School is now a straight shot from here to finals. I took my last exam of the semester on Thursday. Here is where things stand right now:
- Neuroanatomy: It kills me to be so borderline. And before you go, "Hey, D's for degrees!" let me just be clear that the lowest passing grade in medical school (I'm assuming in all medical schools) is a 70%. So I'm failing. Failing! Blergh. But. I know for a fact that I failed the second Neuro exam due to being vaguely sick and in lots of pain from my back, etc., and it interfered with my sleep and my focus. This is good because now, when I am not sick and my back is not hurting, I can just focus hard and study and rock the final. And if I pass the final at all, I pass the class. Ah, med school, how quickly you have lowered my standards for success.
- Physiology: whatever. I'm doing fine in this class. Just have to keep on keepin' on.
- Microbiology: is the bane of my life. Seriously. I really don't like having to memorise literally hundreds of disparate facts. There are no processes, unlike Phys, for instance. And there are no real systems for organising the material. It's just - this bacterium/fungus/virus causes this disease. The patient will have these symptoms. These are the clinical tests we run to confirm what creature it is and these are the results we would expect. Next: this bacterium causes... Now multiply that times a few hundred, and you have the class. I think it's just hardheaded laziness, but I can't bring myself to sacrifice time spent on other classes in order to really do well in this class, and as a result I'm sort of dragging along the bottom of passing. I should care. Or something.
- Spanish: Ha.
- Clinical Epidemiology: is the one-credit class where they teach us how to evaluate the jargon in clinical studies and apply it. I haven't been to class since the midterm, and it won't matter. The material is useful, though - it's just that all of it is online, along with really complete practice exams. Not going to class + studying the notes + working through all of the practice tests = an A on the midterm, so I'm not worried.
- OMM: legitimately requires studying. Which I do. And you have to take lab seriously, unless you are too tired to log anything, and then you must pay for it later. Which I also do.
- Clinical Skilz I - Last week I did my first pelvic exam on a real, live person. She was a standardised (=trained) patient, and she was very patient with us (there were four students and one physician). It wasn't too bad, really. It's not like a vagina is a foreign concept to me. I can never tell what will gross people out and what won't, so I will spare you the details of the exam. Suffice it to say that I wasn't that nervous and my instructor complimented me when I was finished. Yay! Next week: male rectal and genital exams, also on a real, live, standardised patient. I have to say, I'm... also not nervous about that. I have yet to find a medical thing that phases me other than bone saws. Ew.
- I became a Stress Management leader! For the first two months of the autumn semester, a group of second years lead the first years in small groups, and teach them skills to help ease them into medical school life. It was invaluable to me last semester, and it will be good to pay that forward. I'm a pretty average med student, so hopefully my experiences will be useful to my group. I'm excited! I like taking care of people.
I'm guessing I will get two C's this semester, which means according to my deal with myself I can't shave my head this summer. But I will put in some obnoxious stripe of colour! I feel my youth slipping away in the face of this semi-professional life I'm living. I must have one last young hurrah this summer.
Monday, April 19
Sunday, April 11
On My Hair and Consumerism. Also My Hair.
Since I seem bent on wasting this entire day with productive procrastination, why not discuss a topic that is important but nowhere near pressing? Yes! Onward!
I'm not sure that this post applies to most of the people who read this blog. Why? It's about black hair.
I'm half black (SURPRISE!!), and I've always felt this most keenly when it comes to my hair. I've always felt mostly alone in my unending struggle against my hair. And if this sounds trivial to you, well, I envy you the ease of having your hair be something trivial. For me it's the one thing about me that can't be dealt with easily or in small steps, and it has plagued me my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother attempting to comb my hair as I screamed. Over the course of my short life I have tried, literally, everything to manage my hair - braids of all types, chemical straighteners, oils and styling products, dredlocks, even just going totally afro-natural and trying to own it. I have shaved my hair off completely and grown it back out again. And no matter what, I am always defeated by the sheer mass, the utter intractability of my hair. This last year I have resorted to the most boring of braids so that for once I just didn't have to think about it, but the truth is that I sort of hate braids. Getting them put in hurts and getting them taken out hurts, and both steps take hours, and nice braids are heavy but getting cornrows makes me look very much like my little brother. I have always dreamed of having a hair appointment that wasn't full of pain and ibuprofen. I am lucky in that my mother raised me to not feel like permanently relaxed hair was the ideal; I really like natural black hair because I think it is unique and can be gorgeous if you do it right. I just have a low success rate when it comes to translating that to my hair, which has the kinks of black hair and the coarse heaviness of Colombian hair.
