Eve of the First Final (aka Common)

It isn't Thursday yet, and here I am posting.... Tuesday was the last day of Trunk anatomy (which is the chest, abdomen, and between the belly button and hoo-ha, for those who don't know). It was also the first day of my non-medical selective "Take Two Poems & Call Me in the Morning." They suggest journal-ing/blogging daily, so here I am. Where was my post last night, you ask? I decided my evening break should be a movie and watched Rio (thanks to my awesome roommate)! A samba dancing blue macaw was just the vivacious, spirit touching relief I needed. In my class Take 2 Poems, we also discussed writing as both a creative outlet and a reflective process for empathy and remaining "human." Statistically, each year of medical school and residency reduces the amount of empathy felt for one's patients. Sad. I chose this giant undertaking because I love people, and I hope that doesn't change. 2 Poems was a great respite from pelvis/perineum/genitalia dissection studies (I know waaaay to much about genitalia now). We read and responded to a piece about a chameleon.  I can't decide if I am or am not like a chameleon. Any thoughts?- I may revisit that idea later this weekend.
     As for today's thought: "When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps" ~Confuscius. "They" try to tell us this at medical school, but it gets lost between the "do well"/"maintain balance" mantras that always seem to contradict each other. I can only be me. My biggest competition has to be me. I need to learn that not getting an A, or even B for that matter, is not only ok, but great. I am still the smart, over active, capable, achievement oriented woman I always have been, I'm just framed slightly differently. It reminds me of when people whose whole identity is tied up in their job and then they retire/can't work and are lost and don't know "who" they are any more. I cannot be that person. I am more than a (medical) student, more than a nerd. I am an artist, a Christian, an athlete, a friend, and grand snuggler of puppies. I am a fighter, a food lover, a movie goer, a shopaholic, a volleyball addict. I am still me. So I will NOT adjust the goal, but I will adjust how to achieve MD. As the first final of medical school tomorrow is approaching, I am still me, sitting on my comfy couch, sandwiched between Diego and Rico, with a reeses wrapper staring at me. So my final thoughts for the night are: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot learn or cram into my brain, the courage to remember and be confident in the things I can learn, and the wisdom to know the difference. 70% is attainable. 100% is 30% too much. Keep Calm and Carry on!

When a Week seems like a year....

