This title is a direct quote from this interchange:
Autopsy tech coming up to the surgpath area: You're still here? Oh you poor thing.
Ishie: (grunt)
Tech: Well, it looks like you're almost done!
Ishie: This is a uterus.
Tech: Ohhh...
(music wails in the background)
Tech: What... is this...?
Ishie: Kid A by Radiohead. Good album to sulk to.
Tech: I... I don't even know how to describe that. It's like... emo Thelonious Monk.
Ishie: That may be the the best thing I've ever heard. Thank you, madam.
So I've been having kind of the miserable day in the middle of a rough couple of weeks.
I hit my milestone today while confirming something I always suspected was true which is that all interns, regardless of how easy their programs are or how cool their coworkers are or how much they like their field WILL have a moment, probably in the first three months, where they start crying at work. This is frequently accompanied by sentiments such as "I don't think I can do this" or "What did I do" or the simple but effective "I can't".
There are varieties of these meltdowns too... pathology is a good field for low nuclear meltdowns because people generally leave you alone; and there are a lot of times you are by yourself and can work it out. For instance, today, quiet crying at the grossing station as you gaze upon your sisyphean task can go practically unnoticed where the sort of meltdown you get in other specialties, which is often brought on by many people yelling at you at once, tends to lead to breaking down in front of your abusers, which is the worst form. Or the "feel it coming, find a hiding place" cry. So far, I've only managed the quiet one, and it was brief, but it was there. I came close a couple other times this week.
We're doctors now. It's official. Training wheels are off and ain't no one else going to handle this crap. If you don't do it, people are just going to get angrier and angrier until it gets done while more work piles on top of it. Your pager goes off in lecture, in grossing, while you're dealing with other urgent matters. I'm running around clutching decal slides in my hand finding the magic person that's supposed to receive them all with this entire realm of "THIS MATTERS". My training is secondary to the fact that I have to do a doctor job now. And that means doctor job, doctor hours, the presumption of doctor intelligence. Machines to monitor, techniques to know, medical knowledge, searching databases and surgical reports. Gah.
It's scary. And right now, I gotta be honest, it kind of sucks. People are generally nice to me; I don't really want to be doing anything else (well... sitting down watching Game of Thrones and drinking a Blue Moon, but you know), but it still kind of sucks. Today, I was at a grossing table for 12 hours slashing away at specimens that only grew in complexity while my scrub pants literally fell off my butt. I didn't eat, I didn't go to the bathroom; I stood there, without taking my smock off, for 12 hours without cease. And I came out and felt like death. And tomorrow, I deal with the consequences of today.
On the other hand... and I've been trying to stay on the other hand, since I can be task loaded and miserable or I can be on the other hand, I've seen a really cool polycystic kidney, got to play with liquid nitrogen, got to screw with the power tools, got to be scared to death of a potentially infection hazard during a frozen section (false alarm) and the rest of it. Cool stuff. That's what I keep telling myself. Cool stuff.
I also have an attending who is super nice and seems to know me by the fact that I fear grin at my superiors and support staff. It's not that I'm a nice person; it's literally something chimps do when they're scared. So I'm the smiley girl. (Who saw that coming???? NO ONE!) So this one attending always goes "still smiling?" and I'm always like "Sure am, sir!" or lately, been lifting my head up, twisting what is probably a deeply disturbing jester leer at him and nodding meekly. He said "Feel like you're handling things"? Yup? LIES. "Getting a bit overwhelmed?" "Oh, sir, you're such a card..." LIES. But what to say? "Help me. I had no idea anyone would ever give me this much power. I am retarded but really good at taking multiple choice tests. Please resign me to a tedious position that can be replaced by robots... sir.
So staying the course. Despite today's waterworks, I'm determined to be happy. I know I have it good, dammit; I'm not going to waste hours in the weepies over getting exactly what I wanted. Time to put on
Or, if you prefer...
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Aug 10, 2011
Oct 22, 2008
Ambivalence
in the flesh.
This term has me on an emotional roller coaster that's hard to adequately express because my mood towards it is changing so rapidly as are my approaches to attempt to stave off a bad attitude.
While my nature is generally sarcastic and cynical (as is anyone who read over a hundred issues of the Babysitter's Club as a child), my overall attitude is one I try to generally be happy (being sarcastic makes me happy), try not to let little things get to me beyond the surface irritation, thus I enjoy making fun of things without being too hard-hit by them, with a few notable exceptions that are pretty dramatically splashed onto this blog.
I've also let myself get cases of the deep-blue-funks which made the overall decently-run second term a complete misery for me while I enjoyed the "rabid monkeys made my schedule" fourth term largely by avoiding anything that wasn't mandatory and keeping chipper that this would be the hardest term in basic sciences and I was enjoying most of the material.
Flash forward to my current state of affairs where I am desperately seeking a positive attitude so that I do not waste my last couple months on this tropical island wallowing around feeling sorry for myself. This is difficult because there are a number of negative factors that are making the term a bit of a hell, while not allowing me to sink too deeply because there are a bunch of goods, and the goods are frequently rather spectacular goods, which just gives me that whole unstable bipolar feeling that I never know if I'm going to cry or dance around.