(Note: For all that I am a big proponent of girls shaving their heads at least once during their lives for the experience, I would still rather have hair than have no hair. I accept that I was raised in a culture where short hair is more masculine and long hair is more feminine, and I'm not really trying to fight that particular battle. It's just that functionality is more important to me than looking nice. That is why I have shaved my head in the past and why I loved it: my hair drove me to it. And it may again. The freedom was amazing, and that was almost all I cared about.)
It's not just that I spend a lot of time and stress on my hair, it's that I spend SO MUCH MONEY on it as well. I am a very low-maintenance person, and even I spend easily $100 per appointment.
(Note #2: And let's be clear about these appointments. I spend money in order to make my hair manageable, not prettier. I am not talking about going to the salon to make otherwise perfectly fine hair a different colour, or curlier, or whatever. I am talking about making impossible hair usable.)
And now that I have semi-regular obligations that require me to look like a polished adult rather than a scruffy student, my choices have been getting more and more expensive. Some black women spend $100 every few weeks in order to maintain very clean, professional styles (or bloody ridiculous ones, but whatever). All that time and stress and money - where is it going? Someone is making an outrageous profit off of all of this.
This article is related to what I'm talking about. It talks about how messed up the black hair care industry is, how irritatingly fringe it is, and how black women constantly misspend their money. I like it because it is well-written and solidly thought out, and mirrors the same trends of responsible consumerism that have been appearing in more mainstream culture. I appreciate that.
...And we shall see if the $60 worth of products I bought from their site make it possible for me to actually stop getting my $%#& hair braided all the $%#& time. If I could just have curls! Curls that I could comb sometimes! Curls that respond to gravity! Curls that I could wash and maybe put up in a ponytail! CURLS ARE WHAT I WANT.
I'm not sure that this post applies to most of the people who read this blog. Why? It's about black hair.
I'm half black (SURPRISE!!), and I've always felt this most keenly when it comes to my hair. I've always felt mostly alone in my unending struggle against my hair. And if this sounds trivial to you, well, I envy you the ease of having your hair be something trivial. For me it's the one thing about me that can't be dealt with easily or in small steps, and it has plagued me my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother attempting to comb my hair as I screamed. Over the course of my short life I have tried, literally, everything to manage my hair - braids of all types, chemical straighteners, oils and styling products, dredlocks, even just going totally afro-natural and trying to own it. I have shaved my hair off completely and grown it back out again. And no matter what, I am always defeated by the sheer mass, the utter intractability of my hair. This last year I have resorted to the most boring of braids so that for once I just didn't have to think about it, but the truth is that I sort of hate braids. Getting them put in hurts and getting them taken out hurts, and both steps take hours, and nice braids are heavy but getting cornrows makes me look very much like my little brother. I have always dreamed of having a hair appointment that wasn't full of pain and ibuprofen. I am lucky in that my mother raised me to not feel like permanently relaxed hair was the ideal; I really like natural black hair because I think it is unique and can be gorgeous if you do it right. I just have a low success rate when it comes to translating that to my hair, which has the kinks of black hair and the coarse heaviness of Colombian hair.
(Note: For all that I am a big proponent of girls shaving their heads at least once during their lives for the experience, I would still rather have hair than have no hair. I accept that I was raised in a culture where short hair is more masculine and long hair is more feminine, and I'm not really trying to fight that particular battle. It's just that functionality is more important to me than looking nice. That is why I have shaved my head in the past and why I loved it: my hair drove me to it. And it may again. The freedom was amazing, and that was almost all I cared about.)
It's not just that I spend a lot of time and stress on my hair, it's that I spend SO MUCH MONEY on it as well. I am a very low-maintenance person, and even I spend easily $100 per appointment.
