ballet

Today I took my first ballet class in... too long. Now I just feel high on life. Maybe it's the endorphins, maybe it's the reality, but even though I know my body will be aching tomorrow, I don't care.

I am so fortunate to have the wealth, health, ability, and friends to motivate me to do something I love. To do something purely for the enjoyment of doing it. I'm glad I didn't wait too long to go back to dance - something I have loved for such a long time.

Even though I was told going in to med school that I should hold on to my passions to keep my sanity, I think I took that too lightly. I'm glad I didn't learn my lesson too late - at least I was able to walk out of class in one piece today! Do the stuff you love. Even if it's annoying to schedule. Even if you don't know how you could possibly fit it in. Do it. You'll thank yourself later.

My calves may not be thanking me right now, but my sanity sure is.

want to lose your appetite?

Some things I learned in medical school this week:

1) If you're a medical student, be warned: you may be shown gross videos at any time, without warning.

People must think we signed up for this or something. Therefore, one day you may walk into your microbes afternoon lecture, unsuspecting, thinking you're going to see some cute pictures of bacteria or viruses, but no - instead you are treated to a 5-minute long video of a foot debridement. What's debridement, you ask? You really don't want to know, but since you're reading my blog, you must be expecting this just as much as I was - debridement is when you cut infected flesh to squeeze out all the pus and scrape away as much of the festering flesh as possible. Repeat that image, five times slow. And the foot just gets more misshapen and festering. And the lecturer just keeps lecturing. Most of the class is looking away, taking glances that just get worse and worse. A few are ogling the screen with what I would describe as unadulterated interest. C'mon people. This stuff is gross.

What's worse is that I know I will have to do it. In real life. With real smells. I think I just threw up in my mouth. But ugh, does that really mean I have to watch it now??

2) Please, please, please America. Stop getting fat. Obesity is a vicious cycle that not only causes medical problems, but makes them harder to treat. Again, my unsuspecting medical student mind expected to zone out a little during a lecture on the mechanics of respiratory ventilation and sleep. Instead, I watched this video with almost as much horror:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

I don't mean to go on a soapbox. I know how hard it is to avoid eating all the amazingly tempting foods we have available to us. But if I've learned nothing else so far this year - becoming obese is one of the worst risk factors for ill health. Ok, I have to stop writing. I need to go to the gym or something.

1/8 MD

And a new semester begins! I guess I shouldn't technically call it a semester, because we technically have two "blocks" this spring, one going to the end of March, and then a second in April and May. We are now done with Anatomy and Biochemistry, and in place of those two classes, we now have Immunology, Microbiology, and Genetics. Physiology, Histology, and Practice of Medicine continue.

I guess they thought we weren't busy enough last semester.

So with the new year I say farewell to having Wednesday and Friday afternoons free (if "free" means studying). I guess I shouldn't complain too much, however, because I am sitting in class right now, blogging. Sometimes I take class time to ponder whether sitting in class helps me at all - today, we were regaled with a 15 minute analogy comparing Pokemon to microbes. All I learned was which of my classmates to tease about their childhood (or perhaps current) activities...

I'm not really one for New Year's resolutions, but I do hope to improve some basic life skills. Like flossing every day. Cooking dinner on the stove (instead of the microwave) and making it to the grocery store at least once a week. Exercising a few times per week. Oh yeah, and maybe studying a little.

P's and pig labs

Yesterday was a big day. I took (and passed!) my last anatomy exam. So, I have completed my first medical school class, with a P! Woohoo! Doesn't quite have the same ring as an A, does it? (Or a B+ in a class I was really struggling with...) I think the pass/fail system for medical school is a tricky thing. It messes with my motivations. I thought coming from 17 years of being graded, it would be a relief not to care - but oh wait - I still do. Except I'm also lazy. Ok so anyway, big day yesterday.

In the afternoon, I got to go to an OB/GYN residents' laproscopic surgery training session. I phrase it like that first for all my friends who are animal lovers - yes, we did operate on live pigs under anesthesia. But the instruments were so amazing - they use vibration and heat and other amazing technologies to cut tissue in the least invasive way possible. The residents got to practice tying sutures inside of a body and doing a hysterectomy (I got to hold the camera!). It is also amazing how bloodless the surgery was - you basically only cut through completely avascular tissue to remove the uterus. While standing there observing for three hours, it struck me how different my life will be when I'm an actual doctor. Sometimes I get worried when I am so sick of all the studying and feel like I can't do this anymore - I am so glad I have opportunities to participate in amazing things like this surgery to keep my drive going. I won't be able to make it through if I allow myself to forget the end goal. Or if I simply forget how awesome the end goal is. I won't spend the rest of my life sitting in lecture and reading textbooks. Thank goodness.

honestly

So, I realized that lately I haven't been blogging that much, but everything I've written is super cheerful and hopeful. I think maybe my blogging hasn't been so honest. I tend to do that when I'm struggling - act super cheery and only talk about the positive stuff, and just leave out the stuff I don't really like. To be honest, there's a lot of stuff I don't like:

1) Doing laundry. I know, everybody hates this one, but I am never home. My roommate can attest to it - sometimes we go days without seeing each other because I leave at 8am and tend to get back around 11pm. And the occasional evening I take off, I don't want my vegetative state in front of the television to be interrupted by trips to the laundry machines with the huge amounts of laundry I accumulate. Most weekends I feel guilty if I don't spend the entire afternoon (at minimum) at school studying.

