The truth about medical school

Today, I had a guest student with me. He is planning on applying for admission in the next application cycle. Like most perspective students, he asked a lot of questions that I know I had when I was applying. They're questions that now seem completely ridiculous. I think the one good question he asked was about affordable housing. Everything else was bupkes. This is a selection of things that I wanted to tell him, but I doubt he'd have believed me. Either that or he would get scared.

You will study. You will study until your eyes feel like they will fall out of your head, until you are dreaming about the life cycle of the malaria causing parasite P. vivax and its evil twin P. falciparum. This effort will maybe allow you to pass your classes.

You will take a test that appears to be written in some foreign language, filled with concepts that you have never seen.

You will fail something. If you are lucky, you will fail something that you can fix. I failed immunology, and I am fortunate enough to get to retake the exam. I had better not fail it this time, though. I am lucky, though. One person in my class failed everything and has to go before some board to determine if they get to stay or not. And this person is wicked smart.

You will get sick. Even if you are reasonably healthy, you will get sick. Why? You're in a confined space with 120 other people for large amounts of time.

You will be sleep-deprived. This is because you're trying to take in loads of information, all at once.

You will need support. In this regard, I feel fortunate because I have an awesome husband who is totally ok with me doing this crazy little thing called medical school.

You will ignore the kids who get 90% or better on exams, but only after you too attempt to get 90% on things and fail to do so. This will be for your own good, your sanity. As a corollary, if you are able to get 90% or higher on something, you will keep it on the down low as a courtesy.

You will never look at turkey basters the same way ever again.

Your concept of fun will be forever warped. Studying in a group can now pass for fun.

Bodily functions no longer seem as gross or socially unacceptable.

Your idea of acceptable dinner time conversation will change dramatically. I mean, once you've dissected an entire human being and seen...well...everything, you have a much higher threshold for gross things.

You will make some awesome friends.

Only some of the friends will be dead.

Still Alive

I'm still here. Some things are going well; I get to work in the free clinic next year. Not everyone who wanted to got to. Other things not so well. The last test was indeed a microbiology block of doom, although we haven't gotten all of our results back. It looks like I'll be using one "mulligan". I'm hoping to only have to use one though. I guess we'll see. Having to even use one of my mulligans (we get two) is not doing much in the way of helping my self esteem. Luckily, I'm not alone. Well, lucky for me, I guess. I am in good company, and we're all gonna shout "mulligan!" together.

Seriously, I have the best husband and friends ever. I walked out after getting some of the results and burst into tears on the first available person. Luckily, that was Gil, who has two small children and is thus used to copious amounts of snot,and Nick, who just is. We have a little study group to help each other (Nick, Eve, John, and I) and hopefully we'll pull this off. I'm still not sure how this happened; I felt fairly good about this test. Not "high pass" good, but certainly, "yeah, I passed" good.

Microbiology block of doom

Oh. My. God.
So many bugs, so little time. I'm really hoping that I can pass bacteriology. It's looking borderline right now, especially since the test isn't multiple choice. I can't believe I'm actually desiring a multiple choice test.

Did you know that there are parasites that basically "shed" genitalia? They lose them and then the infected host defecates them. Can you imagine being able to essentially shit your genitals whenever you wanted, just to grow another set?

Summer time plans seem to be falling into place.

Medical school is actually quite a lot like high school. The only real differences are that the stakes are higher and there are more dead bodies. Other than that, though, it's pretty much the same. There's the group of "cool" kids, who do things like run for class president and post pictures on facebook where they are seen drinking. A group of jocks can still be found, though they're a bit disorganized due to the lack of any real sports teams to join. The honors students are there too, and they are pretty much like the honors students in high school. There are a few of them who can do everything well and look good at the same time, there's the couple of quiet nerdy ones, and then there's the one that flies under the radar. We haven't found them yet, shockingly. The final group is sort of a composite group, because we have no band, no orchestra, no drama club, no av club. The composite group is actually the biggest.

Hell, there's even rumor of a spring fling. You've got to be kidding me. The parallels are a little creepy. Maybe more traditional colleges are like this; my college certainly wasn't. We were all drama/orchestra/av club/chess club types and we were all socially awkward together.

Still working on getting over the desire to high pass everything (anything). At this point, I'm high passing nothing (I think).

Realization

"Axilla" is just a fancy word for "armpit." We have two words for armpit (three if you count Aberdeen, Wa) and only one word for love?

