunch in the hospital with quite a few people who were hanging out after the test was done. This afternoon was a lecture on taking histories. Half the class bailed on this lecture (since it was after the test) which is unfortunate because I thought the lecturer did a wonderful job going through the information.
I’m pretty psyched about doing patient histories in the weeks coming up.
I biked the waterway home. It was much drier this time, so I was able to get much farther. The path pretty much dumps out on a road that goes straight into my neighborhood. This made for a nice extended ride home. When I got home, I found some of my classmates throwing a frisbee in the street, so it turns out that I have more classmate neighbors than I realized. There is also apparently a party tonight, so Wife and I are going to try to track that down for a bit tonight.
Since we had a Monday test, there is little time to recoup before we start up again. Gotta make use of the downtime while I can. Everyone have a good evening.
