The Whirlwind of Medical School

My previous post was over a month ago, where I mentioned there would be more to come soon about my beginning of medical school. However, more did not come, because, as I'm learning, medical school is unrelenting, and free time is sparse. My moments of freedom have been spent having beers with fellow students, meditating, hiking in the dry Northern California air, but I also wanted to spend of free time writing. So, to the readers out there, I'm sorry if this feels rushed. It's 5:30 A.M on September 13th, and I happen to have a fairly open morning today.

In the past month, I've reached some milestones and undertaken many challenging and thought-provoking experiences. I've gotten my white coat, I've dissected the upper body of a previously untouched corpse, I've practiced osteopathic manipulative medicine on other students, I've taken (and thankfully passed) 4 medical school exams, two in Cell Biology/Morphology of connective tissue, blood, hematopoeisis (the development of different blood cells) one in Nutrition and Biochemistry, and, last and definitely not least, the doozy of em all: 1 exam in Anatomy of the Upper Extremities (back, shoulder, vertebral column, rotator cuff, arm, forearm, hand, and the musculature and vasculature of them all).

For those of you who may be considering medical school for the future. Let this be a warning. PAY ATTENTION to your undergraduate anatomy course if you take it. I would advise anyone to study the human body, to picture it in their head, the outline of bones, musculature of the back, deep back muscles, spinotraversales vs. trasversospinales vs. segmental, etc. The volume of anatomy is extensive. The way our nerves travel from place to is quite complicated! Look at the brachial plexus below, which is the network through which are nerves travel down our arms. Does that look like something you want to learn in a night?

I guess I'm saying whatever you can absorb that's medically related before school starts is something you should focus on. It's going to be a challenge either way, but why not come alleviate it a little bit by knowing, for example, the 8 carpal bones of the hand--> Straight Line To Pinky (Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform), Here Comes The Thumb (Hamate, Capitate, Trapezoid, Trapezium).

I've been told my older students that one of the most important things when starting out is to figure out how you study best. Is it flash cards alone? Is it in group studies? Is it just staring at the lecture notes? Is it rewriting notes? It's important to kind of try a bunch of things, including online resources like Anki, Osmosis, Pathoma, to know whether you should actually be going to lecture, or listening to lectures later on at different speeds, and so on. Only by trying out different techniques will you figure out which way works best for you, so try not to get FIXATED on the way you've always done it if there are better ways out there. !!

Burnout from excessive studying is a real thing in medical school. So being efficient with my time, and not just studying balls to the wall at all times is a key. The activities done outside of studying are almost as important as the studying itself. For me, television/netflix/hulu as a form of relaxation is not the way to go. TV shows, relaxing as they may be, are still more information. And given the redonkulous amount of information I'm already processing, my time outside of studying is spent either meditating to get away from the processing and just allow my sensations or breaths to kick in, or playing sports/hiking to help destress.

Mental health issues, depression and suicidal rates are statistically high for doctors in the U.S, so mindfulness and self-care are very important. Thankfully I have a strong support network, where I'm able to call family members, good friends, or my girlfriend if I need to unwind. My girlfriend lives about an hour and a half plane ride away from me, so we are close enough to visit each other every few weeks or so, which has been very important for me to view as a reward for the huge amount of effort being invested into medical school. I can't remember a time in my life where I so valued free time the way I do now. To be in a situation where free time really feels deserved is great. It makes those moments more tangible and creates obviously free windows of time, compared to the time that's shackled to anatomy notes, for example.

It hasn't ALL just been med school, med school, med school in the past month and a half. On the 5th of August, my cousin got married in Vermont, so I flew out there ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY for basically a day because I had to get back for the end of orientation! It was well worth it, as my Mom hadn't seen her niece Sarah (the bride) in almost ten years, and many beautiful moments were distilled into a memorable day....Maybe I should write a post just on that day...

I've also been to a Rooney concert (very random for those of you who have even heard of this band) at The Independent venue in San Francisco, a couple days ago saw the great, knighted Sir Salman Rushdie (besides his novels, you may know him from appearances on Bill Maher's program) speak with another author named Michael Chabon at the Noarse theater, have had incredible Dim Sum at Yank Sing, have taken a scenic wine cruise off the northern pier of San Francisco that is just teeming with sea lions, pelicans, and seagulls, been on a wine Gondola up in Napa Valley, and to Oakland for some quality Chicago-style deep dish at a place called Zachary's. So it's been good, and I'm not quite suicidal...yet ;). The photo below is from the trip run by the company called San Francisco Bay Boat Cruises.

I'll be posting more soon, just wish I could get a more level-headed, and not so frantic pace established for you all, my fellow steemians.

Enjoy your Wednesdays out there!

Steemmate