Aug 19, 2010

They Made Me Come Back

At the fine Medical School I attend, students are given a roughly three month break after completing MS1, likely in order to lull us into feeling "happy", "fullfilled", and "rested" before springing MS2 and boards upon us. Many students do things that are useful to their future residency applications, like research, anatomy TAing, working in doctor's offices, etc, etc. I, on the other hand, called them a bunch of gunners and went backpacking in Europe for 37 days. Because if I can hemorrhage over 200 grand on a medical education, I can damn well spend 3 grand on a month of hopping trains, ooohing over buildings and paintings, and day drinking like it's my job. It was an amazing experience and I know I made the right choice (my liver may disagree).

After a few weeks back, in which time I recovered from my 3rd HAC (hostel-associated cold) and worried my family with my strangely nocturnal ways, I left for another trip. This one, however, was a medical trip located further south...as in, South America. I spent two weeks mastering the ability to perform Pap smears, feel breast lumps, and tell people to take off their underwear in Spanish. I am now really, really good at all of these things. I'm pretty sure my sterile technique suffered, though. The clinic was nice, but still definitely not up to American standards.


Now I'm back and already studying for test 1 AKA trial by pyrogens (because we're studying immune response...get it, get it? Still not funny?). So I'll try to keep this thing interesting..

May 6, 2010

Finals

End-of-year finals are quite the adventure. I never knew I could learn so much information in just nine months, and I'm even more shocked to realize that I can recall a fair share of that knowledge. Still, I've been doing a lot of rereading, cramming, and note-taking (in the most cramped, unibomber-esque handwriting I can manage).

Perusing through one of my textbooks last night, I found this gem:
"Pain is an unpleasant sensation."
Goodness, I really needed my full medical education to wrap my head around that one!

May 4, 2010

An Apple A Day...


Who doesn't know the old saying:
"An apple a day, keeps the doctor away"
Well, since I've gotten to know my classmates pretty well over the past year, I have to say that I ate two apples this morning. Just to be safe.