This is all being exacerbated by my having an absolutely *galloping* case of senioritis, thus I don't feel like doing anything, go for long periods of doing absolutely nothing but procrastinating, then followed by marathon study sessions, all the while kind of resenting that they're making me do this whole med school thing when I'm supposed to be relaxing on the beach, doing hashes, going scuba diving, playing guitar, seeing monkeys, island hopping, and all the other impossible goals I hoped to get in before leaving for good. Like it's third term or something.
Oh, to get onto the good... I've been chronicling this little battle with the pathophys department for a while, which was constituting a lot of the "bad". Long story short: chancellor letter, huge and surprising response, big open forum where we got listened to by all the department heads and the deans, some initial changes made that were promising, and continue to look promising, but cautious optimism.
This took a slight down-swing with hearing the reports to the fourth termers, though their 5/6th might be worse than ours, in that they were told a couple of times that they'd need to bring back all their books and notes (unrealistic and sucktastic, but at least announced), but that the current term (ours) had a bunch of complaints because no one told us we would have to think critically so they should be prepared for that for the next term.
So that was kind of pissy. "Well, we can't tell the 5/6th termers this because they'd completely destroy us in a debate over it by citing our lack of organization and preparation while citing the past pathology course as requiring integration and the BSCE1 as being a test of our recall from other classes, but we just wanted to let you fourthies know that unlike your special-ed upperclassmen, who have made it to the near-end of their second year of medical school without being able to arrive at any conclusion that wasn't drawn out in capital letters on something shiny for them, you're actually going to have to use your brains next term, so be prepared."
BUT
Lest I withhold credit where credit is due, they are reinstituting a curve based on the actual class averages and standard deviations, per an announcement on Angel! Woo hoo!!!! And though NONE of the renal Sonic Foundry lectures have been posted, the notes for heme, GI and renal were on time, and they changed up the way the BSFCR was run, as they indicated they would while getting the objectives up in advance, as they also said they would, so while I have no idea how this is going to play out on the upcoming exam, I'm going to go ahead and give the administration credit for following through on this one, and make it generally known that if you do feel like your education is taking an inexcusable hit, politely express that, and you never know what can happen. While I'm not wildly appreciative of the announcement to fourth term, it was made to fourth term, and so long as they're fixing the problems that are plaguing this term and are aware of the problem, I'm going to go ahead and give them a pass on saying anything they like. I mean, I'm going to completely make fun of it, but that's all part of the "not a deep hurt" part of above.
In Clinical Skills, they continue to demonstrate that though there is a ton of disorganization, you generally don't have to go any higher than the department heads (or sometimes the tutors) to get a response, and the disorganization seems regretted and inadvertent. And as I've said all along, attitude goes a *long* way with me. If you point out a problem and someones says "I'm really sorry for the inconvenience and we're working to do _________ to fix it.", I will readily let a whole lot of stuff go. Today, during our morning session, one of the students in my group pointed out that our patient write up grades hadn't been posted yet, which is important so we know what we can fix for the next ones, and they were up by this afternoon, and the reception of the request was apologetic and active rather than defensive. Pretty impressive.
The department is also fairly accommodating to students in situations that are directly the student's fault (totally guilty), and I haven't really seen any of their instructors or directors be overtly nasty, gripey, or unprofessional. Usually they're extremely friendly, helpful, and eager to add on stuff that'll benefit us. I'm not giving a pass on the organization, because it is a problem, but knowing you can actually talk to them and they'll respond nicely is honestly one of the high points of my experience with the school. I'm not sure what that says about me or the school, but there you go.
Pharm. Pharm is the definition of ambivalence for me, as I've mentioned before because I maintain that it is well run, but I hate this class probably more than any other and it is taking up a huge portion of my time, which means I'm spending a huge amount of time focusing on a subject that is difficult, heavy, high yield, and mindnumbing. So it's a lot like being forced to spend 2-8 hours of your day eating liver. It's good for you; it may be made well by champion chefs and butchers, but it's still going to ruin your day.
Clinic. The clinic is driving me nuts. 90 minutes minimum to renew prescriptions, only to have it dragged on for a week or two weeks or whatever the on-duty feels like giving me and having the pharmacy frequently out of what I need, while the mail from home isn't reliably making it. Not a great use of time. Also an added stress I don't need hitting right at the end.
Social... another big source of ambivalence. I'm finding more and more that I like a huge number of the students at this school, and have established close friendships with a number of them and I'm deeply enjoying being around them. My boyfriend is being completely awesome, per usual, and since we're both incarcerated in the study hall a lot, it means I get to spend more time with him.
