Medschool Positive

I spent the first two years of med school waiting for the third. This was definitely going to be my year! You know, more hospital action and less studying for exams. Well, I got the first part right, I'm in the hospital daily, but I underestimated the amount of studying that we need to get done *on top* of being in the hospital all day long. Let's see what this week brings! 

As I experience my first few months in clinic as a third year student, I am reminded of a recurring theme in medschool: we are not kind enough. We really aren't, and it is really disappointing. I am still a medical student striving to help people in need, people who are struggling with situations that I will most likely *never* have the misfortune of experimenting in my own skin. I will see and help treat people with every cancer in the book, but it is impossible that I get personally afflicted by all, yet I am being trained to help them in whatever way possible to get better and, if all else fails, at least to help them feel better for however long they remain in this world. Still, I see so much competition between my classmates, the culture is one of being ahead of everyone else and not one of lifting each other up. Medschool is so, so tough, and it only gets worse when people around you are more than capable to help, but they'd rather keep to themselves, so as to weed out possible competition. So I ask you this: If you are capable of recognizing the need in someone who's going through THE EXACT SAME THING you are and can't find it in your heart to help them, how do you possibly think you can see someone on their deathbeds and have the empathy, the kindness to care for them? I'll answer that one for you, you don't. You're just not kind enough and you're possibly in this field for all the wrong reasons.

Super quick post because, you know, medschool... But, do you guys get a lot of assigned material to study at home? As in, we will not be giving you this super complicated pharmacology lecture on anesthetics, here's a 90-slide powerpoint that hopefully sums up these 100 pages of the text for autostudy. We recently had hurricane Irma hitting PR (we were super lucky we had no major damages) but we got 1/3 of the exam material assigned to study on our own, while we had no power or internet and were preparing for a hurracane to hit. I'm beyond pissed at this...

Here's a little notability doodle that sums up my life right now.

Hope your school has a little more heart than mine.

✌🏼

I’d like to begin with a disclaimer: I am not the student who “dreamt of being a Dr before I could even talk” (or even all the way through college)… It took me 7 years after I graduated to even consider studying medicine. So, when I started school I, (1) didn’t know anyone -all my friends who wanted to go to medical school were already doctors- (2) didn’t know anything or what to expect (3) I had just moved to another country to study after spending the last 7 years somewhere else. Maybe some of the things you find here are super obvious to you, but I honestly would’ve loved to know them before I started and not catch up little by little as time went by. So, in no particular order, here it is:

1- Medschool is SUPER hard and it’s OK to get scores that are far from perfect. Even if you were top of the class as an undergrad, trust me, if you’re not Acing medical school that DOES NOT BY ANY MEANS equate to you being stupid.

2. Whatever study habits you had as an undergrad are most likely not going to work here. There’s just not enough time to really digest all the information in the way that used to work before

3. USE REVIEW BOOKS I really wish someone would’ve told me that those Board Review Books are not just for boards, they are an excellent source of itemized information that will help you consolidate aspects that are really high yield. It’s not *all* the info you need to know, but they’re a great way to make sure you didn’t miss the important stuff. Books that I absolutely recommend and saved my butt:

- Anatomy lab-> Color Atlas of Anatomy by Rohen & Yokoshi

- Neuroscience-> High Yield Neuroanatomy  by Douglas J Gould ; USMLE Roadmap Neuroscience by James S White

- Anatomy, Embryology & Biochemistry-> Lippincott’s Q&A Review There are several books, one for each discipline and they’re great for practice questions

- Physiology-> Medical Physiology by Guyton & Hall (great for practice questions) and what everyone and their momma’s use (because it’s great) Linda S. Constanzo’s Physiology 

- Basically every class-> Board Review Series (BRS) great for reviewing, but questions are a bit too simple & First Aid (aka the bible)

4. DO PRACTICE QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU KNOW ALL THE MATERIAL!!!! I can’t stress this enough. Doing those questions even when you won’t know basically any answers will show you how you need to be approaching the material. Especially during anatomy, a least in my case, classes were very descriptive and exam questions took an entirely different approach, and I would’ve known this if I had bothered to do practice questions instead of drowning in a sea of Netter’s cards

5. Study EVERY DAY and don’t trick yourself into thinking that you can “catch up” during the weekend.

And I can't wait!!!!! End of first year reflection coming soon. For now, I need to try to give whatever I have left for my 3 exams + 2 quizzes + 1 oral presentation + 2 essays next week. Let's do this Sh*t

Neuro has me like…. But First year is ALMOST OVER 🙌🏼🎉 Countdown to a little over a month to some very well deserved vacation time 😎☀️🌊🍹

MD: How can I help you today?

Me: Shooting pain down my coccyx, sleep deprived, heart palpitations at rest, mood swings, no social life

MD: I see, when did this start?

Me: Medschool...

MD: *saggy-eyed, granola bar in pocket of coffe-stained white coat yawns* It will get better..

Summer is coming 😎👙☀️🍹 Almost done with the current Anato-Histo-Embryo-Physio block, then there's Neuro and Behavioral on the way, but who's counting?

It's head and neck block for me! Equal parts interesting and way too much! Let's do this 💪🏼💪🏼