Stuff

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.