Day 38: Social sharing and the never-ending to do list

Today's inane image of the day:

I grabbed a study room early this morning to be greeted by the writing on the wall [yes, the whole wall is a whiteboard!] -- oh... I'm so behind...

First and foremost, I just learned a new phrase: social sharing. What, you ask, does that mean and how does it concern me? Well... if you have a couple of minutes [which, you should since you're reading my blog], check out the [quick, and educational, I promise] game, SPENT.

I'll save my analysis of this game for after you have all checked it out. I can say this much though -- it really excites me to see how social media [or in this case, social sharing] can educate and help people.

The past couple of days have been somewhat of a whirlwind of activity. I wish I could say that I am in a great mood, but like many of my classmates, I'm tired [and not due to lack of sleep!] and somewhat cranky. This being said, I think it was pretty obvious to administration that there was tension within the class because the issues at hand were addressed today over lunch.

I won't get into many more details, but what's important to me is the immediate response to the situation. Nothing horrible happened... but the reality of medical school is that we will work until we think we cannot work anymore, and then be expected to surpass that. How physicians get through this whole training process and not feel complete and utter despair is beyond me... but I guess I'll understand sooner or later.

Regardless, I'm happy to see that things aren't stagnant around here.

This all being said... I always feel perpetually unprepared. I have an infinite number of things to complete and a finite amount of time to complete them in. Not to mention the fact that with each day, another load of material gets added. Although I am reminded left and right that I got here for a reason, it's hard to see it after feeling sick from Anatomy lab [the fumes are really getting to me] then returning home only to complete a tiny fraction of what I wanted to [or, nothing at all]. I try to remind myself through my favorite blogs that there are happy physicians out there that were once in my position... but it all seems so far from now.

As Dean Folberg said at our White Coat Ceremony, 5-6 weeks in we'd start seeing blemishes on our white coat and it's hard to feel that natural high from the day of the ceremony. Where did it go? Why did it leave? What can I do to bring it back?

EDIT
It'll all be okay because I have this Gram Positive Cocci concept map:

I'm armed and ready for tomorrow's case study with this concept map made with the fabulous, Vue [click to download it for free!].