BUT... (there's always a but)... I am becoming more and more acutely aware that though I'm extremely excited to get done with basic sciences and begin the next stage of my life, I am also going to lose the close contact with my fellow convicts and we're all going to get scattered to the wind. Many of us will likely end up at the same hospitals, and there's internet connections, but it's not the same, and I'm going to miss that. Some of my closest friendships have been made on this island, and I'm going to be abandoning that to have a close relationship with my step 1 videos. I'm going to miss running into a ton of people I know and like on campus, at the beach, at the market, and the whole closeness of the campus. Yes, this also creates a fishbowl here, but it can be a pretty comforting one, and soon, it's going to be back to the scary real world, having lost the ability to hold conversations with people that aren't Caribbean medical students. "Hey, how are you doing? So... who's running for president? Did you catch the last season of that show that ended three years ago? Don't you hate it when you're trying to watch an episode of House, but the channel feed keeps switching between the Colorado and New York feed so you can't tell when it's on? It's about as reliable as the egg supply at IGA. Wanna go get a Carib? How many EC do they go for at that bar on the corner? As long as they're not blasting soca, know what I mean? No?"
Also, there's the scenery. I love the scenery in the states too, don't get me wrong, but even after nearly two years, I frequently look around and am taken in by the surreality of essentially living in a Windows screensaver. Though I probably go to the beach and dive way less frequently than I did in California (and no, I didn't live near the beach), the fact that it is so close is something I'm always aware of.
So it's a whole weird thing. I'm having to do "next stage of life" things like register for the USMLE, which was always this huge looming someday off in the distance thing and now it's a 700$ charge on my credit card and I'm having to choose date periods and get photos made for my ID. I'm having to figure out what I'm doing for rotations, when I'm starting them, and how I'm handling the period in between rather than just continuing on the island, paying my rent. I'm dealing with what I'm going to do with all my stuff, people are touring my apartment, and it's a huge change.
I'm going to get to see my family again. I'm going to get to have seasons again. My clothes are going to last longer and can be varied. I'm going to get to have fast food and cheap meat and ethnic cuisine, and trips to the grocery store, and quick pick ups of anything I need as close as the local love/hate Walmart. I'll be able to drive. I won't need to book a boat or a plane to anywhere outside of an 11X22 mile radius.
So it's all... blah, mixed up inside me. And making it hard to study. As is the suddenly rescheduled meeting at 5 tonight.
To change gears abruptly (much like my moods at any given second), I guess I'll Sandblast-talk, since that's an actual event rather than some diary description of my overall feelings.
Since I wasn't behind in school enough, I chose to hit the last Sandblast for me (hopefully), which had a Halloween theme, making it particularly appealing because I love Autumn and Halloween, and they don't really do either here. I had to grab and orange AND black t-shirt since they not only had the whole Halloween thing going for them, but chose to mesh it with a Dark Knight Heath-Ledger-as-Joker pumpkin "Why so serious" motto that just upped the awesome. Well done, designers.
For a change, I actually got there close to when it opened rather than sleeping late and not getting there until they were half out of beer thing that I normally do. I also chose to maintain a steady state of alcohol in my bloodstream rather than gorging myself on it first thing, falling over, and being done for the evening by 5 PM. Muchhhh smarter. Makes for rougher mornings though.
I had promised Ashley a beer pong partner, so we first cruised the area a bit, grabbed our mugs, a well-made cocktail from the bar, hit the food tent and relaxed on the beach for a bit. Refilled a bit later on inexplicably pink beer. We attempted to figure this one out for a while, but it turns out, pink was supposed to be red for *blood* beer. While it ended up looking like we were drinking the run off from an eviscerated Care Bear, it's probably better off that there was not a sufficient amount of red food coloring to turn the beer *really* red or the clinic probably would have had a run on it the next morning the likes of which has never been seen.
So beer pong started up and we wandered over, and promptly watched a couple vet students run the table to a degree that it was surprising they were still standing.
To our credit, we got them down to the last cup to sudden death, and that is *quite* an accomplishment, but sadly, they got it in for the win. Much shame. Ran into Jay and Jordan, hung out with them for a while, and got a full thing of beer dumped over me by two guys who were "fighting or are they wrestling, I'm not sure, let's just move". Fortunately, you wear disposable clothes to Sandblast.
Ran into Grace and Dem and headed down to the Owl to watch the game. Good chicken wings there but unfortunately, only crab racing on Monday nights, which I still haven't seen. Some pool, some jeopardy, a good night swim, then home to preen for Bananas, which I ended up leaving with Grace and Dem at around 5 in the morning. Gods.
If this seems excessive, this is pretty much "just another Sandblast". One thing about medical school is that it destroys your sanity *and* your liver.
So now I'm paying the price and attempting to catch up pharm... which will leave me catching up renal in pathophys, which inexplicably puts me in the same place as everyone who either studied for the entirety of last weekend OR spent the entire weekend drinking. It's like the entire class procrastinates together and always seems the same number of lectures behind. See why I love these guys?
This term has me on an emotional roller coaster that's hard to adequately express because my mood towards it is changing so rapidly as are my approaches to attempt to stave off a bad attitude.
While my nature is generally sarcastic and cynical (as is anyone who read over a hundred issues of the Babysitter's Club as a child), my overall attitude is one I try to generally be happy (being sarcastic makes me happy), try not to let little things get to me beyond the surface irritation, thus I enjoy making fun of things without being too hard-hit by them, with a few notable exceptions that are pretty dramatically splashed onto this blog.
