The Medical School Mini-Rant

“Too much of a good thing is never a good thing.”

Let’s just say the past two weeks has been nothing short of spectacular. But like almost every week in medical school, it’s been a sustained, almost enslaving spectacular that makes liberation frighteningly revitalizing. I’ll explain.

Over the past two weeks, I’m convinced I’ve done, seen and learned more than the average person does in months. I saw multiple patients at the free clinic one night, then gave a tour of it the next. I shadowed a cardiologist and saw an EKG of a patient on the brink of a heart attack. I interviewed a pregnant actress who experienced physical abuse. I’ve memorized almost 45 drugs and their mechanism of action. I studied cardiac electrophysiology, anatomy and histology. I also cut a human heart out of a deceased person’s chest and examined it. I helped diagnose a patient with aortic stenosis. I housed an interviewee and a friend from another medical school. I scrimmaged in ultimate frisbee, and flag football, danced salsa and went to church. Interspersed with those activities, I studied my butt off for dozens of hours. Tomorrow will include an 8 mile hike and a football game and three days from now I’ll be shadowing a pediatric cardiologist.

And with the exception of some non-medical school fun things here and there, it has been a constant track meet. Every day must be planned to the hour in efforts to stay somewhat on pace with school and avoid burn out. Each fun event and study plan must be screened meticulously for it’s value before commitment is given. An hour that produces mediocre fun or sub par understanding in academic preparation is quickly thrown out.

When I visited with one of my non-med school friends tonight, I was refreshed by nothing more than simple dialogue. I stepped out of my medical school suit, and forgot about memorizing, and performing. We talked about random stories and funny situations. For several hours, our only goal was to laugh and have a good time. (Something I’ve become accustomed to doing in medical school within small, 1-10 minute pockets of time). He had no idea what I had gone through this past week. And I appreciated that.

I didn’t want to think about everything I had done. I didn’t want to regurgitate more information. I wanted to laugh and think creatively. To ask questions without a specific acronym with which to guide them. To drop my notepad and just live.

So that's what I did and it was spectacular.

Medical School Update!! (Although it hasn't officially started)

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....