First year DONE

I just wanted to put a post up informing you guys that I finished my first year successfully... I have passed all 9 subjects and will continue onto 2nd year in September. Have a great summer!

You know you're a med student when...

1. The must unlikely things can be pretty. Like a cadaveric tendon.

2. Running up and down the stairs and using a stethoscope to track changes in heart rate is so much fun.

3. PCR using your own DNA is fun! And exciting!

4. You have heard of Netter, Sobotta, and countless other anatomy athlas artists and have a personal preference.

5. You spend Christmas eve studying.

6. You don't draw or doodle when you're bored, you review the arteries of the arm.

7. You constantly feel guilty about not studying more, and this feeling doesn't go away no matter what you do.

8. Spending a day at the hospital is something you actually enjoy, unlike most people.

9. There is always something to study. Even in September before classes have even begun.

10. You're disappointed when others don't share your enthusiasm for new medical discoveries and little known facts. In fact, you're surprised when others don't want to hear about what happened in the dissection lab today.

11. Medical terms start creeping into your conversations. You haven't been thirsty all day, you've had polydipsia. You didn't have a nosebleed, you had epistaxis.

Halfway through the week

Right now, Wednesdays are truly the worst days. They are long and they require a lot of work beforehand.

Today was a particularly hard day. I was up by 7, took a quick shower and soon left to go do the written driving test (I think / hope I did okay, should know soon). Then I rushed to university for histology at 11.

I actually enjoy histology. We do the class with microscopes and do theory for the first hour or so and then we each get a slide to take a look at. We're also supposed to take pictures for projects. There is something so special about that instant when you get the focus just right and it is amazing to be seeing something actually so small as something large and real and colorful. I know, I know, it's not naturally that color.

Then I had a quick lunch (potato omlette sandwich) and off to biochemistry and then to anatomy. I am so glad that I already know a lot of anatomy from last year and don't have to learn this for the first time now, as most of my peers do. I can remember the feeling of despair that I would never remember so many things. It's true, I don't remember everything, but I do remember much more than I ever thought I would be able to memorize.

Biochemistry, on the other hand... partly I don't understand it and partly I don't understand why we need to know so much of it. I sure hope I can just pass it and forget it forever. I've heard no doctor actually remembers any of it. Well, hopefully someday I'll know if that's true!

Hours of sleep last night: 3 hours and 45 minutes (ouch ouch!!)

This week

Blissful Med Student is not so blissful right now. After five hours finishing an anatomy project I am left cramming for my written driving test for who knows how much longer, with prospects of 7 hours at university tomorrow and exhaustion hanging over my head all day long. Not to mention, the written driving test itself bright and early tomorrow morning.
I guess I should get used to this feeling of never managing to catch up.
I have a 4-day weekend after this, though, so maybe there is hope for that after all.
Hours of sleep last night: 7. (the real question is... hours of sleep tonight??)

Beginning of another week

Somehow, beginning another week doesn't seem like quite as awful this time. That is because we have a long week end (4 days) next week so whatever doesn't get done now definitely will in the near future. Because, don't be fooled: an extra two days in a weekend doesn't mean we medical students get a break. It just means we have more time to study and more projects from teachers who know we have more time.
The infamous thought that I believe almost every teacher I've had has: "I think this is the only subject my students take" is most certainly true here.
Nonetheless, I press on. I really do enjoy it, most of the time.
Here's something I don't enjoy: teachers unable to finish sentences, to finish thoughts, to build a coherent lecture. I am having so much more trouble than I should trying to understand embriology.
Thankfully, that is definitely not the case for Anatomy, with a fantastic teacher who, unfortunately, likes to give surprise exams. Not that, ahem, that has ever happened. Ever. And most certainly not today.

Hours of sleep yesterday: 6.

Friday

You would think that Fridays are the best days of the week. Well, maybe for people studying other degrees (or majors) they are. For us poor medical students- and I'm using the adjective loosely considering that I couldn't be happier- not as much.
Oh, there are parties, of course. Thursdays and Fridays. Coupled, naturally, with studying and trying to get up to date with every single subject- an impossible feat. I don't actually go to the parties, but I do try to watch a movie or something to unwind on Friday nights. Today I went out for dinner with my two closest friends from university. I ate an entire pizza! Boy, was it good.
Today in class we did the cranium in Anatomy and we discussed a clinical case about muscular dystrophy in Biochemistry. For the first time, I took my laptop to class to take notes and I think I'm going to be doing that more often. Sure, my shoulders are killing me from the extra weight, but I took much faster notes and I avoided wasting time trying to understand those notes later and typing them up. Not to mention saving a few trees. A win-win situation, to be sure.
Our anatomy teacher forgot that he was supposed to be teaching class, apparently, because all he did was read the power point presentation out loud and correct the mistakes on it. Not very helpful at all. Thankfully, my dear friend Frank Netter will hopefully help me understand all of the structures later.
The other crazy thing I'm doing right now, as though medicine weren't enough, is trying to get my driving license. I have to take the written test next Wednesday. I am really hating preparing for that, there are so many possible questions that it seems impossible to pass. But this, too (and please disregard my awful pun), shall pass.

Hours of sleep last night: 8. Yes, I am impressed too.

Thursday

There's something about thursdays. The weekend is so close you can almost feel it. Last weekend seems like ages ago. You are way behind in all of the studying you planned to do this week- although this happens pretty much every day, not just Thursdays- and in my case, you have the much dreaded biochemistry class.

Interestingly enough, it was not as unbearable as usual. Today the teacher was telling us about the importance of proteins in the body. I stopped counting hairs on the person in front of me- just kidding, I wasn't actually doing that- and I paid attention. For the first time probably in history, I understood and could imagine what he was saying. It was like a tiny youtube inside my head, inoperative for so many years, had finally begun its activity and played a little video of an aminoacid in the glucolysis cycle.

And now that I'm writing it down, and trying to make it sound more poetic than it actually was, I realize that is very, very cheesy. Forgive me: it's 11:30 pm.

Hours of sleep last night: 7 (win!)