Future MD

I've been off Tumblr for the most part these days to post more on Instagram. One of the reasons is that the Taiwanese studygram/medgram community is growing and there is a lot of (more) relevant content to check out. If anyone is interested, feel free to give my instagram a follow. I post in Chinese most of the time, with occasional tidbits in English, and rotate between book reviews/studying/and life in general.

But I still enjoy writing in English. I can write about certain topics more freely and express myself better in English since few people on Tumblr know me in real life. I feel more at home and more in touch with my own thoughts when writing in English.

I've been around since 2013. Looking back, I'm so glad that I've moved on from the 100-hour study week challenge bullshit I used to be into. Grades and academics are no longer my sole focus. As a med student, the amount of material I have to learn has grown exponentially, but there is no longer pressure to score 98%, 99%, 100% on every quiz and exam. Grades are still important, but they will no longer dictate my entire life.

There is room for more. And I am grateful for that.

Yes, I'm still around! But not really on Tumblr anymore-busy trying to graduate med school and publish papers and apply to residencies lol

Vancouver was awesome, Boston was awesome, NYC was awesome. Ended up on the east coast 2 times in 3 months because I actually flew to the states to attend 2 academic conferences there, one of which I presented at, during the semester.

Also got to experience ACR in person in Philadelphia. It was glorious. Rheumatology is awesome. I hope I get to give a full talk there one day. Met up with patient advocates and was very inspired by what they do for our communities.

In other news, I started rituximab December last year and am closer to full remission than I have ever been. Feeling like my old self, almost. My goals for the rest of med school? Do well on TWMLE steps, have fun during clerkship, and hopefully match into PGY+internal medicine at NTUH (my old stomping grounds).

I hope life has been good for all of you. I've been spending more time on instagram (see pinned post for more info) these days and have deliberately been reading more books+writing reviews. My grades also went up a little. Academics-wise, with a 91% average I'm doing ok but am struggling a bit this semester with gross anatomy lab. Very worried about the practical exams. Anatomy isn't my thing.

Also, lately Omicron has been surging here in Taiwan. I actually think it's a good thing because people are learning to live with this milder strain of virus, life is returning to normal (albeit slowly), and hopefully there is some added protection against future variants after infection. Traveling is possible again. I'm planning to visit Vancouver, Boston, and possibly the Bay Area and NYC for 1-2 months this summer.

Currently planning to spend a month in Vancouver attending a summer med program and then either fly directly to Boston to visit a high school friend currently doing her PhD at Harvard, or head down to the Bay Area to visit a professor at Stanford then fly there from SF. I'm thinking about doing a MPH hopefully at HSPH before residency so it'd be nice to check out the campus and hopefully talk to some people if possible before deciding.

This will be my last full summer vacation before starting clerkship (which will take up a part of my summer starting next year) so I intend to make the most out of it.

my dude showed up to cardiology pbl with a whole legit volume of harrison’s internal medicine and proceeded to lead the discussion (ofc) and just shit on everyone who he thinks is wrong

every time I fail to meet my own expectations on an exam

get an answer wrong

or can’t come up with 142178925 differential diagnoses

i feel like I’m going to end up becoming the shittiest doc on earth

We’ve been living in a nice insulated bubble for much of the pandemic and developing our own vaccines, so most of the country is not immunized. Vaccine rollouts have just started gaining momentum and supplies are low. Despite being a immunocompromised medical student, I don’t see my own vaccine appointment happening anytime soon, unfortunately.

So I hauled my ass back home and basically I’ve been out of the apartment only a handful of times over the past 28 days. Also submitted both of my abstracts to two conferences. Hopefully I’ll be fully vaccinated by November, so if I get an invitation to present in-person, I can fly to Los Angeles. But more likely than not, I’ll have to pre record my presentation which is a bummer. I miss traveling. I will gladly sit in a middle seat in economy for the 12 hour flight from Taipei to LAX, if that means I get to travel again.

I had plans to check out some rural hospitals this summer, but under current circumstances that might get cancelled. If that happens, I’ll probably just stay indoors and work on my research paper (to be submitted to journals this year…). Also I joined Taiwan’s federation of medical students so there will be many activities to plan out. If I have extra time I’ll try to go through all of the material we’ve covered so far in med school, because I will be taking step 1 (both USMLE and TWMLE) in 2022-23.

