First, a side note: When I created this blog, I promised myself that I would NOT write a single entry about my day to day events. Frankly, it's a little egotistical and boring. Instead, I would share stories, special experiences, interesting articles and whatever else not involving the day to day updates. But, I am just entering medical school and since it is a once-in-my-lifetime event, I will share you a bit of day to day happenings.
I've been attending orientation for the past week. This means an 8am-4pm activity time which includes lectures by the deans and medical student panels to pump us up, tours, and activities to make us crack our shells. Every day, there are also optional social events afterward from usually 5:30pmish to the night. The other night, I stayed on campus from 7:30am-5:30pm and then headed to the beach until 9pm. All for orientation events and socials. So far it's been overwhelming, interesting, fun and exhausting.
On the first day, the medical students and staff surprised us by giving us a tour of the new 70 million dollar medical building ( 35 million dollar over budget). It is BEAUTIFUL and completely surprising to me since I have not stepped on campus for over a year. Some of the highlights are:
1. Our lecture hall is about one thousand times nicer than any place we took classes in the undergraduate campus. Each student has a desk similar to that of the senators in Washington D.C. They are all wooden, and spacious with brand new office chairs and include a personal lamp in case we need more light. The room is like a massive opera house with reverberating acoustics.
2. The practice operation room inside the building includes new state-of-the-art equipment including a micro-optic camera, and all of the technology necessary for laperoscopic (key-hole) surgery. The technician said they will probably bring in live pigs to do operations.
3. Our patient simulation room where we take physical exams and do patient interviews is also brand spanking new. There is also a sliding computer that is built into the wall outside of the room that is height adjustable. They said we could log into our account to begin a video inside the room, then practice our verbal tests, and watch ourselves later at home. Pretty advanced if you ask me.
4. The entire building is OURS for studying. We are the only ones with access to it which of course makes us feel special.
They also told us that they are doubling the number of available spots for the Free Clinic Project at UCSD. Our free clinic is nationally acclaimed, but the number of spots to work in as 1st years is usually very limited. The 2nd year medical students rave about their experiences at the free clinic so I’m getting excited about that.
We have 125 students in our class. It’s been very fun and a little overwhelming getting to know all of them in this past week. The questions of “where are you from?” “Where are you living?” “And what did you do in your year off?” continue to run off the tongue from everyone. So in a way it feels like going to college all over again, but the students are far more interesting. Most of them took time off between now and undergrad and traveled, worked, did Teach for America, a fulbright or some other unusual activity. One student worked in presidential secret service for around 10 years. Another helped win the NCAA national volleyball championships. One of our students is a woman with three children, the oldest of which is 13. Another guy grew up in Puerto Rico and did his undergrad there too. Overall, the class is on average 23, claims residency in California and did their undergrad at UCSD. Wait...I’m 23, A CA resident, and a Triton Alum. Guess I’m not such an oddball after all.
Probably, the most eventful day of our week-long orientation was the blood draw session. I always thought they would have us practice sticking bananas or some synthetic skin before poking patients. Turns out we had to be guinea pigs for each other :-o So with a 21 gauge needle and a shaky, novice hand, each student carefully stabbed his partner’s cubital fossa vein. Usually saying something like “Sorry, Sorry” when things did not go right. It’s a simple procedure, but requires gauging your speed. Poking too slow means more pain for the patient and going to fast could mean puncturing through both layers of the vein. To add a challenge, we had to keep the needle stationary in the vein while pushing a suction tube into the back of it. That meant pulling with one hand and pushing with the other and often times pushing the needle further in, or removing it completely. All said and done, we made it through and I walked away with a band aid on each arm.
Class starts Tuesday and the new curriculum includes 4 hours a week of a new approach called Problem Based Learning (PBL). PBL means more group discussions and application of what we learn in lectures to real life cases. It takes a bit more Sherlock Holmes mystery, but studies show that you will learn better when you can apply and relate to it. I’ve never been a fan of group work, but I think this could be ok. I will definitely make us more accountable and space out less.
Time will tell....
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