Tired

Ok, I don't talk to alllll that many people in my med school class on a regular basis, but it seems like with the people I do talk to, we feel pretty similarly (towards med school) a lot of the time.  And I generally try to keep this blog somewhat upbeat, but I feel like I would be doing a disservice if I didn't have at least one post about how sometimes I am so tired and frustrated and just plain exhausted with the pace of school these past few months because I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Most of us in med school are pretty good students and pretty dedicated studiers. I don't really know anyone who actually slacks off - if someone is taking a weekend or night off to relax/party/sleep/ski/doanythingbutstudy, you can bet they busted their hump (is that a real saying or did I just make that up?) the week before or the week after to make up for it.  So I know if someone is behind in work it's not because they've been slacking off or not putting in the requisite time.

No one wants to be behind in work - and a lot of us med students are pretty type-A (shocking, I know) and ideally would like to be ahead.  But it's absolutely impossible to get ahead, and sometimes barely feasible just to stay on top of everything.  Constantly feeling like you're playing catch-up is exhausting.  It's also exhausting to finish an exam and then have a podcast and quiz due later that afternoon, or have to get to the hospital two hours after the exam for your preceptorship - there's no down-time or a moment for a mental deep breath. 


Thankfully second year and its constant tests lasts only two more months - and then it's time to study for The Big Test, aka Step 1 of board certification, aka the test that determines the rest of our lives - no big deal.  But at least we can make our own study schedule for that and take breaks when we feel like we need them.

I expected med school to be slightly soul-sucking, but I'm not sure I expected to feel so tired before third year and rotations even begin (and when I never get less than eight hours of sleep a night, ever).

Quotes from a Neurologist

The anti-Whipple.  Sometimes, the professors "get" what it's like to be a med student a little toooo well.


It was just like the Milgram experiments:

During our lecture on how to conduct a neurological exam, an ARS (audience-response system) question read, "What's your favorite cranial nerve?"  This was obviously more of an attendance question than knowledge-testing question, but interestingly enough (although besides the point), the vagus nerve won with a wide margin.  The professor (jokingly?) says, "This was actually a psychological test to see how much stress is created when you ask a group of med students a question with no right answer."  Sigh, he really does know us too well...

Whipple Part II

This post really has nothing to do with either George Hoyt Whipple or Allen Oldfather Whipple, or the disease or procedure that are respectively named after them.  But it's a continuation on the thought that professors don't always remember what it was like to be a student and how quickly (or slowly) we absorb information.





We all have clickers so that the lecture can be interactive (see picture) - the professor can put up a multiple choice question, and we all put in our responses, and then it shows us what percentage of students chose each answer.  It can be used for attendance as well as just a gauge for who knows what (are we high-tech or what?!).




Some lecturers put audience response questions throughout their lecture.  While I certainly have no problem with that, it drives me bonkers when professors actually get upset with us for picking the wrong answer.  "Come on guys, I just went over this 10 minutes ago!"  Sorry that some of us don't automatically recall every detail you tell us after hearing it once - if we did, there would be no need to study, and med school would be a breeze!

Same thing with a case discussion we had the other day on liver diseases.  The four hours of liver lectures had been given the morning before, and that afternoon there had been a mandatory three-hour class for Physician's Core on how to do an abdominal exam.  So, our apologies for not being able to learn everything about the liver in one evening - again, if we could do that, med school would be easy-peasy!


But during the group discussion we had about a fake patient with liver disease, the professor leading the group was so upset when we didn't have all the answers.  "Guys, your test is in a week, you're making me very nervous right now."  A week is a liiiiifetime for studying in med school (especially when we have a test every other week...).  Like I mentioned in Whipple I, most people I know don't get a good grasp on the information until the weekend before the exam.  Cut us some slack, and give us time to study the information before you assume we're never going to learn it!

Whipple Part I

Unlike those lucky people who only need to hear things once to learn them, I need time to digest material before it enters my brain.  In med school, that means listening to a lecture, going home and typing up all my notes I took during the lecture, and then organizing my typed notes into a way that makes sense for me - categorizing, or making charts, or combining info from related lectures, just something that makes the information my own.  That, as you might imagine, takes a fair bit of time.

Because of our schedule, there's not a whole lot of extra time outside of listening to lectures and going to mandatory labs and discussions to study extra.  That's fine, it is what it is - med school's supposed to be busy, right?  But for me that means that I'm not going to have a really good grasp on most of the material until the weekend before the exam when we have full days (or at least half-days) to really study.  And I don't think I'm alone in this.

George Hoyt Whipple is...

But I don't think professors really understand that some of us need actual time to learn the information.  So when we learn about something called Whipple Disease at the beginning of the week, and then later in the week we learn about something called Whipple Procedure, chances are most of us are not going to realize that we just learned about Whipple twice.

...not the same as Allen Oldfather Whipple

During the second lecture, when we learned about the procedure, the professor pointed out that it was actually named for a different Whipple than the disease.  Rather than thinking, "My, what an interesting fact" or "There are two people named Whipple who were good enough doctors to get something named after them?!" all I could think was, "That's cute that he thinks we remember a disease that we learned three whole days ago."







Fun fact: the non-eponymous name for the Whipple procedure is pancreaticoduodenectomy - maybe the only time the eponym is actually easier to remember than the real name?

Bonus Book Review!

As much as I usually would like to hate people who do similar things to what I do but much better and earlier than me, I happen to love Dr. Fizzy McFizz, the anonymous (unless that's her very unfortunate real name...?) blogger from http://doccartoon.blogspot.com/.  Her posts are always so honest and relatable.  AND she also draws cartoons!  What a great way for those who are too lazy/busy to read words to still get in their medical humor for the day!  On her blog, though, you would have to sift through alllll her many posts to be able to find each cartoon.  LUCKILY she recently collected all her cartoons and made them into a book for easy access - and - spoiler alert - it only costs $12.99 on Amazon (although there is one used copy for $999... I would suggest just going for the cheaper new copy).  A perfect gift for your cartoon-loving, humor-appreciating med-student friend, just saying.

Nail-Biting Update #1

You may think I have forgotten about my New Year's resolution to stop biting my nails.  I haven't.  Week 1 I was too embarrassed by how bad a job I was doing, so I decided to give myself a by-week (yeahh, that sort of defeats the purpose, I know - but whatever, I can really only handle so many disgusting pictures that come up when I google my name).


But look, I did it!  I stopped biting my nails and they already grew out perfectly!

....If anyone was fooled by that, well, you have way too much faith in me, and also no sense of how long it takes for nails to grow.  I got gels put on for the wedding this weekend.  So far I haven't ruined any of them, so hopefully my real nails are growing out underneath and when I take the gels off I'll have long, beautiful nails in real life.  The key now is to not bite the cuticles.  I'll keep you updated on my progress.

See Ya Later, Med School

Tomorrow my older brother is getting married!!  I am not doing a single minute of work this weekend.  And I spent all of this past week "getting ahead" aka honing my maid of honor speech.  Good thing we don't have a test next week, because I would not do well on it if we did.  Gotta have soooome priorities.  And gaining a new sister is priority #1 right now.  Yay!