I've also let myself get cases of the deep-blue-funks which made the overall decently-run second term a complete misery for me while I enjoyed the "rabid monkeys made my schedule" fourth term largely by avoiding anything that wasn't mandatory and keeping chipper that this would be the hardest term in basic sciences and I was enjoying most of the material.
Flash forward to my current state of affairs where I am desperately seeking a positive attitude so that I do not waste my last couple months on this tropical island wallowing around feeling sorry for myself. This is difficult because there are a number of negative factors that are making the term a bit of a hell, while not allowing me to sink too deeply because there are a bunch of goods, and the goods are frequently rather spectacular goods, which just gives me that whole unstable bipolar feeling that I never know if I'm going to cry or dance around.
This is all being exacerbated by my having an absolutely *galloping* case of senioritis, thus I don't feel like doing anything, go for long periods of doing absolutely nothing but procrastinating, then followed by marathon study sessions, all the while kind of resenting that they're making me do this whole med school thing when I'm supposed to be relaxing on the beach, doing hashes, going scuba diving, playing guitar, seeing monkeys, island hopping, and all the other impossible goals I hoped to get in before leaving for good. Like it's third term or something.
Oh, to get onto the good... I've been chronicling this little battle with the pathophys department for a while, which was constituting a lot of the "bad". Long story short: chancellor letter, huge and surprising response, big open forum where we got listened to by all the department heads and the deans, some initial changes made that were promising, and continue to look promising, but cautious optimism.
This took a slight down-swing with hearing the reports to the fourth termers, though their 5/6th might be worse than ours, in that they were told a couple of times that they'd need to bring back all their books and notes (unrealistic and sucktastic, but at least announced), but that the current term (ours) had a bunch of complaints because no one told us we would have to think critically so they should be prepared for that for the next term.
So that was kind of pissy. "Well, we can't tell the 5/6th termers this because they'd completely destroy us in a debate over it by citing our lack of organization and preparation while citing the past pathology course as requiring integration and the BSCE1 as being a test of our recall from other classes, but we just wanted to let you fourthies know that unlike your special-ed upperclassmen, who have made it to the near-end of their second year of medical school without being able to arrive at any conclusion that wasn't drawn out in capital letters on something shiny for them, you're actually going to have to use your brains next term, so be prepared."
BUT
Lest I withhold credit where credit is due, they are reinstituting a curve based on the actual class averages and standard deviations, per an announcement on Angel! Woo hoo!!!! And though NONE of the renal Sonic Foundry lectures have been posted, the notes for heme, GI and renal were on time, and they changed up the way the BSFCR was run, as they indicated they would while getting the objectives up in advance, as they also said they would, so while I have no idea how this is going to play out on the upcoming exam, I'm going to go ahead and give the administration credit for following through on this one, and make it generally known that if you do feel like your education is taking an inexcusable hit, politely express that, and you never know what can happen. While I'm not wildly appreciative of the announcement to fourth term, it was made to fourth term, and so long as they're fixing the problems that are plaguing this term and are aware of the problem, I'm going to go ahead and give them a pass on saying anything they like. I mean, I'm going to completely make fun of it, but that's all part of the "not a deep hurt" part of above.
In Clinical Skills, they continue to demonstrate that though there is a ton of disorganization, you generally don't have to go any higher than the department heads (or sometimes the tutors) to get a response, and the disorganization seems regretted and inadvertent. And as I've said all along, attitude goes a *long* way with me. If you point out a problem and someones says "I'm really sorry for the inconvenience and we're working to do _________ to fix it.", I will readily let a whole lot of stuff go. Today, during our morning session, one of the students in my group pointed out that our patient write up grades hadn't been posted yet, which is important so we know what we can fix for the next ones, and they were up by this afternoon, and the reception of the request was apologetic and active rather than defensive. Pretty impressive.
The department is also fairly accommodating to students in situations that are directly the student's fault (totally guilty), and I haven't really seen any of their instructors or directors be overtly nasty, gripey, or unprofessional. Usually they're extremely friendly, helpful, and eager to add on stuff that'll benefit us. I'm not giving a pass on the organization, because it is a problem, but knowing you can actually talk to them and they'll respond nicely is honestly one of the high points of my experience with the school. I'm not sure what that says about me or the school, but there you go.
Pharm. Pharm is the definition of ambivalence for me, as I've mentioned before because I maintain that it is well run, but I hate this class probably more than any other and it is taking up a huge portion of my time, which means I'm spending a huge amount of time focusing on a subject that is difficult, heavy, high yield, and mindnumbing. So it's a lot like being forced to spend 2-8 hours of your day eating liver. It's good for you; it may be made well by champion chefs and butchers, but it's still going to ruin your day.
Clinic. The clinic is driving me nuts. 90 minutes minimum to renew prescriptions, only to have it dragged on for a week or two weeks or whatever the on-duty feels like giving me and having the pharmacy frequently out of what I need, while the mail from home isn't reliably making it. Not a great use of time. Also an added stress I don't need hitting right at the end.
