Hello humans. This is going to be a blog about my experiences in medical school! That's right, I'm a first year medical school. I'm going to St. George's University in Grenada, which is known as the Isle of Spice in the Caribbean. Yes that's correct, it is gorgeous down here. Everywhere you look, it's beautiful. It's helping me tremendously to cope with the stress of being a medical student.
In my opinion, having this blog is one of my greatest privileges. Publishing a post seems worth it. Everything I've read, learned about and looked forward to, has come true. So did the common burdens/extra efforts of being a medical student - eternal studying/learning, adjusting to the least amount of sleep needed to get up tomorrow, always being on time and professional, and a million other things they've been teaching us since the first day. Thankfully, I enjoy all of it. And right now I love reading about ligamentum flavum in my spine and flexor digitorum profundus that's helping me type this.
I'll dedicate a part of this post to describe my typical day. From 1-5pm from Mon-Fri, we have lectures. Four days of the week (our schedule keeps changing every week), we have labs/small group discussions from 10am-12pm. One of the 4 days, we have anatomy lab from 7:45am - 12pm. As for how much material we cover - a week's worth of undergraduate course material is covered in one day. This semester, we're taking Human Gross & Developmental Anatomy, Medical Biochemistry, Histology & Cell Biology and Bioethics.
What do I do the other hours of the day? After lectures, we usually study at a great study space called Taylor Hall or the study rooms in my dorm. I try to move around and study in different places. And during our well-deserved breaks, we usually go to this dock right behind my dorm that overlooks the ocean and if it's at night, we enjoy watching the stars. If you're lucky, you can see some shooting stars. I've seen 5 since I've been here. I also like to cook food as a study break/survival mechanism. But, most of the time is dedicated to studying. Anatomy, Histology and Biochemistry demand a lot of memorization and understanding of the material, and that's basically what takes up my time on a typical week day. I also attend some review sessions held up upperclassmen and go to open wet lab hours to learn the structures on cadavers.
In our Bioethics class, however, I think a lot about the topics we cover in class. One topic really struck me during the last lecture. We learned that morbidity rate is highly correlated to poverty. It's implying that money governs the type of health care a human can receive from physicians (and how much money a person has depends on various factors). A bit irrational? To me, it is. People who cannot afford health care are also the people who tend to develop disorders due to malnutrition, poor living conditions, etc. But a lot of advanced medicine is derived from trying to cure disorders humans have previously had or witnessed. Physicians and researchers don't try to find cures to diseases that don't exist. Take the military for example, physicians learned a lot of the anatomy and how a human body can really be injured through battlefield injuries. But patients who come to the hospital everyday with interesting (?) illnesses are the ones who cannot access proper health care - a lot can be learned from them as well. Somehow, all of this leads to my thoughtful conclusion - people developing disorders/diseases with less access to health care are helping future generations by educating physicians about medical illnesses and regulations of the human body. In my head, I think I just went around in a circle. Moreover, I neglected numerous factors in this analysis...but I think it's a good start to thinking about issues of health care and access to health care in the US and in the world. Bioethics definitely stimulated a nerve-firing thought during my third week of medical school.
Coming back to my current life, I sometimes stop during my long hours of study and be amazed at how much my brain can process all of this information. I might have forgotten most of it. But as I read and learn, I understand. I'm proud to be part of this school and I enjoy my study breaks to look at some breathtaking sights on this rather small campus. After the White Coat Ceremony and a full blast with lectures, labs and discussions, it's starting to sink in that I'm a medical student, a future physician. One last thing before I leave, I want to mention that physicians play a huge rule in the society (yeah, you probably expected this statement from a medical student). They're known as the cure-alls, the smart people, the authority, professionals, the "higher" and magicians who take the pain away. But I don't agree with this idea. I'd like to think of myself as just another human trying to figure out a problem...and it just happens to be about the human body. As a future physician, I hope I'm not considered God, but rather a modulator of this society....like a paintbrush or another color of paint to make this artwork of life look a bit more beautiful, lively and profundus.
Back to the hussle....
In my opinion, having this blog is one of my greatest privileges. Publishing a post seems worth it. Everything I've read, learned about and looked forward to, has come true. So did the common burdens/extra efforts of being a medical student - eternal studying/learning, adjusting to the least amount of sleep needed to get up tomorrow, always being on time and professional, and a million other things they've been teaching us since the first day. Thankfully, I enjoy all of it. And right now I love reading about ligamentum flavum in my spine and flexor digitorum profundus that's helping me type this.
I'll dedicate a part of this post to describe my typical day. From 1-5pm from Mon-Fri, we have lectures. Four days of the week (our schedule keeps changing every week), we have labs/small group discussions from 10am-12pm. One of the 4 days, we have anatomy lab from 7:45am - 12pm. As for how much material we cover - a week's worth of undergraduate course material is covered in one day. This semester, we're taking Human Gross & Developmental Anatomy, Medical Biochemistry, Histology & Cell Biology and Bioethics.
What do I do the other hours of the day? After lectures, we usually study at a great study space called Taylor Hall or the study rooms in my dorm. I try to move around and study in different places. And during our well-deserved breaks, we usually go to this dock right behind my dorm that overlooks the ocean and if it's at night, we enjoy watching the stars. If you're lucky, you can see some shooting stars. I've seen 5 since I've been here. I also like to cook food as a study break/survival mechanism. But, most of the time is dedicated to studying. Anatomy, Histology and Biochemistry demand a lot of memorization and understanding of the material, and that's basically what takes up my time on a typical week day. I also attend some review sessions held up upperclassmen and go to open wet lab hours to learn the structures on cadavers.
In our Bioethics class, however, I think a lot about the topics we cover in class. One topic really struck me during the last lecture. We learned that morbidity rate is highly correlated to poverty. It's implying that money governs the type of health care a human can receive from physicians (and how much money a person has depends on various factors). A bit irrational? To me, it is. People who cannot afford health care are also the people who tend to develop disorders due to malnutrition, poor living conditions, etc. But a lot of advanced medicine is derived from trying to cure disorders humans have previously had or witnessed. Physicians and researchers don't try to find cures to diseases that don't exist. Take the military for example, physicians learned a lot of the anatomy and how a human body can really be injured through battlefield injuries. But patients who come to the hospital everyday with interesting (?) illnesses are the ones who cannot access proper health care - a lot can be learned from them as well. Somehow, all of this leads to my thoughtful conclusion - people developing disorders/diseases with less access to health care are helping future generations by educating physicians about medical illnesses and regulations of the human body. In my head, I think I just went around in a circle. Moreover, I neglected numerous factors in this analysis...but I think it's a good start to thinking about issues of health care and access to health care in the US and in the world. Bioethics definitely stimulated a nerve-firing thought during my third week of medical school.
Coming back to my current life, I sometimes stop during my long hours of study and be amazed at how much my brain can process all of this information. I might have forgotten most of it. But as I read and learn, I understand. I'm proud to be part of this school and I enjoy my study breaks to look at some breathtaking sights on this rather small campus. After the White Coat Ceremony and a full blast with lectures, labs and discussions, it's starting to sink in that I'm a medical student, a future physician. One last thing before I leave, I want to mention that physicians play a huge rule in the society (yeah, you probably expected this statement from a medical student). They're known as the cure-alls, the smart people, the authority, professionals, the "higher" and magicians who take the pain away. But I don't agree with this idea. I'd like to think of myself as just another human trying to figure out a problem...and it just happens to be about the human body. As a future physician, I hope I'm not considered God, but rather a modulator of this society....like a paintbrush or another color of paint to make this artwork of life look a bit more beautiful, lively and profundus.
Back to the hussle....
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