(Note #2: And let's be clear about these appointments. I spend money in order to make my hair manageable, not prettier. I am not talking about going to the salon to make otherwise perfectly fine hair a different colour, or curlier, or whatever. I am talking about making impossible hair usable.)
And now that I have semi-regular obligations that require me to look like a polished adult rather than a scruffy student, my choices have been getting more and more expensive. Some black women spend $100 every few weeks in order to maintain very clean, professional styles (or bloody ridiculous ones, but whatever). All that time and stress and money - where is it going? Someone is making an outrageous profit off of all of this.
This article is related to what I'm talking about. It talks about how messed up the black hair care industry is, how irritatingly fringe it is, and how black women constantly misspend their money. I like it because it is well-written and solidly thought out, and mirrors the same trends of responsible consumerism that have been appearing in more mainstream culture. I appreciate that.
...And we shall see if the $60 worth of products I bought from their site make it possible for me to actually stop getting my $%#& hair braided all the $%#& time. If I could just have curls! Curls that I could comb sometimes! Curls that respond to gravity! Curls that I could wash and maybe put up in a ponytail! CURLS ARE WHAT I WANT.
Friday, April 9
Catalytic
An hour and a half ago this post would have been nothing but, "I hate this school, I hate all the people in it, I am sick of this blah blah blah..."
But then I went to the weekly CMA meeting and everything changed.
Every so often we have a guest speaker instead of doing our usual Scripture reading/ discussion thing. Today the speaker was Rick Donlon, who helped found Christ Community Health Services, a group of clinics for low-income people in Memphis. And I have to tell you- well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
First of all, he gave a very frank talk about how the med students/ doctors of his generation, individually and corporately, ultimately compromised their desire to change the world for God's glory in exchange for money, security, etc. And he discussed how real a danger that is for us right now, how we are in this giant monster that is trying to eat us and we end up sort of chewed up and spit out by the end of medical school. Before we are even doctors, we are tired and fed up and just want things to be easy for a bit. I'm sure you can guess that I felt his words in a deep part of my soul, because I've been feeling med school's teeth for a while now. I felt rebuked, and so I was totally absorbed because clearly, whatever he was about to say applied to me.
He moved on to what he did - how just a few years out of medical school he started this tiny clinic in the poorest part of Memphis with three other inexperienced young doctors - and it just caught me. I have always known that I wanted to serve the underserved, and since I came to Christ I knew that this desire would (well, duh) be tied to sharing God with others. But it's scary to think that my purpose will really only include serving, not on the side while I work at a nice hospital or a suburban clinic, but to just serve. Just... not make much money and not have great equipment most of the time and see people who desperately need the most basic medical education and service. Does that make sense, that I feel split even though my purpose is mostly clear to me? I know what I am going to do with my life in the purest sense, but I don't yet know how to get there. I don't know what my residency will be. I don't know what rotations to take at the end of med school. I don't know where I will be going (here? The States? Somewhere else in the world? Some combination? How does that even work?) or what, specifically, I will be doing. I just know that I was made for a life of service to the poor and oppressed.
There it is. Thrilling. As in exciting and terrifying. Also terrifying. Maybe a bit confusing. Did I mention terrifying? God has a lot of growing to do if he wants this little mouse in the faith to be able to really, really serve. But this is the only thought that galvanises me, that really gets me awake and energised about the future. School loses its spice after a week or so when it's this hard. Working in a normal clinic sounds ridiculously boring (Well. Not boring, per se. Just... well... boring. Wait, that's the same as boring, isn't it. Sorry, I did try). But working just in a hospital sounds like it might suck your soul out and leave it for the vultures. I don't know where I'm going with this, except that I must have meaning to my work or I can't do it. I can only get by on rationalisations for so long. Does that make sense? Obviously I haven't had the whole path revealed to me, which is really as it should be because all I need to focus on for now is the next four weeks of my life, not the next forty years. This is what I know:
0. God is good. I also wrote, "Good is God," and "God is God," and I suppose those are also true.
1. I have a Microbiology test on Thursday that I really need to pass. This weekend I must study for it, and also for Neuroanatomy, because...
