a funny

A quote my professor put into a hematology/oncology lecture,

"A Blood transfusion is like marriage; it should not be entered upon lightly, unadvisedly or wantonly, or more often than is absolutely necessary"

Rough times call for more...rough times?

School has been pretty ridiculous and if i tried writing every week my blogs would be pretty boring and monotonous. Sadly, things are a little rough right now but with the help of my classmates, we are still having fun in the spare nights/moments that we can. We ended IDIT and have now gotten into our first system's based class. From now on, we will be learning everything possible about each system in the human body- from now until the end of my second year....which couldnt come fast enough.

Our schedule has been very hectic with lots of exams and this is a little sample of what i would like to call 'Hell MonthSSSSS'

IDIT Exam 1 Tues,
2 weeks [not to bad]
IDIT Exam 2 Mon
2 weeks [still, not to bad]
IDIT ENDS on Wed 2/10
Blood and Lymph Starts Thurs 2/11
IDIT Exam 3 Tues 2/16 [keep in mind we have already started blood and lymph]
1 week
Blood and Lymph Midterm-Mond
1 week
Blood and Lymph Final- Tuesday
1 week
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine Structural Midterm -mon
2 weeks of class and the friday of the second week isssss,
Neurology Exam 1!

Does that make sense? if not, then you might feel a little bit like i do. BUUUUT, as much as i complain i do ENJOY what i am learning. Especially blood and lymph. We are learning how things SHOULD work, what happens when a disease process sets in and how to FIX it. yes thats right, i am learning how to fix things. a bazillion drugs and OMM techniques at a time :)

Id like to end this with some facebook chat from tonight:

Laura wrote to Kelsea:
where have been?! we're getting brewskis tonight at 10:30. i will be calling you non-stop if you are not there. love, love.

and the rest of us replied:
Laura: p.s. gonna be in the brary until then if you want to "study"

Me: where are we going? ;)

Laura:i don't know, but you're coming!

Shana: HEY!! Don't forget me!

me: shana I would have dragged you out of the library dont worry!

Kelsea: whoa whoa whoa, don't worry. LJ and I strictly believe in the no student left behind policy....

Sarah: this is really breaking my no booze no caffeine policy. ugh.

Shana: Ha ha thanks Kelsea, I was worried for a minute! And I knew I could count on you Dorothy ;)


See, we keep each other alive and sane, and give ourselves something to look forward to :)

still studying bugs and drugs

We are in the process of learning all the bacteria that can cause diseases. we are also starting to learn about all the drugs we should use in each case. its pretty overwhelming. as one of my classmates put it

"I Never knew there were SOOOOO many different types of diarrhea till I got to med school!!"
-JV


We had our second IDIT exam this Monday and I can honestly say it was the hardest test I have taken yet. The scores were released on Monday night but I didnt check until I got home last night because I was worried, so many of my classmates did terribly and even the smart ones didnt do very well. I looked at my score and was pleasantly surprised that I got above the average. I got to celebrate for a couple days but its back to work for the next test. I have a patient encounter tomorrow and we are starting to do focused exams. Before every patient came in saying they were there for a 'routine physical.' Now we have patients with symptoms so we are learning about what questions to ask and what physical exams to do that are pertinent to those symptoms. Its pretty cool.

ok, back to work

IDIT Exam 2 tomorrow...

"Everytime I take an exam I realize I have never learned so much material for one exam, until the next exam comes around where there is more material on it than the previous one!"

-JS

First test of the semester down...

life hasnt been interesting enough to blog...sorry. i had a test, now im studying for another one. though i did just go to Med Prom, that was really fun. but i cant write about it now, i have another test to study for. story of my life :)

three day weekend..

ahhhh yes, now i remember. after 2 weeks of vacation and 2 weeks of struggling to get back into the medical school pace, i now remember how much i enjoy spending a saturday night at home studying. oh joy :) three day weekend= 3 days to catch up and learn everything for our test on tuesday. or, as a good friend of mine put this wednesday after a day of lectures:

two more days to go..then the train will stop so i can run and catch it. -Julia

Round 2

i thought filling in my time during break would be difficult. but i found that watching my DVD's of ER seasons and reading novels worked out just fine :) well that and copious amounts of alcohol, friends, family, house/dog sitting, sleeping, and some others...

i had a great time off but now it is sunday afternoon and time to prep myself for tomorrow, our first day back to school.

haha, not. I am sitting in my new place deciding where i want to put my laundry basket. thats right, i moved out of the house. 7 months at the parents place was enough. dont get me wrong, it was nice to have dad make me coffee in the morning and sandwiches for lunch but it was hard being away from school, its resources, and of course, my classmates.

tomorrow starts the first day of a very lonnnnnng 6 months. I will be in school from January 4th to June 14th with a week of at the end of march for spring break. During this time, I will go through 5 blocks. They are:

IDIT- Introduction to Disease, Immunology, and Therapeutics which is basically lectures on microbiology, pharmacology, immunology, and pathology.

Blood and Lymph- exactly what it sounds like with the including histology, pharmacology, pathology, microbiology

Neurology

Behavior, Med, and Psychology

and lastly, musculoskeletal.

All sounds fascinating as well as terrifying. im pretty nervous for Neuro as is it rumored to be the most difficult section of our first year curriculum.

ok, enough of the computer. i am going back to doing nothing for my last day of vacation. need to be in class tomorrow at 9. but, im actually pretty excited to go because my school is opening up a brand new building especially for the medical students we will be in a brand new lecture hall, will have all new break out study rooms, a new common room, etc. i am looking forward to seeing it all after a semester of waiting for it. hope it lives up to everyone's expectations!!