I think this past week, which was the 2nd week of our 2nd block, pretty much gave me a glimpse of what med school from here up until February of 2010 will be like: pretty crazy. Yes, it is kind of like you're drinking from a fire hose, but it's not as terrible as some people make it out to be. Basically, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we have our small group IQs from 8 to 10 followed by two hour long lectures (or interactive medium sized groups) until noon. On Tuesday we usually do some combination of gross lab and histopathology until noon. On Thursdays we have optional review sessions which are videostreamed online.
The theme of this week is "Sweet life." I like how the administration tries being cute about things by coming up with random themes for the weeks. Basically "sweet life" entails endocrinology with an IQ case emphasis on diabetes.
On Monday I got to meet my new IQ group. Group 20 is pretty solid. We tend to work very efficiently. Our facilitator is in his final year of MSTP studies (year number 7 or 8 or something absolutely insane like that). He's a pretty cool guy. Our two cases this week involved type 1 and type 2 diabetes respectively. We learned a bunch about the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. After IQ, instead of having lectures, we had a 2-hour long medium sized interactive group discussion regarding a problem set involving intracellular signalling pathways. These small groups consist of about 12 students and a facilitator. I definitely learn a lot from the groups and I seem to stay awake seeing as participation is mandatory.
Tuesdays suck. The reason I dislike Tuesdays is because my two least favorite subjects are covered during these days: anatomy and the dreaded histopathology, which I'm sure you already know about. I didn't mind anatomy in block 1...perhaps because I didn't realize how ridiculous it would become. During the first couple blocks of our program, we are introduced to anatomy solely through prosections. Don't worry, I didn't know what the hell that meant until I got here. Basically, instead of spending all day in lab cutting up bodies and screwing up body parts (dissection), they are already cut up for us. So we rotate through several stations while the professors point all the relevant parts to us. I kind of feel like this is a waste of time...perhaps because I'm not so good at keeping up with the reading ahead of time. Part of the reason why I don't keep up so well with my anatomy reading is because it's so damn boring. Anatomy, while not all memorization, is mostly memorization. I HATE rote memorization. Seriously, we have names for all these random ass things in the body. Who the hell cares? I sure don't, though I should and believe me I will be this Labor day weekend! Honestly, the only cool thing about memorizing some crazy anatomical names is that it makes you sound smart. I have mad respect for all my colleagues doing the masters in applied anatomy. You guys are crazy.
Now Wednesday was interesting. I was 20 minutes late to IQ group. I left home at 7:15 and I got to school at 8:20. Apparently there was some ridiculous accident on the highway and I had to literally ride a 25 mph road all the way into town. My IQ group wasn't really hard on me for being late, but I felt ridiculously bad. I brought bagels for them today, so hopefully I made amends.
What was really cool about Wednesday was that I got to go visit a hospice for a program we have called RAMP. Yes, another god-forsaken, unnecessary acronym which stands for Rotating Apprenticeship in Medical Practice? (I think?). These are basically glorified shadowing sessions where small groups of students are sent out to hospital and community practices to shadow different types of physicians. I was placed in a group to go check out palliative/end-of-life care. Honestly, I wasn't too thrilled about the placement. Seeing people die sure doesn't sound appealing, does it? It turned to actually be pretty cool. We got to talk to a couple of patients in the hospice about their experiences. The one was this sweet old lady dying of what seemed to be lung disease. The other was this middle aged guy dying of Lou Gehrig's. It was kind of cool to see how at peace they were. The actual hospice was really nice inside. It had a nice home-like feel to it, which was a stark contrast to the drab appearance of the outside. The hospice is right next to the lake, so some of the residents have an amazing view. One cool thing I learned was that Medicare pays for the cost of hospice care provided that your prognosis is that you will die in 6 months or less.
Thursday was pretty much a review day...nothing too exciting school wise. A couple cool things though. First, I got to eat dinner with an old friend from high school whom I haven't seen since. He actually sought me out and got in touch with me, which was awesome. It's great to see people you haven't seen in so long, especially old friends!
Another cool thing was Barrack Obama's nomination acceptance speech. I don't want to make this too political because arguing politics is kind of futile and time is at a premium for me now days, but I'd like to add the disclaimer that I am a local campaign volunteer and I have decided to support Obama. I don't agree with everything he says , but I love his vision and passion. I'm an independent voter, relatively moderate with a slight left bias, and I actually admire John McCain. To cut to the chase, Obama's speech Thursday night, which was well past my bed time thanks to the whole stupid mountain time zone thing, literally blew me away. If you don't feel a little inspired after this speech, then I don't know what to say. If you have some free time this weekend, and you haven't seen the speech I encourage you to put aside your political biases for a bit, take some time out and see it. You can check the speech out here.
If you haven't thought about the election yet, check out the candidates' websites and read up on their policies. I also encourage you to play nice and be respectful of others' opinions. As much as the media may focus on pointless issues like Obama's religion or McCain's 7 houses, I think that on a whole Americans have two good nominees.
Have a safe and happy Labor Day Weekend!
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