Spring class haiku

Too many classes.
Bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, laws, drugs.
I have gained ten pounds.

It's exam week; do you know where your child is?

Little things that make me happy
1. Yesterday, Chris made me an egg and cheese quesadilla. It was fantastic.
2. Chris is getting up early especially so I can practice physical examination skills on him.
3. I thought I needed new underwear, but then Chris and I found like four packages of underwear that mom sent me in August.
4. After my objective clinical skills examination, I think I'll go to the gym for a little while.
5. On Friday at 5 pm, I get to burn my scrubs.
6. It's (near) impossible for me to fail biochem; in theory, I can go to the biochem exam drunk. I won't though.
7. Monday means new classes.

Too much to learn, too little time. Today I forgot the word "nose." Seriously. Yesterday, I forgot the word "pen." Med school makes you dumber. I also occasionally forget how to conjugate verbs in ENGLISH, a language I have spoken since I decided to speak at age 2.

You have a pterygopalatine fossa. Does it make you think of dinosaurs?

We've started making "Silence of the Lambs" jokes in anatomy lab. Does this mean we're nuts?

I've had a disembodied hand in my hair.

1. It's weird to study a condition that you actually have.
2. It's frustrating to figure out how to study for a class just as it's ending. At least I'm passing everything.
3. I wish that it wasn't so difficult to get used to the idea of passing being good enough.
4. I wish I could high pass stuff.

A day in the life...

5:00 am - alarm goes off. I glare at it.
5:03 am - crawl out of bed.
5:03-5:30 am - stare at the internet in an attempt to wake up.
5:30-6:00 am - gather all of my stuff together, wish I had started this earlier. Trip over the cats. Hug Chris, who is still in bed.
6:00 am - leave for school.
6:15-7:30 am - gym time.
7:30-8:00 am - regroup and get ready for class. Breakfast of some sort.
8:00-12:00 - class of some sort. Breaks given every fifty minutes so I can run up and down the stairs.
12:00-1:00 - lunch time, maybe go to a club meeting if I feel ambitious. Usually eat lunch with Matt, Gil, Cathy.
1:00-5:00 pm - classes again. This varies somewhat; sometimes we only have class til three. One day a week, we finish at noon because we have clinical experiences in the afternoon.
5:00-6:00 pm - study, then home time. Unless it's Wednesday, which means I stay at school until 8:00 or 9:00 pm.
6:00-7:00 pm - food with Chris.
7:00-9:00 pm - sometimes studying fits here; other days, Chris and I hang out.
9:00 pm - fully intend upon going to sleep. Watch some tv program with Chris and snuggle.
10:00 pm - really considering sleep at this point. Maybe even brush teeth. Wind up talking to Chris, studying, or watching more tv.
11:00 pm - we both crawl into bed, snuggle, and pass out, thinking that we're going to try to get to sleep earlier tomorrow.

Med school tidbits

In lab, we use the expression "pimp" when someone is pointing to structures on a cadaver and quizzing us relentlessly. Only recently did we learn that, at least according to someone, "pimp" is an acronym for "put me in my place." It's pretty accurate, at any rate.

The other night, we were in lab, studying the pharynx. I have been really working my tail off in anatomy, and so when D pointed to the pharyngeal tonsils, I excitedly named them and mentioned that an inflamed pharyngeal tonsil is called an adenoid. He looked at me like I was insane.
D: That's ridiculous. Don't ever let a clinician hear you say that.
Me: Ok, but Dr. H mentioned this...
D: Well he's wrong.
Me: But it's his class...
D: and as long as you're in it, when he says something you say, "please sir, may I have another." Just remember that he's wrong.

In the next two and a half weeks, I have to:
Take an anatomy practical exam
Take a histology practical exam
Take a clinical skills practical exam
Take an OPP practical exam
Write up a take home exam for medical humanities
Take the epic written block exam of doom
Write up an H&P

...at this very moment, I hate med school.

Random

Chris: so I'm thinking of putting any tax return into an IRA.
Katie: sounds good.
*confused pause*
Katie: what's an IRA?
Chris: it's a retirement fund.

Also, I think I may have accidentally signed up to help run an event. And I found out that I was on a committee yesterday...because one of the committee members came and found me and said, "Yeah, so I wasn't sure if you knew you were on this committee cause you're kind of a free spirit."