Social... another big source of ambivalence. I'm finding more and more that I like a huge number of the students at this school, and have established close friendships with a number of them and I'm deeply enjoying being around them. My boyfriend is being completely awesome, per usual, and since we're both incarcerated in the study hall a lot, it means I get to spend more time with him.
BUT... (there's always a but)... I am becoming more and more acutely aware that though I'm extremely excited to get done with basic sciences and begin the next stage of my life, I am also going to lose the close contact with my fellow convicts and we're all going to get scattered to the wind. Many of us will likely end up at the same hospitals, and there's internet connections, but it's not the same, and I'm going to miss that. Some of my closest friendships have been made on this island, and I'm going to be abandoning that to have a close relationship with my step 1 videos. I'm going to miss running into a ton of people I know and like on campus, at the beach, at the market, and the whole closeness of the campus. Yes, this also creates a fishbowl here, but it can be a pretty comforting one, and soon, it's going to be back to the scary real world, having lost the ability to hold conversations with people that aren't Caribbean medical students. "Hey, how are you doing? So... who's running for president? Did you catch the last season of that show that ended three years ago? Don't you hate it when you're trying to watch an episode of House, but the channel feed keeps switching between the Colorado and New York feed so you can't tell when it's on? It's about as reliable as the egg supply at IGA. Wanna go get a Carib? How many EC do they go for at that bar on the corner? As long as they're not blasting soca, know what I mean? No?"
Also, there's the scenery. I love the scenery in the states too, don't get me wrong, but even after nearly two years, I frequently look around and am taken in by the surreality of essentially living in a Windows screensaver. Though I probably go to the beach and dive way less frequently than I did in California (and no, I didn't live near the beach), the fact that it is so close is something I'm always aware of.
So it's a whole weird thing. I'm having to do "next stage of life" things like register for the USMLE, which was always this huge looming someday off in the distance thing and now it's a 700$ charge on my credit card and I'm having to choose date periods and get photos made for my ID. I'm having to figure out what I'm doing for rotations, when I'm starting them, and how I'm handling the period in between rather than just continuing on the island, paying my rent. I'm dealing with what I'm going to do with all my stuff, people are touring my apartment, and it's a huge change.
I'm going to get to see my family again. I'm going to get to have seasons again. My clothes are going to last longer and can be varied. I'm going to get to have fast food and cheap meat and ethnic cuisine, and trips to the grocery store, and quick pick ups of anything I need as close as the local love/hate Walmart. I'll be able to drive. I won't need to book a boat or a plane to anywhere outside of an 11X22 mile radius.
So it's all... blah, mixed up inside me. And making it hard to study. As is the suddenly rescheduled meeting at 5 tonight.
To change gears abruptly (much like my moods at any given second), I guess I'll Sandblast-talk, since that's an actual event rather than some diary description of my overall feelings.
Since I wasn't behind in school enough, I chose to hit the last Sandblast for me (hopefully), which had a Halloween theme, making it particularly appealing because I love Autumn and Halloween, and they don't really do either here. I had to grab and orange AND black t-shirt since they not only had the whole Halloween thing going for them, but chose to mesh it with a Dark Knight Heath-Ledger-as-Joker pumpkin "Why so serious" motto that just upped the awesome. Well done, designers.
For a change, I actually got there close to when it opened rather than sleeping late and not getting there until they were half out of beer thing that I normally do. I also chose to maintain a steady state of alcohol in my bloodstream rather than gorging myself on it first thing, falling over, and being done for the evening by 5 PM. Muchhhh smarter. Makes for rougher mornings though.
I had promised Ashley a beer pong partner, so we first cruised the area a bit, grabbed our mugs, a well-made cocktail from the bar, hit the food tent and relaxed on the beach for a bit. Refilled a bit later on inexplicably pink beer. We attempted to figure this one out for a while, but it turns out, pink was supposed to be red for *blood* beer. While it ended up looking like we were drinking the run off from an eviscerated Care Bear, it's probably better off that there was not a sufficient amount of red food coloring to turn the beer *really* red or the clinic probably would have had a run on it the next morning the likes of which has never been seen.
So beer pong started up and we wandered over, and promptly watched a couple vet students run the table to a degree that it was surprising they were still standing.
To our credit, we got them down to the last cup to sudden death, and that is *quite* an accomplishment, but sadly, they got it in for the win. Much shame. Ran into Jay and Jordan, hung out with them for a while, and got a full thing of beer dumped over me by two guys who were "fighting or are they wrestling, I'm not sure, let's just move". Fortunately, you wear disposable clothes to Sandblast.
Ran into Grace and Dem and headed down to the Owl to watch the game. Good chicken wings there but unfortunately, only crab racing on Monday nights, which I still haven't seen. Some pool, some jeopardy, a good night swim, then home to preen for Bananas, which I ended up leaving with Grace and Dem at around 5 in the morning. Gods.
If this seems excessive, this is pretty much "just another Sandblast". One thing about medical school is that it destroys your sanity *and* your liver.
So now I'm paying the price and attempting to catch up pharm... which will leave me catching up renal in pathophys, which inexplicably puts me in the same place as everyone who either studied for the entirety of last weekend OR spent the entire weekend drinking. It's like the entire class procrastinates together and always seems the same number of lectures behind. See why I love these guys?