My schedule is more relaxed next semester. I’m debating whether I should apply to a law program at NTU (not a proper law degree, but upon completion you CAN sit the bar exam in Taiwan) for shits and giggles. I don’t know much about law so would like to learn more. Also if I get accepted into the program, I will be able to return to Taipei every week to attend Saturday lectures which is nice. However I am first and foremost a medical student, and I also have research and other extracurricular obligations on the side.

I’ve been really interested in rheumatology ever since I got sick, and it’s really nice being able to give back to this field through research. didn’t want to seem like I'm boasting on my other social media channels (where people actually know who I am), so instead I'm telling you guys. 

Currently I have a couple of projects going on:

Been working with the global rheumatology alliance to translate a covid vaccine survey into Traditional Chinese. It’s almost ready to go live! Yay!

Since the rheumatologists at my school’s hospital aren’t too involved with research, I've teamed up with a couple of hepatologists (and my OWN rheumatologist! How cool is that?) to study the effects of HCV viral clearance and autoimmunity using archived serum from a previous project. So far the results seem to be quite promising, it seems to be the first of its kind, and we’ll be submitting abstracts to AASLD and a couple of Taiwanese GI/rheum conferences. Not even joking I would HAPPILY quarantine for 14 days if that means I get to go and present my research this November in Anaheim, CA. 

Will likely also be submitting a patient perspectives poster for ACR Convergence 2021. The event will be virtual, this isn’t anything scientific, but it’s a poster nonetheless. The more pubs the merrier I guess.

I hate gunners so so much

like ok I guess I’m more ambitious than your average med student, gets involved in a lot of research and extracurriculars, but I for one don’t go around kissing ass, peeking at everyone’s grades, bad mouthing people and being a general pain in the ass

this dude pisses me off SO much and I’m stuck with him on our nurse shadowing rotations (yeah we do this and it’s cool). I’m trying to keep myself from screaming at him every 3 seconds.

Feels like all I do is post these updates nowadays. 3 weeks into the second semester of my second year at med school, and so far it’s going okay (I guess). I finished last semester within the top third of my class but I think I should be able to do better. Granted, my transferred credits from NTU means that I don’t take the “easy” classes for a higher GPA. My school isn’t pass/fail or even uses letter grading. We get 0-100 numerical grades. It is what it is.

Research-wise, we’re trying to deal with dumb logistics issues that should have never been an issue. But I’ve started the writing process, and will hopefully finish and try to publish my paper by the end of this semester. It’s a goal I guess. My PI seems to view me as part of his team, and recruited me to join his HBV nuc cessation meta analysis project along with a few other MDs, which is surprising and very flattering actually. I’m not thinking about going into GI, but the GI dept. at our teaching hospital is pretty good and very research-oriented. It’s a nice learning experience.

I’ve also started working out again. Got a gym membership (there’s this nice little gym at the hospital) and I’m in love with their elliptical. But I do most of my weight training at the dorm gym. I work out 5-6 days a week and hope to keep this up. And I’ve started reading intentionally again, with the goal to finish 50 books by the end of 2021. Currently reading book #14, so we’re on track.

Most Taiwanese medical students rely on the conote system to pass exams and in some cases even use these notes for TWMLE prep.

But we don’t have those bc we’re the charter class and there’s nothing for us to refer to. Even the profs are new. So now I’m using a combination of Lecturio, Anki, USMLE and TWMLE books, in addition to attending lectures religiously. I’m thinking about getting notes from other schools and adding them to my study routine...

One week in and I’m already going to bed at ungodly times (I have other commitments too-being President of the med student association and doing clinical research in addition to academics). Our school is not pass/fail, so every point counts esp since I want to apply for IM residency at the best medical center in Taiwan.

Rural medicine shadowing for two weeks

Hospital shadowing for three days

Science camp for a week

Immunology lab at another university for a week

Helping out at the med camp for high school students

Working on my research project (on hepatitis C and autoimmunity)

Making an orientation package for incoming M1s

Reviewing biochemistry

Got the results for the second semester of M1 back.

I’m 0.13% away from a 90%/A+ average (which is not satisfactory)

But GPA is still a 4.02, and ranking wise I moved one place ahead to 6/25, so not complaining for now.