Dunisms

As of now, I am a second year medical student. It is amazing how much these little victories mean, but in ten years, when I look back, I will remember moments of this year and some of the struggles, but I will not look at it as a momentous event just to get to my second year. But right now, I feel accomplished.

I actually kinda went out with a bang this year. As I was studying for Neuroscience, and trying to understand how the brain works and memorize all the pathways involved, I realized that was not working. So I changed tactics. I treated the last test as a word association game. I went over the syllabus and the study materials and tried to get a good idea of what words and phrases were next to each other. Then, come test time, I simply went in there and if the words in the question matched with the words in the answers, it was right. Yeah, I may have also applied a little old fashioned memorization, but mostly it was word association. And it worked.... very well.

On an unrelated note, all of us have lost something and then spent hours looking for it. Sometimes even enlisting help. Sometime we have even wished that we could have used a bloodhound. What if what you lost was a bloodhound? I saw a poster for a lost dog, a bloohound. Now how are you going to find that.

Finishing up ism

How much can one really be expected to study?

I have no intention of answering this question. Every time I document the amount of time I spend studying, it is always dizzyingly high. Now that I am in medikel skewl, I treat each test as though it were finals week in undergrad. Now, three days before my final test, that intensity is waning. Don't get me wrong, I have already put in a few solid hours and two more half-hearted, distracted hours today. But, for all intents and purposes I am on my summer vacation... and foolishly studying in a place where they are baking cookies... en masse.

I have a hard time studying in the library, or study rooms provided. I am nearly incapable of studying at home (ironically, it is easier for me to sit in bed and study than to sit at my desk). So, I am a coffee shop studier. Which is odd because I feel that coffee is the bane of western society. Coffee, itself, is only a gateway drug which leads to espressos, lattes, latte art, frappafrostymadoos and before too long you find yourself with a nose ring, hip-hugging-skinny-jeans, listening to alternative music and staring at your fixed gear bike wondering how you, from a good family with a good life, went so wrong. And then, you write a poem and put it to a few guitar chords. That, I believe, is technically rock bottom. Consider yourself fortunate if you are reading this wearing addidas pants, an addidas windbreaker, addidas shoes, and an addidas headband while sipping an espresso wondering who won the Liverpool Chelsea match last night. You have chosen the alternate pathway, and while it may lead to social isolation, the rehab process is much easier and does not usually involve removing tattoos.

Of course, drinking tea can save you from that horrible fate (I would be remiss if I did not point out that tea drinking can lead to organic foods, yoga, steamed vegetables, and other culturally unacceptable forms of expression).

I must return to studying the brain, after all, that prefrontal cortex is not going to learn itself... or perhaps it is. I haven't gotten that far yet.

Hike and Bike-ism

I should have done a lot of things differently today. I was going to study, but instead I designed a cycling jersey. If I knew how to put up pictures, I’d show you what I came up with. One of those little side projects I try to always be involved with is the Ride for Jim. There are 5 riders crossing the country to raise money for cancer research. Then, for their final leg, we are organizing a group ride from Richmond to Yorktown. This year, we are making a jersey in order to get people to raise funds. We are recruiting sponsors, getting advertising out. It is very exciting. I put together a preliminary jersey… and I think it looks pretty good. (The sponsors on this mock up are from last year, and will change. Stay tuned.)

Feel free to comment on the Jersey.

The other thing I was going to try to do was go to bed early(er). That did not happen, thanks to an exciting Yankees Red Sox finish. The Sox came back behind a couple of home runs. And just as I was about to pack it in, A-Rod hits a two-run home run. Tie game. Then, another home run. Yankees win!!

I’m a little short on sleep after this weekend’s madness. A hike and bike. I ascended the priest— 3100 feet of vertical to the summit of this clerical peak. Then, a night in a tent followed by a 54 mile bike ride up to and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Getting to the parkway was brutal. Once on top, the ups and downs continued but it never got quite as steep. It was amazing. I kind of wanted to keep going… but I don’t know how much was left in my legs. Awesome.

Alright, I promise more, but the game is over and… sleep.

Almost a year

It is the end of a year of medical school and, dagnabit, it is time I started blogging about it. So, for those of you who do not know, medical school is where you go to lose your mind, get lost in books, bid adieu to your social life, contract the most miserable case of hypochondria possible and become completely useless to society.

Yes, after one year of schooling in the basic medical sciences, I am now utterly useless. My mind has been filled to overflowing, emptied, refilled, re-emptied, refilled, scattered, addled, and finally, utterly emptied. So, if you were to become severely injured in front of me, after a great deal of hemming and hawing and making faces that tell you I am probing the very deepest recesses of memory and existence, I could tell you what muscles were damaged or what nerve you may have severed. I would be powerless to communicate any of this information to you in anything like a meaningful way. And I could not put on a bandage or think to dial 911. That would only interfere with my making faces. But at least I could identify your injury with approximately 20% accuracy.

To close out my year here at a respectable medikel kolledge, I am studying the brain… which looks a bit like a walnut. Unlike a walnut, however, each fold of the brain has a name. Some are easy. The precentral gyrus and the postcentral gyrus, for instance. Some are not. The Amygdala does not look like an almond, nor does the name sound like an almond. The hippocampus, once again, nothing like a horse. But, apparently hippo is horse and amygdala is almond in latin or greek. And who the heck knows what a genu is, but it certainly does not look like Napoleon’s hat… no mater how many professors say it does. So, if you are considering a career in medicine (not recommended), consider Latin for fun and profit.