Day 34: What's your type?

Today's inane images of the day:

Thanks Friday interviewees for leaving us food to eat after our MRSA TBL today!  I took home this melody of goodies in the salad bowl!

During lunch on Thursday, 4/5 of our TBL group decided to take a field trip to Franklin Cider Mill to celebrate the incoming Fall weather with hot cider and fresh donuts... the donuts were so good that I ate them before I could take a picture of one...

Over a month ago, we were told to take an online MBTI [Myers-Briggs Type Indicator] test for PRISM. This week, we got the results and discussed what they meant in the context of working with one another. Not surprisingly, our group had mostly the same preferences... which is probably why we work together so well.

Anyway, here are my results:

If you didn't gather from above, I am an ISFJ -- with an extreme on the judging and sensing preference. According to a PRISM reading, Anesthesiology, Ophthalmology, General practice, Family practice, Pediatric are good specialties for my personality type. Hmmm... interesting.

Last night was our Big Sib/Little Sib Meet and Greet -- S and I went to the restaurant and mingled with a couple of the residents and our peers [her Big Sib was able to make it, but mine wasn't]. Even though I didn't have my official Big Sib there, one of the rad onc residents painted a really convincing portrait of the specialty. In fact, I am very seriously considering the option despite the heavy academic [i.e. research] focus in preparation for and during residency. I personally shy away from science research because I don't love the slow pace of the work... but this resident made it seem far from my days of pipetting and fluorescence microscopy.

Anyway, moral of the story is that our Beaumont residents are awesome.

After the official event was over, we went to a couple of places in Royal Oak to celebrate two of my classmates' birthdays -- I personally love dancing and had a great time with everyone. Even though we are all really close, it's those nights out that really solidify a bond.

Now it's time to get back to the work part of medical school.

Day 31: AMWA merchandise, recovery and moving forward

Because I am a huge fan of shameless plugs, I thought I'd show you guys the awesome t-shirts that the AMWA branch at OUWB has available for purchase:

Aren't they lovely?! For only $12, you can help support the AMWA branch at OUWB ["Like" us on Facebook!] and get this awesome t-shirt. We have them available in Small, Medium, Large and XL. Interested and in the metro-Detroit area? Contact me!

[/end shameless plug]

Today's inane image of the day:

S, being the awesome and amazing person she is, made these for our recent post-exam gathering -- how cute are these "limes"?!

I definitely needed the last couple of days to recover from that moster of an examination. Although we had an anatomy assessment yesterday [essentially equivalent to a small quiz], I couldn't completely kick back and relax on Monday night. I cannot believe that we had our first exam and that it happened only two days ago -- it feels like at least a week has passed!

Although I did complain a while back about my energy levels after a draining day of class, I am starting to appreciate the way things are set up. I do not represent my entire class when I say this, but it seems that after finally getting settled in, spending a full day in lecture no longer results in complete exhaustion [although I am still tired]. One of my downfalls for this first exam was that I pay terrible attention during class -- this has always been a problem of mine, but I have never had a big enough reason to change it... until now. Medical school truly is a different beast, and in order to keep up with the pancakes, I need to force myself to be an active learner in class. That's the only way I'll be able to keep up.

Anyway, yesterday we also had Anatomy lab. Although I was definitely affected by my first encounter with our cadaver, I didn't have any strong reactions to the experience. This time, I felt a lot more prepared to work with her and discover what lies within the human body. Perhaps it was the fact that we had more to do [last time the first group did most of the work and pretty much only left us with pec minor to retract...], but I just felt more alive. We were assigned to dissect out the brachial plexus and after many sniffles and watery eyes [our cadaver went through particularly potent embalming chemicals, which tends to irritate my eyes and nose], we were able to isolate and identify the roots, cords, divisions and nerves that we committed to memory just weeks [or days, in my case] before. It was absolutely fascinating.

I still need to catch up on some sleep and finish a reflective writing... time to get on that!

Day 29: And the verdict is...

Today's inane image of the day:

Just in case you were wondering, this is the pile of notecards that I ended up with before the exam today... pretty impressive, eh?

I think now is an optimal time to highlight two of my favorite food analogies for what the workload is like in medical school. First and foremost, pancakes [click on the link for a written entry, or try the YouTube video version] and the competitive eater. For anyone currently in or who has completed medical school, you will chuckle and feel a sense of familiarity with the idea. I read the latter entry prior to starting at OUWB and thought I was a step ahead of the game because I knew what was coming -- but in reality, you just cannot fully wrap your mind around what it feels like to be in medical school until you experience it for yourself.

This being said, my hefty stack of notecards and hours of cramming over the weekend paid off -- I finished off almost all of my pancakes last night and regurgitated them today. Although it wasn't my best work, what matters is that I passed this exam and now know how to improve my study habits for the next one. Thank you to anyone who responded to my repeated, "I'm quitting medical school," with a firm refusal and encouraging words -- sometimes you need someone else to believe in you when the going gets tough and you can't see the light at the end.

The average for the exam was a 78% [passing is 70%] -- one question was already thrown out, so everyone got the point from that and I wouldn't be surprised if another couple received the same fate, which would increase all of our scores [and bump up that mean!]. Overall, I thought that the exam was fair and straightforward.

Although I'd love to be able to just crawl into bed with my Medical Humanities reading, we still have an anatomy assessment tomorrow [that I need to prepare for!] and anatomy lab [that I also need to prepare for...].

Day 28: Final countdown and 9/11 reflections

Today's inane image of the day:

Thank you S from my TBL group for creating this masterpiece of a brachial plexus, then offering to make color copies for each of us! 

That's right, I finally mastered the intricacies of the brachial plexus and tucked it away deep in my brain. Although I thought it was a lot to remember, I still don't understand why Dr. Bee was stressing that we memorize it nearly 3 weeks before the exam... I kind of thought it was something fun and different to focus on after staring at Powerpoint lectures from 8am until midnight last night.

I find that I am the happiest in the mornings and I really should take advantage of that time to reflect. This weekend has [so far] proved to me that medical school studying is a completely different breed from engineering -- in order to cure the pathology, we must understand the norm. And the norm is quite the chunk of material.

I do remember how incredibly frustrated and annoyed I would get when faced with an exam in engineering -- the only thing I knew how to do for those was try the problem sets over again... but I never had the will to. Why should I re-do a problem that I already encountered? I already know the answer! But now, although I still feel overwhelmed by the material that I must learn by tomorrow, at least I love it. The spark generated by clinical applications for faulty nucleotide excision repair [skin cancer] or being able to appreciate the nomenclature of epithelial cells [structure-function relationships are really the icing on the cake] makes it worth it.

As you all know, today is the 10th anniversary of 9/11 -- although I was not in NYC nor was I directly impacted by the losses from that day, I do remember the sinking feeling in my chest when I heard the announcement. I was in math class with my favorite teacher and enjoying the material when all of a sudden, we were on lockdown. What did lockdown even mean? Why would we be on it?

After the television flipped on, I understood. I was confused by the replays as the day progressed -- was this a joke? A really big stunt? I didn't understand how the sturdy architecture of the twin towers could fail, nor how any human could want to cause so much destruction and despair. I still don't understand the latter.

I went into this profession to do the exact opposite of those terrorists on 9/11 -- I want to bring more life and hope into this world through medicine.