Just a thought

Our days are so full at the moment that part of me wonders whether they are preparing us for life working as junior doctors on the wards. We rush from lecture to lecture without a break in between, and frequently have days of 7 or 8 hours straight contact time without space to eat or pee (sorry for the detail!) without eating during lectures or tutorials, and excusing ourselves to find the nearest bathroom. There should theoretically be a 10-minute break between lectures/tutorials, but everything runs overtime as the sessions are so content-rich, and the lecturers frequently have to leave us to cover the last part of the lecture ourselves.

That said, I'm loving it!

And everybody seemed fine in the anatomy prac - even those who hadn't seen a cadaver before. I really enjoyed it as I love the practical aspects of anatomy. A few of us were really enthusiastic (within limits - there was no cheering involved!) and I like to think that this made it easier for those who might have had difficulty. I got really keen when I found out how hard atherosclerotic arteries are and tried to get people to poke them. I worked out I'm an anatomy "poker", which was a surprise. I like to get in there and get my gloves dirty. Another surprise!

I don't believe how fast the past week and a half have gone. The days are so full and busy that they just fly by. I am happiest when kept busy and occupied, so I'm pretty chirpy right now!

Hooray!

Hooray! More of knowing very little! Lucky for me I have had a lot of practise at knowing very little, and am quite good at being positive about it.

Hopefully in the future I will get worse at knowing very little, and so will know very little less often. This will come with further study and brain storage space, which may involve donating the part of my brain which is currently devoted to keeping me sane. However, I'm not sure which part of the brain that is, as I still know very little, and thus can do very little to preserve my hold on sanity.

I have started compiling a list of words at the end of my study revision notes for each week, to jog my memory and try to remember. I call it my Dummy's List. Hopefully with the aid of my list, my lack of fear about being seen to know very little, and my new-found insanity driving me to study at all hours (because if I could choose a way to be crazy I would choose OCD study-nut right now!) I will eventually progress from knowing very little to knowing slighty more than very little. Ah, I can only dream!

And no, I haven't been drinking. Not one drop. Perhaps that is the problem.

The ghoul within

Where oh where did the weekend go? I shouldn't complain. At least I had a weekend!

Next week is exciting - it will be filled with a lot more content-rich lectures rather than the standard introductory lecture. We should start to learn a lot more! I'm pumped.

The first week involved a lot of touchy-feely subjects. Now, I think it is important to work on patient communication and empathy. Being able to talk to your patients is a skill that I rate VERY highly. I have seen it make a significant difference in patient treatment and outcomes. But when most of the lectures were on patient communication or subject introductions, it felt a little, well, silly.

I will also get to examine a cadaver in an anatomy lab for the first time. It won't be the first time I have seen a dead body - I have seen quite a few patients die in front of me (thank God I couldn't get through the 5 or 6 specialists to lend a hand - I love working in hospitals!), and have helped in the examination of dead babies, but I have never actually seen a non-plastinated, resected cadaver before.

To be honest, the ghoul in me is waiting to see how the others in my group handle it. I am curious to see how different people deal with what has to be a difficult experience for the first time. They all seem pretty sensible, but you never know how some people will handle things.

By the way, I am not talking about looking forward to seeing somebody have an emotional reaction because somebody close to them died and seeing a dead body brings back all of those feelings. Or if they are shocked and frightened because it reminds them of their own mortality. That would be completely insensitive, nasty and inappropriate. I hope that if there is anybody who goes through such issues in our course (or in courses anywhere) they get help and talk to people about what they are experiencing. I hope they realise that they aren't alone and that people will understand.

To be honest, I probably should examine this ghoulish tendency to make sure that it is not stemming from some sense of superiority because I have seen a lot of tough things before, so it is one area I have dealt with, whereas there are other areas in the course that I'll have no experience in at all and so will feel quite inferior. I know we are all in this together and should support each other's weaknesses and give help where we can. In an ideal world, that is how it should work.

Oh for some decent free junk . . .

Hooray for free junk!

This week I more than doubled the amount of free pens and waterbottles I have received from work/career-based sponsors. The MDO's (Medical Defense Organisations) were out in force this week, giving us free stuff and signing us on for free "memberships" while we are students (although I'm doubtful that these "memberships" would offer any kind of serious legal protection, but there are some benefits).

This made me wonder how much money they plan on getting out of us when we are graduated doctors. I know that nothing comes for free, and having worked in allied health in a hospital for years and received next-to-nothing from company reps, I get very nervous when companies start throwing stuff at us for no apparent reason other than the fact that we are "future doctors". (My biggest two scores before becoming a medical student were: a coffee cup which had sat unclaimed on a desk for a month, and a couple of rubber duck stress toys which I saved from decapitation. Nobody picks on rubber duckies when I am around! Nobody!)