Sep 16, 2008
More tests
Up and coming.
It's been hard coming up with new stuff to say. My term seems to be in a loose consensus over the problems: pharm's too hard; pathophys is a crapshoot of no-direction, and there hasn't been real elaboration on that, leaving me in a perpetual state of "Hmmm".
This steady state sort of situation, even as the countdown heads towards the first set of exams for us, is creating a sort of passive discontent among myself and my fellows. The advent of cardio in pathophys at first brought a loud angry voice, then one that continued but waning into a grim but more passive acceptance that it's not going to change. When you see your classmates, you go "How's it going?" and they say "Dude, I just can't get a handle on this stuff" or "I'm drowning" or some variety, and you shake your head with a resigned laugh and assert agreement. And repeat. And when other-termers ask how 5th term is, you say "It sucks" and again with the head shake/laugh.
Exams coming up are unpredictable. Part of me is plugging away, camped out in Taylor Hall (which is very nice), but calm about it, used to exam stress by now despite my whole first term meltdown. But another part of me is making my eyes twitch, including making my pupils do this weird contract/dilate thing that I can't explain, so there seems to be some sort of whole sympathetic firing going on even if I'm not feeling it as acutely.
I re-discovered that my apartment is the procrastination central for procrastination studies (if no other kind of studies), so following Dave's example, I've been bussing it to campus, studying until late, bussing back. I think I need to re-incorporate some walks though, since I think my new and complete lack of exercise is getting into my head. And probably my waistline. But it's also cool because I get pretty decent company while having to study away. And good luck to the fourth termers with their exams this week!
So what else besides the usual. Oh, on loan check status, one of them finally arrived (not sure if it's the missing 5th term one or the 6th term one on time), so I've gotten partial access to my funds (thanks dad!) with full access coming on Friday. For reference, I got here August 17th. You guys can do the math.
On a more positive note, since I'm not half as depressed as the above sounds... actually in a decent mood.
Did my ER visit Monday morning, and that was pretty cool, and we saw the quick through patients. Our facilitator today was a no-nonsense doc of the old school variety. No BS. Don't try to run through your clinical skills checklist on a woman who's very obviously in pretty severe pain. Don't try to interview the asthma kid until AFTER he's been on the nebulizer. Now I'll show you the way you're actually supposed to do a bulge test, since you all are touching that woman's knee like it's about to detonate. Come here. As you all are upcoming doctors, I will plead with you now to try to write legibly. Find the fracture on this x-ray. Next patient. That's what we call 'ER Drama' It goes away when their significant other does.
Nice and informative. Nothing really crazy, though I did again demonstrate my ineptitude for doing ear exams, which is second only to my inability to do an eye exam, the latter of which consists of seeing a vaguely vascular-looking pink haze through the opthalmoscope while trying to find the optic disc until the patient's pupil is the size of a pinprick due to having me shine a light in their eye for ten minutes, and then I make a noncommittal affirmative noise that gives the false impression that I know what I'm looking at or have gleaned something meaningful from it. Practice practice. I'm getting better at interpreting what I'm hearing through a stethoscope though.
Well, gotta get up tomorrow and study some more. Night all.
It's been hard coming up with new stuff to say. My term seems to be in a loose consensus over the problems: pharm's too hard; pathophys is a crapshoot of no-direction, and there hasn't been real elaboration on that, leaving me in a perpetual state of "Hmmm".
This steady state sort of situation, even as the countdown heads towards the first set of exams for us, is creating a sort of passive discontent among myself and my fellows. The advent of cardio in pathophys at first brought a loud angry voice, then one that continued but waning into a grim but more passive acceptance that it's not going to change. When you see your classmates, you go "How's it going?" and they say "Dude, I just can't get a handle on this stuff" or "I'm drowning" or some variety, and you shake your head with a resigned laugh and assert agreement. And repeat. And when other-termers ask how 5th term is, you say "It sucks" and again with the head shake/laugh.
Exams coming up are unpredictable. Part of me is plugging away, camped out in Taylor Hall (which is very nice), but calm about it, used to exam stress by now despite my whole first term meltdown. But another part of me is making my eyes twitch, including making my pupils do this weird contract/dilate thing that I can't explain, so there seems to be some sort of whole sympathetic firing going on even if I'm not feeling it as acutely.
I re-discovered that my apartment is the procrastination central for procrastination studies (if no other kind of studies), so following Dave's example, I've been bussing it to campus, studying until late, bussing back. I think I need to re-incorporate some walks though, since I think my new and complete lack of exercise is getting into my head. And probably my waistline. But it's also cool because I get pretty decent company while having to study away. And good luck to the fourth termers with their exams this week!
So what else besides the usual. Oh, on loan check status, one of them finally arrived (not sure if it's the missing 5th term one or the 6th term one on time), so I've gotten partial access to my funds (thanks dad!) with full access coming on Friday. For reference, I got here August 17th. You guys can do the math.
On a more positive note, since I'm not half as depressed as the above sounds... actually in a decent mood.
