Free as a Bird! (sorta...not really)

Well. I survived Term 1 of Medical School in one piece (more or less). I've been kind of in a daze since yesterday's (was it only yesterday?) anatomy final finally finished. All I can say is...wow. Oh, warning, I'm feeling very introspective at the moment and since my family is sick of me calling them I'm now bored to tears- so I decided to type up a blog entry with all of my thoughts about first term and my thoughts in general about what it is to be a medical student (ostensibly so this blog lives up to its purpose of being helpful to incoming students). Yeah, hitting the 'back' button for many would be a good idea. ^_^ I'll probably drone on a while. Oh, and L, yes that means there will be 'too many words'. Just skip to the beach pictures from yesterday. LOL

First, if anyone cares, the bird in the picture is a Gray Kingbird (Tyrannus dominicensis) and is fairly ubiquitous around the island. I took the picture while waiting for the shuttle yesterday morning (I was fairly sleep deprived at the time and clutching a stack of notecards).

So...term 1 at SGU. I guess I'll start at the beginning and give a rundown of the classes and general structure. You start out taking Bioethics (1 credit), Anatomy (8 credits), Biochemistry (6 credits) and Histology & Cell Biology (5 credits). Anatomy is accompanying by a four hour long lab each week and Histology by a 2 hour lab most weeks. There were three 1 hour small group discussions for Biochemistry. Also, one saturday we were all required to obtain our CPR certification. The credits reflect material in each class and number of classes. Anatomy consisted of 80 class hours, Biochemistry 90 and Histology 52. Bioethics was only 10. Four weeks into the term we had our 'Unified' which is essentially a quiz with questions from each subject as well as incorporating the final for Bioethics. Then of course we had our midterms and finals for each class.

So, here are my reviews on each class as well as my opinions (not censored) of the various professors that taught each class.

Bioethics - There is not much to say about this class. I wasn't particuarly fond of the professory since she had a tendecy to let her disparaging attitude towards us slip a little too often. The class is only ten hours. Just go to lecture, memorize the little you have to and you'll easily ace the final.

Anatomy: This was my biggest challenege of a class and consumed me mentally for the majority of the term. I barely paid any attention to my other classes in lieu of spending most of my time freaking out about anatomy. In retrospect this was a silly way to deal with a very approachable class. This class was taught by several people:

Dr. Loukas- our esteemed course director, only actually taught a few classes but attempted to make them amusing; very adept at giving speeches and making us laugh

Dr. Yadav- second in command so to speak; very clear and straight foward; super helpful in lab (definitely set up appointments with him to go over main structures, you'll be glad you did)

Dr. Burns- an eccentric guy, but he managed to help me understand the ANS so I can't complain, enjoys sneaking up behind people in lab and waiting for them to say something interesting so he can't jump in a scare the crap out of you

Dr. Brahim - Ah, Dr. B. Absolute infamous. This is the guy that wore a shirt to our finals that said "You can either agree with me or be wrong". Also of the "Don't Be Stupid, Stupid" fame. And of the making me take his pulse when he didn't have one fame. I can't say I enjoy his lecturing style which mainly consists of telling us we already know it and calling people out on the spot in a room full of three hundred people. I have to give him credit though. He was no doubt helpful for getting us to think on our feet and a little more prepared for third year (being put on the spot).

Dr. D'Souza - Very to the point and good for anatomy lecture. Although I will say that he has a tendency not so much to talk to the class but bark at the class. Not to say that he yelled at us (that was more up Dr. B's alley) but his normall speaking voice is on 'yell'. Painful to listen to on Sonic Foundry so go to his lectures.

Dr. Rao- he only gives a few lectures but they are always memorable. This is the guy that starts each lecture out with a picture on a stab victim. Always good for shock value and reminding us how very relevant our anatomy is.

Dr. Hage - He's very helpful in dry lab for answering your questions by leading you in circles until you figure it out yourself (surprsingly, I'm not being sarcastic, this method actually works). Although I should add that he is usually hovering over your shoulder, unbenowst to you, before you think to look around for help and then jumps in when you falter. As for lecturing, about half his lecture were very good if you watch them on sonic foundry and pause them every two minutes to write everything down. To be fair, this may have to do with the subject material he was teaching and not neccesarily his teaching style. His lecture handouts leave a alot to be desired though.