2. I am currently failing Neuroanatomy by 0.2%; if I pass the final, I pass the class. Thus, I have to spend the next four weeks working to make sure that pass happens.
3. Matt will be gone for four weeks this summer. I have been invited (along with anyone else at school who wants to go) to go and live and work among the people who run CCHS for a period from 2-4 weeks. Thus, for part or all of the time Matt is away, I will go and begin to learn the tools for my future trade.
4. At some point in the distant future, I will finally be well-enough equipped to go and serve somewhere. And it will happen.
5. God is still good.
That's all I know about my life. More than enough to get me through the end of my little first-year experience, don't you think?
But then I went to the weekly CMA meeting and everything changed.
Every so often we have a guest speaker instead of doing our usual Scripture reading/ discussion thing. Today the speaker was Rick Donlon, who helped found Christ Community Health Services, a group of clinics for low-income people in Memphis. And I have to tell you- well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
First of all, he gave a very frank talk about how the med students/ doctors of his generation, individually and corporately, ultimately compromised their desire to change the world for God's glory in exchange for money, security, etc. And he discussed how real a danger that is for us right now, how we are in this giant monster that is trying to eat us and we end up sort of chewed up and spit out by the end of medical school. Before we are even doctors, we are tired and fed up and just want things to be easy for a bit. I'm sure you can guess that I felt his words in a deep part of my soul, because I've been feeling med school's teeth for a while now. I felt rebuked, and so I was totally absorbed because clearly, whatever he was about to say applied to me.
He moved on to what he did - how just a few years out of medical school he started this tiny clinic in the poorest part of Memphis with three other inexperienced young doctors - and it just caught me. I have always known that I wanted to serve the underserved, and since I came to Christ I knew that this desire would (well, duh) be tied to sharing God with others. But it's scary to think that my purpose will really only include serving, not on the side while I work at a nice hospital or a suburban clinic, but to just serve. Just... not make much money and not have great equipment most of the time and see people who desperately need the most basic medical education and service. Does that make sense, that I feel split even though my purpose is mostly clear to me? I know what I am going to do with my life in the purest sense, but I don't yet know how to get there. I don't know what my residency will be. I don't know what rotations to take at the end of med school. I don't know where I will be going (here? The States? Somewhere else in the world? Some combination? How does that even work?) or what, specifically, I will be doing. I just know that I was made for a life of service to the poor and oppressed.
There it is. Thrilling. As in exciting and terrifying. Also terrifying. Maybe a bit confusing. Did I mention terrifying? God has a lot of growing to do if he wants this little mouse in the faith to be able to really, really serve. But this is the only thought that galvanises me, that really gets me awake and energised about the future. School loses its spice after a week or so when it's this hard. Working in a normal clinic sounds ridiculously boring (Well. Not boring, per se. Just... well... boring. Wait, that's the same as boring, isn't it. Sorry, I did try). But working just in a hospital sounds like it might suck your soul out and leave it for the vultures. I don't know where I'm going with this, except that I must have meaning to my work or I can't do it. I can only get by on rationalisations for so long. Does that make sense? Obviously I haven't had the whole path revealed to me, which is really as it should be because all I need to focus on for now is the next four weeks of my life, not the next forty years. This is what I know:
0. God is good. I also wrote, "Good is God," and "God is God," and I suppose those are also true.
1. I have a Microbiology test on Thursday that I really need to pass. This weekend I must study for it, and also for Neuroanatomy, because...
2. I am currently failing Neuroanatomy by 0.2%; if I pass the final, I pass the class. Thus, I have to spend the next four weeks working to make sure that pass happens.
3. Matt will be gone for four weeks this summer. I have been invited (along with anyone else at school who wants to go) to go and live and work among the people who run CCHS for a period from 2-4 weeks. Thus, for part or all of the time Matt is away, I will go and begin to learn the tools for my future trade.
4. At some point in the distant future, I will finally be well-enough equipped to go and serve somewhere. And it will happen.
5. God is still good.
That's all I know about my life. More than enough to get me through the end of my little first-year experience, don't you think?
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