2) My basic science classes. Let's face it - I've never liked biochemistry or histology - but I have always enjoyed physiology, and I even hate that class at my school. The class is taught so poorly that I often can't bear to go to lecture. I feel like I have to teach myself everything and it's really, really hard to motivate myself to do so. Uninteresting, poorly taught material + an enormous amount of said material + friends that are fun to hang out with = Chelsea has trouble concentrating. Which basically makes me feel constantly guilty and like failure is looming over my head unless I get my act together.

3) The fact that everyone is constantly telling me I will forget everything I just bemoaned having to learn in #2. Oh wait, maybe I should just add this to the "why Chelsea is both unmotivated and guilty" equation.

4) The stuff I actually care to learn, stuff I will use in my future life, like physical exam skills, I barely spend any time on. Because the "Practice of Medicine" class is the least intense, I feel like allowing myself the luxury of reading the material for that class means I'm taking away precious studying time from my harder classes. Which is sad, but true.

5) I want so badly to know how to balance everything in my life, but I just can't seem to find a way yet. Hopefully eventually I will, but I know the next few years of my life involve a constantly changing schedule that I don't know whether I'll ever be able to strike the right balance.

So that's what med school is really like for me right now. There are definitely enough times when I do something and get really excited about becoming a doctor. Those moments are what get me through and let me know that medical school will be worth it. I think this year is just more of a struggle because it's not where my strengths lie, but many of my classmates are geniuses at this basic science stuff. Well, that's enough complaining for now. Hopefully it wasn't to painful to read (well you could have stopped reading, no one's making you...)

home visit

Last week, we were required to do a "home visit." We were assigned in groups of three to visit someone who has a chronic illness or cancer. I admit, I was a little anxious about it. We drove out of the city to a nursing home in a small town. We had to go into a woman's home and ask her questions not only about her illnesses, but how she perceives doctors and how she feels about our health care system. 

I am so glad I was required to do this, because otherwise I might not have been able to overcome my anxiety and speak with a lovely 87-year-old woman who was so positive and inspiring. Even with weakness in her legs, she still walks one mile every day. She worked as a minister for a long time, and now she paints and writes and makes sure to help other people. 

Her view of doctors is something I often forget to think about. She spoke about how growing up, doctors would just stop by the house if you fell and thought you hurt yourself. Doctors were her friends. Now, she said, doctors say "I'll meet you at the emergency room." If she calls her doctor the day after an appointment with a question she forgot to ask, the doctor doesn't have time to talk to her. She told us we need to "train our patients" so that they know how to help us help them. 

In some ways, I wanted to say that doctors aren't any better than other people. Doctors are flawed too. But sometimes I think much more is expected of us than other people. I don't really like the idolization that sometimes surrounds doctors. But at the same time, it reminds me of the enormous responsibility I will carry some day. Hopefully, with the advice of this woman and many other people who know much more than I do, I will be able to live up to that responsibility. 

search for a specialty

"I'm a medical student."

"Oh that's so cool! Do you know what specialty you want to do?"

The automatic question. Maybe I could legitimately be annoyed if it wasn't a question I am passively debating myself. Not that I feel any pressure to decide, but it's something I contemplate every time I am exposed to a new medical setting. This week, I shadowed a pediatrician as part of a primary care preceptorship. I'll meet with him two more times this year. The basic point is to expose us to primary care (the majority of medical practice) and to give us an opportunity to practice basic history and physical exam skills. 

I think I am never going to be able to decide my specialty, because I wind up enjoying each specialty I shadow. I thought I would hate general pediatrics, because I like happy kids, but I really don't like crying, sick kids. I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting and challenging I found pediatrics to be. When you take an adult family and social history, you ask almost the same questions for everyone. You do a similar exam on most people. But kids are changing so rapidly - a 15-month-old's physical is different than a 2-year-old's and then different than a 5-year-old's. You have to know developmental milestones for all ages. You have to know how to give parenting advice. You have to be able to diagnose a patient who can't or won't speak to you about their problems. In many ways, pediatric medicine can be more challenging than adult medicine. On the other hand, kids are just pretty awesome. If I become an adult doctor, I'll never get to "listen" to a stuffed giraffe's heart. 

I didn't think I would like it, but I did. I think that may continue to be a problem as I have more experiences with different specialties. This is going to be a harder decision than I thought. Oh well, at least I know that I would enjoy doing many different things, which is the best place to be, really.