     More than a week has gone by, and yet it seems like it has been  months or even a year. To recap -
Last Sunday I succesffully memorized 27 pages of study guide to rock my lecture exam. However, that did not transfer over to the lab exam that I nearly failed. Spending time with my cadaver for hours on end just isn't my thing. While I am so grateful to learn from her body, after about 3 hours the smell makes me loopy and I can't focus. There's also this fine line between learning from others/being overwhelmed when there are too many people in there and the creepiness of being in the cadaver lab alone late at night..... Needless to say, that day I drank my weight in beer at lunch (thank you Zolas for $5 lunches and $1 beers!!!!). The battle may have been lost, but I'm in medical school to win the war! :D So I went and played some of the best sand volleyball of my life on Monday night. I love when jumping doesn't hurt and my shoulder functions correctly. :D
     Tuesday started my new "not going to lecture" study schedule which I think is helping. Wednesday was supposed to be my "new" study late in the day in the cadaver lab, but does my life go according to plan, of course not, I'm a Newton. Went for a jog with the boys at Franklin Park, go to leave and my car won't start. AWESOME. While I'm trying to figure out if I can jump my car or not, a guy I play volleyball with walks by with his 8 glorious offspring. Andy House - you are my hero. His truck jumped my car and he and his brood followed me to Shucks auto parts (which sucks btw - 3rd time I've gone to them and they swear my battery is ok, NOT!). After that, my Roomie B shows up to save the day and kill time with me while I wait for a tow truck. After wasting 3 hours, I had to eat some grub and didn't feel like Formaldehyde smelled like a good option at 11pm.  BLURGH! Wasted Wednesday sadly did not mean from alcohol. :$
     Thursday, however, I rocked lab, felt prepared for my second Lab Exam in one week, and studied 4 hours and decided to get some sleep.... WRONG IDEA - only did mediocre on the Friday lab exam?! I have mixed feelings about this. I feel embarrassed that I was significantly below the class average, but yet they preach everyday that 100% is 30% too much for the pass/fail system. So on a positive note I passed, I got 8 hours of glorious sleep, and I didn't spend any extra time smelling formaldehyde.... Does this make me complacent? Why settle for mediocrity when you can for greatness? This haunts me. However, I had a life that night, watched some tv, and slept.... ? Conundrum. Secretly I care more than that but working on finding the balance. I feel like it is this black cloud that I did lower than the class (although I didn't feel significantly better when I smoked the class average on my lecture exam), do i keep my shame a secret? do i care? I feel like I let down one of my profs, but am finding balance.... I'm sure I'll figure it out.... long after I finish school. HAHA. Well the good thing is the clock never stops and Friday continued on. I worked Friday afternoon even and succesfully did some taxes etc. I rewarded myself with a night at Big Als. There's nothing like drinking from a pitcher being surrounded by hot cowboys to get one out of the funk. I danced my booty off (who knew swing dancing was so fun?), and had a great night with new and long time friends.
     Saturday continued the therapy session with getting pretty at MAC, buying some make-up, and of course feeding my addiction (and if you know me you know what kind of retail therapy I indulge in). I also stumbled into Williams Sonoma (which I know to avoid, but it calls to me) found too many cool things, then randomly decided to go to Sports Authority to buy a recumbent bike.... Studying makes me sleepy so riding the bike should ensure no more random napping while doing homework. Saturday capped off with a chatty dinner with a friend and off to bed early! Yay for sleeping! Sunday came and made me realize that 3 weeks ago before medical school started I had a clean house. I couldn't handle it and didn't want to study anyways so I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.... While many of the Docs tell me I will never have a clean house ever again in school/residency, I couldn't handle it. I knew I had about 6 hours minimum of homework to catch up and 2-4 more if I wanted to get ahead. Well sure enough I studied 4-6, 9-1, funny thats 6 hours that I planned on, but no time to work ahead tho :( BLURGH.... Well Trunk Anatomy/Embryology will be over this week - the FINAL in class is on Thursday. I need to focus. I need to touch a volleyball. I need to life some weights. I need to cuddle some puppies. AND I need to stop having wandering thoughts... FOCUS Back to peer pressure studying, n back to another week at the grind. keep calm and carry on. Until Thursday y'all. :D

Week Recap

Monday afternoon I met my cadaver. She's pretty good to me/my group. I am very blessed to have a a great dissection team. I hated team/group projects in undergrad, however in medical school everyone is an overachiever or they wouldn't be here, so it's not so bad. We share the cutting, the reading, the writing, the stress, the successes, and the failures. As the week went on dissection was increasingly frustrating. I enjoyed the cutting and digging (not the suctioning though) until we got deeper. Using a bone saw was epic, it made my day actually.... until we found the cancer. My cadaver had a serious case of tumors, eating through almost every dissection I was scheduled to work on this week. Hence, the learning part of lab became very frustrating for me.  Something completely out of my hands. I wonder how that would be as a surgeon, opening someone up and finding more than you expected, something inoperable, unfixable, a death sentence. My "patient" is already passed, I cannot imagine the defeat one must feel when you go in to fix someone and come out telling them you couldn't, that you were incapable. Or worse, telling their family.
    Lectures got progressively harder throughout the week too. We cover about a normal week's worth of undergrad per day. That part is alright. It's the complexity of the information that is hard to grasp. And my current vent is I HATE EMBRYOLOGY! Anatomy is great! I could care less how we developed from a 2 celled organism to 16 cells through blastocyst and gastrulation and more. I'm having a hard time grasping how it will help me in future. I'm sure on the other end I may feel differently about it.
    Changing one's study habits or plan in one day put's you one "week" behind for every day you changed your mind. Changing my mind on Tuesday put me behind... a lot. I skipped my first lecture and survived. Well - I guess that verdict won't be true until Monday afternoon.  This week included being interviewed for Spokane Medical  Education, choosing which non-clinical electives I want to add to 26 credits, and running for MSA Spokane President. More to come on all of that as it happens.
   September 23, 2011, 630-830pm, I will receive my white coat and stethoscope. If you want to attend the ceremony or a private dinner with my family/friends before, I need to know by 9/15/11. :)
   Monday is the first lecture exam and lab exam. Each are worth 15% of my grade. I haven't slept in days. I don't know when I will ever get to sleep again. This is supposed to be the easiest semester of medical school. I'm actually loving the block format and more worried about when they throw 4 science classes at me along with a preceptorship, and 3 non-clinical electives.... THAT will be interesting. I did, however, take 2 nights off this week and am still surviving. Playing volleyball was glorious, and I even studied a bit at the bar (and started a trend of it too)! Figuring out how to have a life (since they tell us daily it is possible) and exercise and study and be successful is still beyond my grasp but I'm sure I'll figure it out, I always do. My laptop says "Keep Calm and Cary On" - my mantra from now on. As I sit here after studying nearly 14 hours today, I do not feel like I am any farther than yesterday. Tomorrow I will attempt to memorize my 27 page study guide, and review lab dissections. Another long day. Another day closer to Amy Newton, MD. :D

