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.

playing doctor

In an earlier post I mentioned a professor who said we were officially med students once we'd taken our first exam. I disagree - I think the first time we will be medical students is tomorrow. Tomorrow we have our first "SP" - standardized patient. I know, I know - talking to an actor pretending to be a patient does not make me a real doctor. But I've taken exams before - never before have I walked into a room wearing a white coat, asked someone very personal questions, and then examined them.

I think it will be kind of fun. Although I'm certain watching the video of the whole interaction will not be so fun. Tomorrow I get a glimpse of what my life will be like someday - not a classroom, not studying power point slides - interacting with people on a very personal level to figure out what's happening inside their body. Some of my classmates are freaking out because they labelled this an "exam" on the schedule. I'm just excited about being a little closer to becoming a doctor.

Sorry if anyone found this cheesy. I will try to make fun of my sincerity tomorrow.

midterm rant

I don't even want to write about medical school. I just took four exams in five days and I only started studying for one of the exams before this week. It's over now, but I'm still stressed. I've been trying to watch TV but I keep thinking "Wait should I be studying right now?" Because literally that's all I've done for almost the past 2 weeks. I realized one day I studied from 10:30am-6:30pm straight, only pausing once to microwave a lean cuisine. And then I studied while I ate it.

I passed two exams for sure! I guess I should take solace in that. But even that does not feel like a victory, just a relief. I was petrified the whole week of having to retake them. The point is, I learned the following:

1) I hate cramming
2) I need to balance my life better (meaning increase the studying/fun ratio) so that my next round of tests isn't so hellish
3) You know that line that separates sane from insane? None of us are as far from that border as we imagine.
4) I still like my Macbook Pro
5) If you don't have time to go to the grocery store, you should buy almond milk. It doesn't go bad as quickly. And it's tasty.
6) I'm smarter than I've ever given myself credit for.
7) Medical school isn't supposed to be fun all the time (even during first year, all you second years who gave me nostalgic advice). Why did I believe this lie?

And with that, have a good weekend. I know I will!

long time no blogging

I know it's been a long time since I posted. I'm sorry. I knew this would happen, but I'm trying to prevent it by posting now.

Major updates:

1) I passed my first anatomy exam! Yay. As we were walking out of the exam, one of the professors said "You are now officially medical students." I thought "I want to take a nap."
2) My birthday was awesome. I am now a year older and grateful for my amazing friends and family. I wish I could go on about how much my new medical school friends and my old faithful friends impressed me with their love and generosity, but that would get mushy... Suffice it to say that while medical school/life gets challenging sometimes, my birthday reminded me what an amazing support system I have.
3) I have four exams this week. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And I have procrastinated studying for every single one of them way more than I should have. But what's done is done - I had fun over the past couple of months, and now I will scramble to study for what seems like forever. All I can do is plan to be more forward-thinking in the future. I will still pass (cross your fingers) and I will not have a melt-down (cross your other hand's fingers).

Don't worry, I'm just being (a little) dramatic. P = MD!