Did my ER visit Monday morning, and that was pretty cool, and we saw the quick through patients. Our facilitator today was a no-nonsense doc of the old school variety. No BS. Don't try to run through your clinical skills checklist on a woman who's very obviously in pretty severe pain. Don't try to interview the asthma kid until AFTER he's been on the nebulizer. Now I'll show you the way you're actually supposed to do a bulge test, since you all are touching that woman's knee like it's about to detonate. Come here. As you all are upcoming doctors, I will plead with you now to try to write legibly. Find the fracture on this x-ray. Next patient. That's what we call 'ER Drama' It goes away when their significant other does.
Nice and informative. Nothing really crazy, though I did again demonstrate my ineptitude for doing ear exams, which is second only to my inability to do an eye exam, the latter of which consists of seeing a vaguely vascular-looking pink haze through the opthalmoscope while trying to find the optic disc until the patient's pupil is the size of a pinprick due to having me shine a light in their eye for ten minutes, and then I make a noncommittal affirmative noise that gives the false impression that I know what I'm looking at or have gleaned something meaningful from it. Practice practice. I'm getting better at interpreting what I'm hearing through a stethoscope though.
Well, gotta get up tomorrow and study some more. Night all.
Oct 1, 2007
Phew...
Sorry about the crackheadedness of that last entry, folks... worse than blogging drunk, which of course, I've also never done... and if I had an emoticon feature on this thing, that would be the eyes looking innocently up and the mouth whistling. You can tell I've been using too much Skype.
So what's up/wrong with me lately? I suppose I'll figure it out after midterms (two weeks and counting).
I can't figure this term out so far. Not in a "I don't understand the material way", but in a straight up, I'm not sure whether I can't figure this term out or myself out kind of way. I feel burned out, social craving while being antisocial, caught up, and completely, painfully, never-seen-this-material-before behind. Was I this behind last term? Was I this ahead last term? What percentage of my time was spent studying? Is it better to be on campus and feel like you're constantly surrounded by people or is it better to be off campus and shell up in my apartment while continuing to waste time by surfing the internet, lying on the couch, or ineffectually wandering around?
I'm *still* trying to find a study groove. This, of course, was supposed to be established during first term, and is part of what makes first term so difficult. But now, I'm having trouble finding a method that works that I can stick with. Rewriting all the notes or making flash cards, with the volume of information, seems illogical, and often, not a great use of time for many concepts that are, well, conceptual. But when I read and watch Sonic Foundry and highlight, sometimes I look back at lectures and it's like they're completely new to me. So there's a happy medium somewhere, but I don't think I've found it.
The problem, I'm finding, and that seems to be expressed by others, and that I know I've whined about to everyone at least a hundred times, is that I can't tell where I am this term, and that unnerves me. I can't determine whether I'm screwing around and wasting more time this term than I did last term, whether I know as much or as little as I did last term, whether I'm going to ace my midterms and wonder why I didn't go to the beach more often, or if I'm going to flat fail them all. I feel like I have a passing knowledge of everything without knowing even a hint of the minutia that tends to be testable. Will I have time to go back? Did I before and how did it work out for me?
This, of course, produces stress, sleeplessness, and perhaps more frustratingly, teenage-type mood swings. Hey! I'm caught up to all the lectures up today! Happy day! Hey! I don't recall details from any of them. Awww. Sad day.
Immunology, as lamented by probably everyone, is also a bit frustrating. Studying for this class is difficult because the information comes from a ton of different sources, which requires time to synthesize and understand, and the lecture notes don't really give me any idea what's going on, so I put together the spiral book, the summaries, the vocabulary, and THEN try to figure out what's highlighted in the lecture notes.
This is more than doable, problem being, additionally intensely time consuming, requiring the same study-pop for neuro and/or physiology, with each of those classes being five units per, and immuno being two. But the class average on the first immuno midterm tends to be an A, so can I afford to sacrifice something that will be a sure thing if I study for it for things I have no idea how I'm doing in?
There's also a burnout feeling. I know previous terms have had genetics and parasitology at the same time as their other classes. And I had the same problems with genetics and CPH, though those worked out intensely well for me, but going into genetics, I had no idea how I would do, and coming OUT of CPH, I wasn't sure if I had an "A" or failed it. Again, this should console me, but complacency is just as dangerous as anything else...
Scheduling-wise, considering my current stress in determining what on earth I should study for, I think that would have only made things worse, AND people had clinical skills to deal with, which we got out of the way for the term by that horrid CPH class.
But the organization also means, two weeks of class... two final exams... three or four weeks of class, final exam, granted in a kind of a bird class, but no break between direct continuation into other classes, including start of a third, and then 4 weeks (or is it 3; can't keep track) and midterms. I suppose that's rough on the mind. Of course, so was first term with the unifieds and then bam, midterms three weeks later.
So I don't know... this isn't really a complaint with the school or anything, because hey, this is the courseload, decel if you don't like it, but more of a problem with me, and this odd disconnect I've felt lately, socially, scholastically. Not quite sure how to deal with it.