Visiting Professors- over the course of the term we had a multitude of big VIP visiting professors (the least of which including authors of some of our texts!) who all proved to be absolutely wonderful. It probably helped that this was a vacation for them (in exchange for teaching us in lab a few hours of the week they get to spend paid time on the beach). I highly advise taking advantage of their presence in lab. They are very friendly and it's always good to get another perspective on things.

Overal, anatomy was the rite of passage we were promised it would be. Between the abrasive (but well meaning) profs, the hours spend crouched over dead bodies, the hours spent crouched over McMinn's atlas, the hours spent attempting to make sense of the densely worded Gray's Anaomy (no clue why this dammned textbook is so revered in pop culture, I'd like to see them memorize the thing), the hours spent freaking out about failing anatomy and just, well, all the hours spent, it was certainly an experience! I consider myself extremely lucky to have survived.

Texbooks:

Gray's Anatomy - Very dense to get through. After the first few weeks of class I tended to use this only for its tables of muscles and their innervations as well as the clinical note tables

McMinn's Atlas - SUPER useful; this contains dissection pictures with labels as well as osteology info (including sites of muscle attachment); it also comes with a cd containing tons of questions that I reccomend doing since Dr. Loukas wrote them and so is fond of putting them on tests

Netter's Atlas- practically a paperweight; yes, the pictures are pretty but they are drawings and we are not tested on drawings nor will we practice on drawings so I failed to see the point in studying them

Netter's Flashcards - not on the required list of materials, but I found them to be useful to carry around and have pictures available for studying (so Netter's is only useful in it's convience; it'd have been even better to have flashcards from the McMinn's pictures).

BRS Anatomy - I did not buy this initially but several of my lab group members swear by it

My overal advice for this class (coming from someone who had practically zero knowledge of anatomy before hand) is just to stare at pictures (real) and make 3-D pictures in your head. Just familiarize yourself with the material before you start trying to memorize the nitty gritty. It also really helps to draw out things for yourself, especially blood vessels and nerves. They can get extremely confusing if you (as I did initially) try to memorize them as written since you need to know only know a particular blood vessel but its back branching pattern all the way back to the aorta. And yes, this is important and not just a particularly unique way of torturing medical students.

And in the end you can give yourself a pat on the back since you actually understand this picture and can rattle off about twenty things off hand in it (note: don't ask me to though otherwise I might suffer from anatomy flashback and have a seizure, LOL)

Next up we have Biochemistry! This class was the needle in the proverial cupcake for me. I expected it to be easy since the majority of the material was review for me. Unfortunately what I didn't anticipate was all the little 'added' bits that made the class Medical Biochemistry. Namely, drugs! As you may have noticed from previous postings of mine I abhor memorizing drugs. Now, drug metabolism is fascinating. I hope we have more of that in pharm. Biochemistry was the most lecture heavy class with 90 hours. My reluctance to attend lecture due to the repetitive nature of the material (for me since it was my major in undergrad) was compounded by the lack of, shall we say, lecturing skill, in the majority of the professors.

Dr.Davidson - course director, a genial fellow, only taught a few classes; annoying tendency to say "ok, good" after every slide

Dr. Chadwell - >.>' This is one very bitter cynical man. Less people attended biochm classes compared to anatomy and he very obviously was bitter about it. Seriously. There was hardly a class that went by where he wouldn't make a disparaging comment about it. At one point he showed up at one of our anatomy lectures to make an announcement and started with "Well, I came here since this is the only place where you all gather at the same time". Don't get me wrong, he actually seems like a nice guy and is fairly amusing in lecture. Unfortunately his tendency to skip around randomly when teaching and that chip on his shoulder make him somewhat unapproachable.

Dr.Dasso - excellent prof all around, his powerpoints are always very well organized, he is succinct and clear in his explanations, usually ends lecture early, adds animation (with sounds!) which always make everyone laugh (and wake up). Also, awesome accent.