That's another thing - being called a "future doctor" or even worse, "doctor-in-training" just doesn't feel right. We're one week into a medical course. We are medical students. Only just. I am confident when I feel I know something, but nothing scares me more than a confident over-statement of one's own abilities. "I am a Doctor-in-Training, and today I learnt what a femur is!" Oh dear.

The most interesting thing was that the best freebie was a portable coffee cup from the defence forces, trying to get us to sign up for quite lucrative scholarships (roughly $50k per year) which would be followed by quite a few years of service afterwards (and a directed career - no thanks). I once went to a presentation by an army radiographer about his time serving overseas, and I swore to myself during that presentation that I would NEVER do that to myself or my family. Between taking x-rays (in a tent!), he served as infantry and then had to assist in operations on the militia he shot. Seriously. I know the scholarship and the career could be good for some people, but no thanks. (I grew up as an airforce brat, so I was scarred enough by the lifestyle without putting my kids through the same thing.) But thanks, I'll take the coffee cup! I'll need all that I can get if I am going to make it though without that lucrative scholarship.

More anatomy . . .

Day two of medical school is over and I just thought I would write a few more notes on my impressions so far.

I am actually excited this time about doing anatomy, which is interesting because if I had revealed this to my past self, she would have declared me to be an impostor. (If I told her that I was doing anatomy because I am studying medicine, she would know I was an impostor!) When I did anatomy in my first degree it was an absolute grind of rote memorisation, focusing on regional anatomy. We covered a little of the function but were mainly concerned with EXACTLY where bits were located in relation to other bits, and what every single little lump, bump and hole was called. It was as painful as it sounds.

Enter the medical course with its focus on PBL (Problem Based Learning) and concentrating on the actual practical use of the anatomy. We get to focus on why things are there, what they do and how they interract with everything else! It is much more motivating. The fact that I am potentially going to be treating people and potentially cutting into them is also a great motivator!

I also want to get everything I can out of our cadaveric dissection classes, so I have purchased McMinn's Colour Atlas of Human Anatomy which focuses on pictures of real cadavers. Memorising nice pictures with blue veins, red arteries, green lymphatic vessels and yellow nerves is quite different to looking inside a real person. Somehow I feel I owe it to the person who donated their body to get the most I can out of dissecting it.

Also, histology seems to be making sense. When did that happen???

Happy as a pig in the mud . . .

Well, today was the first day of medical school for this little blue-stethoscoped duck, and it was fantastic! At the end of the day as I was driving away I felt really good and was thinking, "Wow, this is very much where I am meant to be." At the uni that is, not driving AWAY from the uni!

I am going to be VERY busy for the next four years. Actually, I am going to be very busy for the rest of my professional life. I was reading the material and thinking that I am going to love being busy looking at these things and having the privilege of working with people during their toughest times and most of the time being able to help them. For the first time I really get to focus on UNDERSTANDING why a patient is sick rather than the mechanics and physics of the allied health field in which I am qualified. It is very exciting.

Many of the lecturers got up and told some moving and tragic stories that they had encountered in their professional career, and I noticed something odd about myself. When I am actually there at work experiencing something first-hand, I seem to be able to remain more detached about things than when I am reading or hearing a story about the same sorts of tragedies. Perhaps it is because when I am working I can concentrate on my part of the job rather than on the terrible nature of what is happening to the person or people in front of me. However, when somebody is telling me the story and I have nothing to do but sit, listen and focus on what they have been going through, I can get a little misty-eyed. I don't quite run bawling from the room, or even need a tissue, but some stories get to me.

It started me wondering about how psychiatrists deal with this. I understand that they maintain professional detachment, and also concentrate on analysing the person's illness or issue, but they are essentially sitting there listening to the patient rather than spending all of their time fixing their leg while they are under anaesthetic or patching up a wound in emergency. They would hear some terrible stories day in and day out. Do psychiatrists ever get a little damp around the eyes or do they develop a harder skin over time?

The first day of school . . .

Monday is the first day of medical school, and I'm starting to feel like I'm starting school again for the first time.

By tomorrow night, I'll have my outfit chosen - not too dressy (it's uni, after all!) and not too casual (dressing up is fun). As long as I don't turn up with a steth around my neck nobody will care. They will all be too worried about what everybody else thinks of what THEY are wearing! Does anybody want to hazard a guess as to how many tragics are going to have packed their steth in their bag? Fifty percent? Ten percent? Ninety-five?

Speaking of packing my bags, that will be done, too. And I'll have a packed lunch. I haven't been without a fridge and microwave at work for years, so I'll have to get used to having a proper packed lunch again. Sad, I know.

Just like my first day of school many years ago, I won't be able to sleep and I will be up and dressed before it is light because I will be so excited that it is finally happening. I'm making sure that I enjoy the excitement before I get bogged down in the stress. I can't wait!

Of course, I've yet to decide on the most important thing of all - how to do my hair for the ID photos!