Onto the positive, since I'm feeling more introspective right now, and the above sounds like I'm on a jet spiral to the ground, which I'm actually not... I poached David's study habits and went to sit next to him at the quiet spots of the library which sort of 'peer pressures' me into not screwing around on the internet while not allowing me to talk much and distract us both, since as you can probably tell, I'm generally incapable of shutting up for more than five seconds.
Despite a late start due to my tenacious night-owl wannabe circadian rhythm meant HOURS at the library today and yesterday, allowing me to get through a grand total of three neuro lectures, three physio lectures, and two immuno lectures, and I think, with a pretty decent knowledge of all of them, so I do feel good about that. I still have a small gap in physio and immuno (which correlates to the CPH exam, I figured out, so there's probably a number of people that have a gap there), but am otherwise either caught up or *nearly* caught up and determined to stay that way.
So what's up/wrong with me lately? I suppose I'll figure it out after midterms (two weeks and counting).
I can't figure this term out so far. Not in a "I don't understand the material way", but in a straight up, I'm not sure whether I can't figure this term out or myself out kind of way. I feel burned out, social craving while being antisocial, caught up, and completely, painfully, never-seen-this-material-before behind. Was I this behind last term? Was I this ahead last term? What percentage of my time was spent studying? Is it better to be on campus and feel like you're constantly surrounded by people or is it better to be off campus and shell up in my apartment while continuing to waste time by surfing the internet, lying on the couch, or ineffectually wandering around?
I'm *still* trying to find a study groove. This, of course, was supposed to be established during first term, and is part of what makes first term so difficult. But now, I'm having trouble finding a method that works that I can stick with. Rewriting all the notes or making flash cards, with the volume of information, seems illogical, and often, not a great use of time for many concepts that are, well, conceptual. But when I read and watch Sonic Foundry and highlight, sometimes I look back at lectures and it's like they're completely new to me. So there's a happy medium somewhere, but I don't think I've found it.
The problem, I'm finding, and that seems to be expressed by others, and that I know I've whined about to everyone at least a hundred times, is that I can't tell where I am this term, and that unnerves me. I can't determine whether I'm screwing around and wasting more time this term than I did last term, whether I know as much or as little as I did last term, whether I'm going to ace my midterms and wonder why I didn't go to the beach more often, or if I'm going to flat fail them all. I feel like I have a passing knowledge of everything without knowing even a hint of the minutia that tends to be testable. Will I have time to go back? Did I before and how did it work out for me?
This, of course, produces stress, sleeplessness, and perhaps more frustratingly, teenage-type mood swings. Hey! I'm caught up to all the lectures up today! Happy day! Hey! I don't recall details from any of them. Awww. Sad day.
Immunology, as lamented by probably everyone, is also a bit frustrating. Studying for this class is difficult because the information comes from a ton of different sources, which requires time to synthesize and understand, and the lecture notes don't really give me any idea what's going on, so I put together the spiral book, the summaries, the vocabulary, and THEN try to figure out what's highlighted in the lecture notes.
This is more than doable, problem being, additionally intensely time consuming, requiring the same study-pop for neuro and/or physiology, with each of those classes being five units per, and immuno being two. But the class average on the first immuno midterm tends to be an A, so can I afford to sacrifice something that will be a sure thing if I study for it for things I have no idea how I'm doing in?
There's also a burnout feeling. I know previous terms have had genetics and parasitology at the same time as their other classes. And I had the same problems with genetics and CPH, though those worked out intensely well for me, but going into genetics, I had no idea how I would do, and coming OUT of CPH, I wasn't sure if I had an "A" or failed it. Again, this should console me, but complacency is just as dangerous as anything else...
Scheduling-wise, considering my current stress in determining what on earth I should study for, I think that would have only made things worse, AND people had clinical skills to deal with, which we got out of the way for the term by that horrid CPH class.
But the organization also means, two weeks of class... two final exams... three or four weeks of class, final exam, granted in a kind of a bird class, but no break between direct continuation into other classes, including start of a third, and then 4 weeks (or is it 3; can't keep track) and midterms. I suppose that's rough on the mind. Of course, so was first term with the unifieds and then bam, midterms three weeks later.
So I don't know... this isn't really a complaint with the school or anything, because hey, this is the courseload, decel if you don't like it, but more of a problem with me, and this odd disconnect I've felt lately, socially, scholastically. Not quite sure how to deal with it.
Onto the positive, since I'm feeling more introspective right now, and the above sounds like I'm on a jet spiral to the ground, which I'm actually not... I poached David's study habits and went to sit next to him at the quiet spots of the library which sort of 'peer pressures' me into not screwing around on the internet while not allowing me to talk much and distract us both, since as you can probably tell, I'm generally incapable of shutting up for more than five seconds.
Despite a late start due to my tenacious night-owl wannabe circadian rhythm meant HOURS at the library today and yesterday, allowing me to get through a grand total of three neuro lectures, three physio lectures, and two immuno lectures, and I think, with a pretty decent knowledge of all of them, so I do feel good about that. I still have a small gap in physio and immuno (which correlates to the CPH exam, I figured out, so there's probably a number of people that have a gap there), but am otherwise either caught up or *nearly* caught up and determined to stay that way.
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