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
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