The first "real" day of lecture

Class on Friday was just like my MBA - smooth sailing. Saturday river raft/team building was.... eventful (picture flying squirrels with water guns). Saturday night bar hopping was a blast. Med students know how to party, people. After dancing the night away, taking multiple shots, and finding a lost intoxicated comrade wandering Spokane, it's safe to say I will survive school :D. Sunday BBQ with upper classmates and profs proves that everyone survives (they even had beer!). But settling down into reality last night was a shock. While I knew 76 pages was going to take me a couple hours, I was ready for it. And then when you open page one and it lists about 75 MORE pages of SUGGESTED reading, I was ready to punch someone. I can handle 150 pages, if I know it's coming! Sheesh! Won't be surprised again. However, reviewed successfully and felt prepared for class. The only hindrance is my nightmare from last night: I dreamt I dissected too far and accidentally threw out important nerves, with my prof chasing me down the halls, telling me I failed the lab. Woke up today and reviewed some dissections.... Now off to actually try it.... Hopefully my cadaver is good to me! She will get to see me more than anyone else will! Will post after, if I'm feeling up to it!

How Far I've Come

Starting with a head concussion at age 4, I have been quite accident prone. From breaking my back and tearing several tendons and ligaments to having multiple tonsillectomies, I have had my fair share of interactions with physicians. Growing up I did not want to deal with people and thought maybe I should be an equine vet. Quickly, that changed in HS due to my biology teacher Mr. Miedema. He challenged me, led me to new research and got my excitement focused on human medicine and genetics. This continued through college. I began as a Biology major and finished with Biology, art, Spanish, and an MBA. I saw a beautiful blending of my three undergraduate majors; working with Central and South Americans on projects like Operation Smile - speaking Spanish while being a physician with an artist's eye for aesthetics and sculptural 3D thinking. My MBA hoping to make changes for the current/future Hispanic health care issues. I could not get to where I am today without my awesome mentors. They each shaped me and gave me memorable advice. My family is my anchor, my friends are my treasure, and my faith is my guiding/steering wheel.

I was apprehensive to the people I would be entering in class with. I have never been a "gunner" or fit in with the "science" kids. Monday, however, changed that. I set up a happy hour with some of the class and was immediately relieved. They were my kind of peeps! Entering orientation Thursday also calmed some of my fears. The school is there to help. Yes, medical school will be hard. They throw a lot of information at us very fast. They liken it from trying to drink out of a fire hose. Either way it will be hard. But under the hottest fires I seem to do ok. 28 credits this fall will only be 7-9 more than I took in undergrad. Bring it on! Looking back on the past 26 years of my life, this is definitely not the path I foresaw. But The Big Man has a plan and I know I'm exactly where I am supposed to be.