26 December, 2008

Xmas Lessons

Drinking a bottle and a half of champagne will not only give you an exciting hangover experience (TM). No, it will also (if you're me) make you excessively paranoid and cause you to hear voices telling you to do weird things.

Lesson? No more excessive champagne for me.

20 December, 2008

Vacation

I am stuck in the unusual position of having free time. I finished my exams yesterday and don't have any classes until January 5th (I think). As some of my classmates so astutely noted, we're now 1/8th of the way to being doctors. Such a thought hadn't even occurred to me, actually. I'm just happy to be able to tidy up my house (it was gross) and spend time with my cats and husband. It's absolutely freezing outside, literally like eight degrees or something ridiculous like that, and the ground is covered in a thick (to me) layer of snow. I feel pretty good about it, actually. There's really only two things I need to do between now and January 5th. I have to write an application for a grant for summer research (more on this should it come to fruition) and I need to start studying for Head and Neck.

I also need to work on the notion that passing is good enough. My school does pass/fail grading, which sounds pretty nice. It is, I guess. Except some bright person stuck in the option of high passing. Now, if you've ever gone to medical school, you know how ridiculous this is. Heck, if you went to graduate school you get it too. You're taking a massive amount of classes, all of which are covering an epic amount of material in a short amount of time. You can study ten hours a day (and many days I do) and only get a 70% (stupid histology). Since this is passing, it shouldn't bother me. It does though. I want to high pass things. I think I equate doing the best I can in things to intelligence. This is not necessarily the case. I am in medical school with 123 other students who are also used to making top grades. Clearly, we're not all high passing. Most of us aren't, actually. That doesn't make us dumb. It makes us human. And we don't like it. We want to ace everything. We're certain that getting a 70% in histology (sigh) will affect us negatively in the future. It might, but probably not.

The thing is, none of us came to medical school to be mediocre, and that's what we equate 70% with. We don't want to be average. Now, not being average may vary from person to person; luckily for me, being above average does not mean becoming a neurosurgeon. For most, though, getting good grades is part of being above average.

My toes are cold.

18 December, 2008

Exam Week III

Really? This is the third time around? Seriously? It doesn't feel like I've been here long enough to warrant this. I have learned a few things though.
1) snow is really pretty.
2) snow is also a righteous pain in the ass.
3) there's always the same three to five guys at the Sea Star Market, every morning, just shooting the shit.
4) Irish punk = awesome.
5) pretty much anything can be made better by hanging out with the husband, playing with Matt's babies, or going upstairs and seeing Nancy in the clinic. If she has babies around, she'll let me play with them.
6) In the winter, when you lose power, just stick all of your food out on the porch. It's only 20 degrees out there anyway.

11 December, 2008

On a roll

This morning, I managed to fall down about twelve icy stairs, not get to the bank, not get my biochem reading done, and not get to the gym, all before 10 am. I am such an overachiever. Luckily the clinic at school was open so I could get checked out, and yelled at for not having put salt/sand on my stairs.

Gym may occur later today. Bank? Probably not.

Ouch.

10 December, 2008

One of my teachers actually said this...

"Just as an aside, a bit of proselytizing here – most of my research is focused
on the spine, spine pain and the anatomy of the spine as it relates to pain. But we’re also involved in doing this type of thing which is targeted dissections and then researching ways of getting them presented so they facilitate learning. If you’re interested in something like that, I’d be interested in talking to you. Some of the criteria for doing it – it’s greatly facilitated if you’ve got wicked OCD and it’s even better yet if you’re
somewhat bipolar. So, if you meet either of those 2 criteria, the thing to do is go off your medication for about a week, stay up all night and then have one of those cinnamon buns up here and a big cup of coffee. Then come and see me. I can really identify with people in that state."
Dr. W

08 December, 2008

Winter

Today's high temperature was 22 degrees F. That was the high. It's 8 degrees F right now. You can imagine what this is doing to my asthmatic lungs, even with careful administration of the appropriate medication at the appropriate time.

I'm calling the doctor tomorrow. I'm a bad patient. I haven't set us up with a doctor yet, and we've been here nearly six months...

Public Service Announcement

Don't go to medical school. I hear business school is really awesome. You get to take wine tasting classes. Granted, I like med school in general but right now, I hate it. It's exhausting and loads of work and you never catch up.

07 December, 2008

Flash Back

This fall, I've been helping out with the application process. That is, I've been showing interviewees the campus, letting potential students follow me around for half a day, answering emails and questions, etc. Most of the time it's fun. Right now, though, we're in the middle of a particularly rigorous block. Something about trying to learn all of the internal organs while still taking six other difficult classes makes for some pretty stressed students. As such, everyone in my class, even the kids who are super smart and have their stuff totally together, are starting to get sort of strange, manic, and loopy. This became most evident when a fellow student and I were giving a tour of the campus and spent five minutes showing the interviewees the fish tank.

Granted, it's a neat fish tank. I stop there at least once a day to look at the gorgeous fish that the marine science majors (undergrads) work with. They are a nice respite in an otherwise hectic experience. This is an experience, though, that I would not have understood a year ago. Had some med student spent five minutes showing me the fish tank, I would have thought they were bonkers. And maybe we are. In a year's time, maybe these same applicants will be doing something similar as a first year med student. They'll suddenly realize that they've spent five minutes at a fish tank or a grove of trees. And then they will understand.

04 December, 2008

Blues

It's four o clock in the afternoon and it's getting dark. I'm stressed about upcoming exams, and worried that no one likes me. Partially, it's because I don't fit in with the "cool" kids in our class. Granted, they aren't really the "cool" kids. They're really just the kids who are fresh out of college and all live together. It's slightly strange to be around them. They're really nice, but they're in a different place in their lives than I am.

Basically, I have the blues and biochem is kicking my ass. That and histo. And embryo. And everything else.