"tomorrow's exam is going to be interesting....never ever had physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, histology and developmental embryology all combined into one exam before."
-JL
That pretty much sums up my exam this morning!
i studied for countless hours, worked my butt off, and yes i passed. it is very hard to accept that no matter how much i study, i will never remember it all. and of course, that leads me to be scared to death for my first board certification exam which i will take the end of my second year...it is on everything i will learn in medical school. cool. awesome.
i wouldnt say i am doubting my decision to go to medical school, i would say i am doubting wether i can get through it. the test i just took was seriously like a final in undergrad. actually, i feel like i am learning a semesters worth of material in 2 weeks and then taking a final every two weeks after. the amount of material and the very small amount of time to learn it is SUCH a brisk pace. im kinda in a funk and need to keep my confidence up. there are just too many smart people around me and i never feel up to par. but, the moments that do help me keep focused are my patient encounters. i feel like a doctor and i am becoming good at it!
Last week i gave my first two physical examinations on people other than my classmates and family/friends. The patients (actors..) were in a gown and all. The first was on Tuesday and i sweat through the entire thing. I did pretty well but forgot some of the history questions i learned to ask for the last encounters. Then, I had my second standardized patient on Thursday and did much better. Made me feel like a good 'almost' doctor!
its the end of the beginning and i have 6 weeks left of my first half of my first year. im gonna be honest and say i am counting the days until Christmas break. i would say thanksgiving but since i have an exam the tuesday after thanksgiving weekend (and its notoriously the hardest of this block) im not really looking forward to it as much. so yeah...christmas. i get 2 weeks off with no new material to learn. PRICELESS
tomorrow is our foundraising powderpuff football game; first year med student girls against the 2nd years. im pretty excited!! of course i am playing and will hopefully kick ass (with no injuries!!)
Monday, November 9, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
i dont need to be creative because my classmates are for me...
"Dude, I have nearly 500 Facebook friends, and the only people on at 9:45 on a Friday night are us med school kids. Haha." -Anonymous Medical Student. Oh, and I just happened to be one of them... Sad.'
-AH
-AH
Thursday, November 5, 2009
facebook entertainment
status update:
"just realized classes in med school are a lot like kidney stones...hurt like a bitch, but all you gotta do is pass 'em"
-JH
"just realized classes in med school are a lot like kidney stones...hurt like a bitch, but all you gotta do is pass 'em"
-JH
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Another funny
"You can think of spermatozoa as a torpedo. It is very compact in shape and it has just want it needs to deliver its payload to its target. And that’s its objective, to get its nucleus to an oocyte. Of course, compared to a torpedo, spermatozoa are highly inefficient. You empty about 200 million of them and your lucky if one of them hits the target. Thank god the navy doesn’t work under that kind of efficiency."
-One of my professors in developmental histology
-One of my professors in developmental histology
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Apreso, my new buddy
I am writing this blog to capture school moments and am not using it to go into personal things going on im my life. with that said, i had a very hard week and will be glad when Thanksgiving rolls around and my entire family will be under one roof- hoping that Sydney will be here too :/
Now that anatomy is over life is a little bit more convenient. We used to have an anatomy quiz at the beginning of each lecture. During MCBM (the molecular and cellular basis of medicine) we will not be having quizes so i dont have to be at school everyday for lecture. But, before you start shaking your head thinking i am a slacker...let me tell you about my new wonderful best friend Apreso. This is from their website:
Apreso Classroom is an affordable automated lecture capture and Web publishing system that produces online versions of the classroom experience for on-demand student review.
Apreso Classroom can be scheduled to start and stop automatically, removing the need for professors to learn to operate the system or change the way they teach. It automatically captures and synchronizes the professor's voice with visual aids being projected in the classroom, and posts an interactive, indexed Web-based version of the lecture to university websites or course management system.
Basically, i can sit at home in my pajamas with a fresh cup of coffee and my animals around my feet and watch/listen to my lectures. It is a very convenient way to learn (and save gas money). Also, i have found that it is more effective to learn this way because i can start/stop the lecture and even run it at a higher speed. It is very time effective and i can look up anything i dont understand right there or can skip over stuff that i do. Also, its nice to be able to take breaks during the lecture. In class, i have approximately a 20-30min window of peak learning ability. After that it is bye bye concentration and hello facebook, gchat, ebay, etc etc So, instead of wasting my time in lecutre...i am using it more efficiently at home. The downside is that i wont be at school as often so i will be missing lots of fun times with my classmates but we have a long 4 years together so i am sure i will see them at many other times!