Dr. Martin - I'm fairly ambivalent on his teaching. Mainly since he is the guy who gave us a whole slew of drugs, make it seem like they weren't that important, and then had multiple detailed questions on them in unifieds which made a lot of us....unhappy.

Dr. Trotz - writes very good integrative reviews and has excellent powerpoints for the most part; make sure to complete her online review questions!

Dr. Upadhya - the youngest member of the biochem staff and, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. Her powerpoints are organized and easy to understand and she also gives good review questions. She is also the only one to make sure of our 'clickers' in class making her lectures interactive and interesting.

Textbooks:

Mark's Essentials of Medical Biochemistry- ok, this is one great textbook; I wish I had it in undergrad; it does an excellent job of making the chemistry side of biochemistry understandable without going into too much tortuous detail and links and explains important concepts very nicely

Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews: Biochemistry- I disliked this book purely based on 1)I was attacked to Mark's and 2)I didn't like the aesthetics of the layout and pictures; I only used it when forced to since it covered a few topics that Mark's did not (this also worked the other way around which is why I imagine they required both books)

Histology - My review of this class will be extremely skewed since I really didn't have to study for it having taken histo taught on crack (as my roommate said) in undergrad as well as spending significant hours previously in my life staring at slides. So I thought the class was easy. Everything we learned was very basic and not difficult.

Dr. Paparo- course director and every a memorable character if you every did meet one! This is the guy that spoke of chondrocytes in their lacunae as if they were little babes nesting in swaddling cloths. Also, has an obsession with cannaliculi for some unknown reason. I swear! He's an engaging lecturer and make things easy to visualize. There isn't a person alive that doesn't love this guy. I mean, he gave all of us his home phone number! Very grandfather-ly. *laughing* Of course, after he did this Dr. Loukas came up to tell us that we assuredly were not getting his home phone number even if hell froze over.

Dr. Fakoya- Let's just say that after being tortured by this guys lectures for a few hours I never went again. Period. If I see him at the stand I make an about face and go right back home. Nuf said.

Dr. Samuel- Good prof, definitely worth going to his lectures.

Textbooks:

Course Lab Manual/Lecture Notes - this is all inclusive of what you need to know for both lecture and lab - if you memorize everything in it you'll make a perfect grade in the class

Histology- A Text and Atlas (Ross) - not necessary for the class; however I will add that this was the same text I used in undergrad and it is excellent if you want to learn about things in more detail

So there you have it. My long winded review of term 1 classes. It's difficult to believe that it's only been about five months since I started. My pre-medical school life seems so very far away. Certainly not a mere five months. It's funny. Everyone keeps slipping and calling this the 'second semester' instead of the second half of the first. We've learned so much. I think it has to do with a combination of being in a completely different and isolated (however gorgeous) environment while going through the complete adjustment that medical school is. It's hard to describe how I've changed from it. It is more of a subtle shift into a different way of thinking and my priorities and way of thinking about 'school'. It's not so much about getting good grades, although that still is a top goal, but more of the realization that all this information is important and none of it can be forgotten after a test. Also, my brain has turned into a sponge. I turned on my tv the other day and found myself unconsciously memorizing phone numbers in commercials. V_V I kid you not. It's like someone flipped the button in my head and now I can't turn it off!

Even after all of this I'm still completely unsatisfied with my grasp of the material in anatomy and biochem. I plan on spending significant portions of this summer re-learning and solidifying the material that was poured down my throat this term. The remainder of the summer will be spend on next term's material. From here on out it's going to be one gigantic marathon to the USMLE step 1 and I refuse to be caught flat footed by a standardized test.

In summary: Medical School = not difficult material; very high volume. The key is learning to study and to study every day. Because you haven't studied until you've been in medical school. I guarantee it. And this is coming from someone who regularly took 26 hours worth of classes at a time in undergrad.

I'll leave you with a pics of BBC beach which I went to yesterday in celebration of the end of term 1!! YAY!!! TERM 1 OVER!!!!! *throws confetti*