Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Medical School update...


Medical School Is...

Hello Lovelies,

A little over a month into medical school and a few short days away from my first week of block exams and I can't believe all the things that school has turned out to be...

I thought medical school would be.... the hardest thing I've ever done
Medical School is.... one of the hardest things I've ever done. I took my first exam a few weeks ago and passed, but just barely (phew)... however, at our school if you do really terribly in one sub-category of a subject then you have to remediate (which is to do make up work and take another exam) over the information you did poorly on... I did really poorly on Structure... so if I don't get an 85% on all of my structure exams from here on out, I'll be remediating structure. As someone who has never failed anything in school this is a hard pill for me to swallow, but at the end of the day it's not about passing the first time around it's about learning everything I need to know to be an excellent physician.

I thought medical school would be... full of the typical science majors I spent my undergrad with
Medical school is... Full of science, lots of science. I never thought I would miss the random classes you have to take in undergrad, but I can't tell you how much I would love to have an easy A about now!

I thought medical school would be... a place where instead of being at the top of the class I'd be at the bottom
Medical school is... A place where I am at the bottom of the class - at least I knew going in that I wasn't going to be competing for class of 2014 spot #1

I thought medical school would be... a time of non-stop studying
Medical school is... a time of lots of studying, my brain still can't process non-stop studying. I am trying my best to study for 2-3 hours a night and more on the weekends.... sometimes that happens sometimes that doesn't... thus, the barely passing my first exam. My brain just gets fuzzy after 8 hours of lecture and then a few hours of studying... seriously it just turns to mush! Hopefully this will get better as I study more!

I thought medical school would be... a second chance to enjoy the academic lifestyle
Medical school is... a time of great commraderie with my fellow student doctors, and I do enjoy being surrounded by intellectuals, but not in the same way I did in undergrad.

I thought medical school would be... a scary time of new introductions and feeling that awkward first day of school, new kid feeling all over again
Medical school is... it was awkward and scary at first, but I've sort of found a few groups of people I fit in with. Being the introvert I am, I tend to flit around on the outside of social circles as opposed to launch myself right into the middle - so I still feel like an outsider at times, but for the most part I have people I like to sit with and eat with and study with, so its a pretty good start for a shy girl like me!

I thought medical school would be... full of information that is only loosely applicable to treating patients at first (i.e. basics)...
Medical school is... overflowing with information I have to know to treat patients... I can't tell you how many times a day I hear "you'll need to know this to understand how antiobiotics work" or "you'll need to be comfortable with this concept to conduct a thorough exam"


Overall, I am so happy to be here, but it is hard... as hard as everyone says. It's more information than you could possibly imagine - we've gone through the entire anatomy of a human being in 6 weeks, front to back inside out.... we'll continue to re-visit the anatomy in depth throughout the next two years, but I have done what you do in one semester of undergrand in a month and a half in med school.

3 comments:

Jenny @ Practically Perfect... said...

I'm so proud of you! I know that sounds kind of condescending, but I don't mean it that way at all - I just think it's completely amazing that you are in Med School and that you have worked so hard for this :-) You sound like you're adjusting really, really well! Keep it up!

Scientific Housewife said...

Good luck, it sounds really difficult but I know you can do it!

Unknown said...

Hey, I am a med student too.
Glad to here its not me alone who feels the same.
You could check my blog out here:
http://my-pink-stethoscope.blogspot.com/