This week starts another long one as i have lots of lectures lined up. Biochemistry, developmental histology, physiology, cytology....the list goes on. Also, on Tuesday afternoon I am making up my patient encounter which i missed a couple weeks ago due to my near death illness (for dramatic effect). I will be giving a physical exam and am pretty damn nervous about it so a friend and I will be practicing on each other tomorrow after school. It is not a FULL physical if you know what i mean...that will come during 2nd year. But, it does include all the basics like eyes, ears, heart and breath sounds, reflexes, blah blah and I have to get their full history either before or during and we are given 30 minutes. Sounds like a long time but its not!
Wednesday I will be dropping off Dad at the airport and will be home alone for 3 1/2 weeks. sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. Yeah, its gonna be a raging study party at my house next weekend sine we have our first MCBM exam Monday. Caffeine buzzes have replaced alcohol buzzes. i am out of control
Now that anatomy is over life is a little bit more convenient. We used to have an anatomy quiz at the beginning of each lecture. During MCBM (the molecular and cellular basis of medicine) we will not be having quizes so i dont have to be at school everyday for lecture. But, before you start shaking your head thinking i am a slacker...let me tell you about my new wonderful best friend Apreso. This is from their website:
Apreso Classroom is an affordable automated lecture capture and Web publishing system that produces online versions of the classroom experience for on-demand student review.
Apreso Classroom can be scheduled to start and stop automatically, removing the need for professors to learn to operate the system or change the way they teach. It automatically captures and synchronizes the professor's voice with visual aids being projected in the classroom, and posts an interactive, indexed Web-based version of the lecture to university websites or course management system.
Basically, i can sit at home in my pajamas with a fresh cup of coffee and my animals around my feet and watch/listen to my lectures. It is a very convenient way to learn (and save gas money). Also, i have found that it is more effective to learn this way because i can start/stop the lecture and even run it at a higher speed. It is very time effective and i can look up anything i dont understand right there or can skip over stuff that i do. Also, its nice to be able to take breaks during the lecture. In class, i have approximately a 20-30min window of peak learning ability. After that it is bye bye concentration and hello facebook, gchat, ebay, etc etc So, instead of wasting my time in lecutre...i am using it more efficiently at home. The downside is that i wont be at school as often so i will be missing lots of fun times with my classmates but we have a long 4 years together so i am sure i will see them at many other times!
This week starts another long one as i have lots of lectures lined up. Biochemistry, developmental histology, physiology, cytology....the list goes on. Also, on Tuesday afternoon I am making up my patient encounter which i missed a couple weeks ago due to my near death illness (for dramatic effect). I will be giving a physical exam and am pretty damn nervous about it so a friend and I will be practicing on each other tomorrow after school. It is not a FULL physical if you know what i mean...that will come during 2nd year. But, it does include all the basics like eyes, ears, heart and breath sounds, reflexes, blah blah and I have to get their full history either before or during and we are given 30 minutes. Sounds like a long time but its not!
Wednesday I will be dropping off Dad at the airport and will be home alone for 3 1/2 weeks. sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. Yeah, its gonna be a raging study party at my house next weekend sine we have our first MCBM exam Monday. Caffeine buzzes have replaced alcohol buzzes. i am out of control
Thursday, October 29, 2009
I have learned the ENTIRE body in excruciating detail....SUCCESS!
written Tuesday Oct 27th
NO MORE ANATOMY. No more formaldehyde, no more fearing getting cancer from formaldehyde, no more stinky clothes, no more messy glovees, no more smelling formaldehyde when I eat my lunch well after lab, no more akward moments of dealing with pink nails, no more dissecting tools, no more sawing off structures of the body that really shouldn’t be sawed off, and of course….no more cutting dead people. Now its on to practicing on the living and breathing ones!
It has obviously been a long time since I have written and that is because I fell victim to disease. Sadly, being in medical school does not prevent me from getting sick. But, it does prevent me from going to school which then sets me back a ton. Missing one day is terrifying let alone 2 and a half (which is what I missed 2 weeks ago). I came to school that week and by Wednesday afternoon I couldn’t take it anymore and I went home. I sucked it up and did my dissection in the morning (even though I know I wasn’t much help anyways) and then I went home to sleep. During these two days and a half days, I missed a Physician and Society class and in class project (which I made up for by writing a 2 page paper on the television show House), 2 anatomy labs (1 being my dissection, another observing)3 anatomy lectures, 2 anatomy quizzes, and to top it off I had to reschedule my patient encounter which I was supposed to do Thursday afternoon. Not to mention I missed a couple of really great parties put on by first and second year! I am very glad I did take time off though because when I finally went to the doctor I got put on a high dose of antibiotics and I was feeling better by the weekend. The weekend I spent studying because we had our Head and Neck anatomy midterm on Monday. (remember Gross Anatomy is separated from Head and Neck Anatomy). We had our midterm at 8am and then 9am we started up again with lab, and then had lecture all afternoon. I came into lab Monday morning and found Lucy’s head complelty off her body and cut right down the middle . Now, I had no problem studying her body because she didn’t look like a body at all. Seriously, anytime I walked up to her or another cadaver it took me a minute just to figure out what I was looking. Orienting anterior and posterior (front and back) is the only way to really understand where you are. Well that and finding the tongue because a tongue cant really be mistaken for anything else.
