Part 3: Med-School Begins

     Hey friends, family, and others.  Winding down another fun-filled orientation day here in delightful PA with yet another informational blog for you all to (hopefully) enjoy.   So, without further ado...
     Alright, so you've successfully managed to convince some admissions guru that you're worthy of admission to their institution of higher medical learning, now what?   Well, year one kicks off with the time-honored hazing of - you guessed it - anatomy.  Nothing like diving into a dead body on day one to really make you feel like a medical student!  Most schools still use actual cadavers, though several places use prosections (pre-dissected bodies cut in various ways to show the relevant structures) and more and more schools are doing virtual anatomy with 3-D computer reconstructions of human anatomy.  In many places this is due to a shortage of (for lack of a better term) "bodies," but where I went to school we were fortunate enough to have a robust body donor program, and were able to work 4-students to a body.  Yes, it does smell particularly bad - though after a while you do get used to smelling like that...you can definitely pick out the first-years in the hall because that smell clings to everything.  And it is certainly humbling to know that some other human being had the generosity and forethought to donate their body to medical learning upon their death so that future doctors can learn about anatomy - the most disconcerting/ unnerving part is dissecting the head, and (oddly enough) the hands... those parts were the donors' identities, and just think of all the things that they did with those hands - the work they did, the meals they made, the new babies they held - it can be overwhelming.  But, at the same time there is no better way to really understand how all of the various structures are related, how tough or fragile the various organs are, to build a three-dimensional picture of how it all goes together.  In my mind, a computer model just wouldn't cut it (no pun intended!).
     One of my fellow interns here mentioned the other day that every class she took in medical school had to be attended in full "preceptor dress" - ie clothes you would wear if you were seeing patients.  No scrubs and sweats for her class!  Disgustingly enough this also included anatomy lab.... I can't even imagine guys wearing ties, and girls wearing skirts in there.... ick!  The stuff you wear in lab ends up so greasy and foul-smelling that every year my school hosts a bonfire where we burn all that junk!
     Along with the vast amount of information required to master the anatomy course, the first year medical student also takes such classes as: embryology, histology, pathology, biochemistry, and (in the case of osteopathic schools) osteopathic principles and practices where we learn the tenets of osteopathy, as well as how to treat people using osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM, alternatively called osteopathic manipulative therapy - OMT).  There is also a course that ostensibly teaches us to be doctors, where we learn such things as how to use an ophthalmoscope (the thing a doctor uses to look in your eyes), an otoscope (same device but with a different "head," used to look in the ears), a sphygmomanometer (BP cuff). We learn things such as ethics, medical jurisprudence (legal what-not that has to do with medicine), and pharmacology (my nemesis).  I once heard that during the first year of medical school the average student learns 13,000 new words.  If that's not enough to make your head explode, I don't know what is.... clearly you are a glutton for punishment!  I know (and my parents can attest to this) that there were MANY times during my first year when I thought "what the hell am I doing here?" or "I want to quit, but I'm already in too much debt," or "they must've made some mistake when they let me in!"
    But somehow I survived - to be honest some days I'm really not sure how - but I passed all my classes and the powers that be let me come back for round 2!
     Year 2 - at least at my school - was more reasonable than the first year, with the exception of one course: neuroanatomy.  Brutal!  It was a course so intense that the entire first month or more of second year was dedicated to neuroanatomy, and neuroanatomy alone.   So much to learn, so many structures, functions, and tracts to memorize, and diseases/ conditions to study.  Once that was over we moved through various systems throughout the rest of the year: cardio, gastrointestinal, reproductive, endocrinology, pulmonary, pediatrics, geriatrics, musculoskeletal, derm, hematology/ oncology, and so on.  Mixed in with these were the second year of OMM and our "doctoring" course, as well as nutrition, and various other courses.  Other schools, I'm sure, have different set ups, but since I only went to one medical school (thank God!  that was all I could handle!), I can only comment on how we did things.
     While second year was slightly less of a pressure-cooker than first year in terms of the newness/ overwhelming sensation of things, there was constantly one nasty black cloud looming in the horizon...Step 1 of the national board exams.   Enough to strike fear into the hearts of medical students country-wide, and still sends a shudder through me to this day.  It is an 8 hour computer exam designed to test every little detail learned in the first two years of medical school - from the most obscure tendon in the forearm, to the pathology test for a particular subset of a particular kind of hematologic malignancy (see what I mean about those 13,000 words?), to the mechanism of action of an anti-retroviral medication.  8 hours of this.... or, I suppose, until your eyeballs begin bleeding and you start having a seizure because you've been staring at a computer screen for that long and your brain is completely fried.  When I was done, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  And then....... you wait.....and wait.....and wait..... for 6 looooooooooong weeks.... until they release your scores and tell you whether or not you've absorbed (and regurgitated) enough information to pass the exam and be allowed to move on to the last two years of medical school.
    And, God forbid, you are not a good standardized test taker, and you fail the exam....lucky you, you get to take it again!  And a 3rd time should you be so very fortunate enough as to fail it the second time.  But after that they stop torturing you - at least at my school - it's 3 strikes on step 1 and you're out.
   Thankfully I passed the beast on my first try, and was allowed to progress on to my third year of medical school - the first clinical year....but that's a story for a different day.

     Today was the first day of my last week of residency orientation.... 4 long hours of computer training (again), followed by being reminded all about how to tell if someone is in labor, and whether or not her membranes have ruptured, and what to look for on her fetal heart rate tracing, and what to do in an emergency, who to call.... and they capped the day off with risk management (AKA how not to land in hot water, piss patients off, or get yourself sued).  Since I'd spent all day sitting on my butt with my brain oozing out my ears I headed directly to the gym, and then had a super delicious sushi dinner with one of my fellow interns.... just what the doctor ordered (in this case the doctor being me.... hey, you just read what I went through for the first two years of medical school, if I order sushi for myself it counts!).
     Now as my DVR records Weeds for me (seriously, this DVR thing is awesome!  Probably my fourth favorite appliance after my computer, dishwasher, and kitchen aid stand mixer), I'm going to ignore the pile of ironing that is still waiting for me (the iron being my least favorite appliance) and call it an early night.
    No orientation activities for me tomorrow, so I'm going to use my last free day (sadly we do have orientation on Wednesday and Thursday) before residency officially starts on Friday to take care of some business such as registering my car, picking up a white coat, and paying some bills before meeting the rest of my intern class for dinner (hopefully), and then more members of the residency for trivia at night.  Should be a productive, and enjoyable day!