So that week went on and we learned lots of new fun stuff. We dissected the nose, mouth, and then from the top of the skull (with no brain remember) we found the middle ear and the ear drum. THAT was the coolest thing ever. The 3 tiny little bones that make it possible for you to hear are just that….tiny. and we got to see them and play with them. As you push on one, you can see the ear drum move which moves the rest of them move. It is utterly mind-blowing how our body is made and everyday I forget just how cool it is. But then I get to see Lucy and she reminds me just how complicated and AMAZING the human body really is.
Speaking of which, this past Thursday in Essentials of Clinical Medicine (where we learn how to interact with patients –including our simulated patient encounters- and do physical exams) we learned how to draw blood! My partner was a brave soul but luckily her arm was tiny and her veins were huge so I couldn’t really miss! I got blood on the first try and felt pretty confident about it. So confident that I gave it another try on another friend. Again, his veins were not hard to find so I thought it would be an easy target. Well, it was going very smoothly and I had the needle in his arm and after I let the tourniquet go I kept the needle steady in my left hand and reached for some gauze with my right to put over the injection site as I slid the needle out. Unfortunately, I moved the needle as I turned my body to get the gauze and I pushed the needle a little further in and angled it a little bit up. This caused my partner to voice his discomfort as I slid the needle out of his arm. He then began to describe the pain he was having while the needle was in. It was the same stabbing pain (radiating down his arm) that he was having even after the needle was out of him. I obviously hit a cutaneous (towards the skin) nerve which made him feel some pins and needles in his arm. Don’t worry, the damage isnt serious. He was a very good sport about the whole thing and came up with a very clever way to make me feel better…He told me ‘at least it happened on me and not a patient.’ I obviously still feel bad about it but I guess my overconfidence from having hit blood my first try made me a lil less focused the 2nd time. Something I will definitely work on in the future!
Since I got to take blood on my classmates, it was only fair I return the favor. Both people that practiced on me did a great job and neither caused me any pain or discomfort. I am not an easy stick as my veins are deep so it was an accomplishment that both of them drew my blood on thieir attempts. All and all, it was a successful day that made me feel a little bit closer to becoming a doctor (even though most doctors don’t ever do blood draws! Haha)
As I write this I realize its starting to be a very long post so I will save more details for another entry. I would love to tell you about my head and neck final (that I had Monday) but frankly…I still don’t feel like talking about it. Lets just say I wont be relieved until I see that I passed because I felt like I had been kicked in the head after walking out of the written test. Having metaphorically been kicked in the head and fallen onto the ground in pain, I had my 2:00pm lab practical test to give me a couple more kicks to the stomach to make sure I was really suffereing. All and all….a great way to spend a Monday. But now, after having a very light day I am at home preparing for our next class block to start MCBM- the Molecular and Cellular Basis of Medicine. Oh Joy! The first exam for that bloc is only a week and a half away but we will have had 30 lectures by then so I’m sure they will have plenty of material to test us on! Details of that to come later. ..
Oh, and I am writing this in our pitch black living room with 2 candles and the santa ana winds blowing like crazy outside behind me. Earlier in the evening the power went out because a tree fell onto ‘something important’. Now, I am waiting for the electric company to find that ‘something important’ and fix it so I can use my coffee machine in the morning. God help me, they better fix it by the morning…
NO MORE ANATOMY. No more formaldehyde, no more fearing getting cancer from formaldehyde, no more stinky clothes, no more messy glovees, no more smelling formaldehyde when I eat my lunch well after lab, no more akward moments of dealing with pink nails, no more dissecting tools, no more sawing off structures of the body that really shouldn’t be sawed off, and of course….no more cutting dead people. Now its on to practicing on the living and breathing ones!
It has obviously been a long time since I have written and that is because I fell victim to disease. Sadly, being in medical school does not prevent me from getting sick. But, it does prevent me from going to school which then sets me back a ton. Missing one day is terrifying let alone 2 and a half (which is what I missed 2 weeks ago). I came to school that week and by Wednesday afternoon I couldn’t take it anymore and I went home. I sucked it up and did my dissection in the morning (even though I know I wasn’t much help anyways) and then I went home to sleep. During these two days and a half days, I missed a Physician and Society class and in class project (which I made up for by writing a 2 page paper on the television show House), 2 anatomy labs (1 being my dissection, another observing)3 anatomy lectures, 2 anatomy quizzes, and to top it off I had to reschedule my patient encounter which I was supposed to do Thursday afternoon. Not to mention I missed a couple of really great parties put on by first and second year! I am very glad I did take time off though because when I finally went to the doctor I got put on a high dose of antibiotics and I was feeling better by the weekend. The weekend I spent studying because we had our Head and Neck anatomy midterm on Monday. (remember Gross Anatomy is separated from Head and Neck Anatomy). We had our midterm at 8am and then 9am we started up again with lab, and then had lecture all afternoon. I came into lab Monday morning and found Lucy’s head complelty off her body and cut right down the middle . Now, I had no problem studying her body because she didn’t look like a body at all. Seriously, anytime I walked up to her or another cadaver it took me a minute just to figure out what I was looking. Orienting anterior and posterior (front and back) is the only way to really understand where you are. Well that and finding the tongue because a tongue cant really be mistaken for anything else.
So that week went on and we learned lots of new fun stuff. We dissected the nose, mouth, and then from the top of the skull (with no brain remember) we found the middle ear and the ear drum. THAT was the coolest thing ever. The 3 tiny little bones that make it possible for you to hear are just that….tiny. and we got to see them and play with them. As you push on one, you can see the ear drum move which moves the rest of them move. It is utterly mind-blowing how our body is made and everyday I forget just how cool it is. But then I get to see Lucy and she reminds me just how complicated and AMAZING the human body really is.
Speaking of which, this past Thursday in Essentials of Clinical Medicine (where we learn how to interact with patients –including our simulated patient encounters- and do physical exams) we learned how to draw blood! My partner was a brave soul but luckily her arm was tiny and her veins were huge so I couldn’t really miss! I got blood on the first try and felt pretty confident about it. So confident that I gave it another try on another friend. Again, his veins were not hard to find so I thought it would be an easy target. Well, it was going very smoothly and I had the needle in his arm and after I let the tourniquet go I kept the needle steady in my left hand and reached for some gauze with my right to put over the injection site as I slid the needle out. Unfortunately, I moved the needle as I turned my body to get the gauze and I pushed the needle a little further in and angled it a little bit up. This caused my partner to voice his discomfort as I slid the needle out of his arm. He then began to describe the pain he was having while the needle was in. It was the same stabbing pain (radiating down his arm) that he was having even after the needle was out of him. I obviously hit a cutaneous (towards the skin) nerve which made him feel some pins and needles in his arm. Don’t worry, the damage isnt serious. He was a very good sport about the whole thing and came up with a very clever way to make me feel better…He told me ‘at least it happened on me and not a patient.’ I obviously still feel bad about it but I guess my overconfidence from having hit blood my first try made me a lil less focused the 2nd time. Something I will definitely work on in the future!
Since I got to take blood on my classmates, it was only fair I return the favor. Both people that practiced on me did a great job and neither caused me any pain or discomfort. I am not an easy stick as my veins are deep so it was an accomplishment that both of them drew my blood on thieir attempts. All and all, it was a successful day that made me feel a little bit closer to becoming a doctor (even though most doctors don’t ever do blood draws! Haha)
As I write this I realize its starting to be a very long post so I will save more details for another entry. I would love to tell you about my head and neck final (that I had Monday) but frankly…I still don’t feel like talking about it. Lets just say I wont be relieved until I see that I passed because I felt like I had been kicked in the head after walking out of the written test. Having metaphorically been kicked in the head and fallen onto the ground in pain, I had my 2:00pm lab practical test to give me a couple more kicks to the stomach to make sure I was really suffereing. All and all….a great way to spend a Monday. But now, after having a very light day I am at home preparing for our next class block to start MCBM- the Molecular and Cellular Basis of Medicine. Oh Joy! The first exam for that bloc is only a week and a half away but we will have had 30 lectures by then so I’m sure they will have plenty of material to test us on! Details of that to come later. ..
Oh, and I am writing this in our pitch black living room with 2 candles and the santa ana winds blowing like crazy outside behind me. Earlier in the evening the power went out because a tree fell onto ‘something important’. Now, I am waiting for the electric company to find that ‘something important’ and fix it so I can use my coffee machine in the morning. God help me, they better fix it by the morning…
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
ALMOST THERE!!
Another facebook status from a classmate...
"Two more days of cutting up dead people, next up live people........daaaaaammmmmnnnn"
-BR
"Two more days of cutting up dead people, next up live people........daaaaaammmmmnnnn"
-BR
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