My desktop meets the end of my sanity.

And so it starts AGAIN. The days when we realize that sleep is a privilege one must earn. The days when books become your bestfriends and isolation as your unwavering companion. Yes, the days of evaluation exams are back. Longer and oh so stressful. BUT I'm still hoping and praying that the stress doesn't get to me. That I don't get to become a walking zombie by the end of it all. That I still get to keep my sanity even after all these.

There's probably a reason to this madness. So, as I keep the coverage of my exams as my desktop background for a week and a half, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I end up contented and happy with what shall be the "closer" of my first semester as a sophomore.

Seriously?

(This is a late reaction to what has transpired a few weeks ago.)

I am a proud nurse before all else. I will always acknowledge that I have achieved the words "registered nurse" with dignity and pride for I know the hard work that comes into being one. I will never be ashamed that I had to change bed sheets, change diapers, take vital signs, administer drugs, measure urine outputs, drain a colostomy bag and still have the part of me that wants to sit next to a patient and in all sincerity, show concern. I love being a nurse, which is why it pains me to hear my instructors, who are doctors for that matter, bad mouth nurses. Seriously, two letters added to your name does not make you superior. Nurses are not your inferiors, we are your partners in health service. These condescending comments did not just start a few weeks ago, but it's been happening for quite some time now. It's been going on for so long that I've forgotten some of the comments.

Strike one. During our PD class, my instructor was discussing regarding therapeutic communication and history taking. She starts telling us about who you can ask for information and begins citing people to ask regarding history taking. Relatives of the patient, consultants, residents, interns, nurses.. wait, no, not nurses. Don't ask nurses. Seriously? We are just as helpful as the residents are. She offered no explanation as to why we shouldn't ask nurses for information.

Strike two. An intimidating lecturer was discussing about cardiovascular problems and how to diagnose them. He talked about the stethoscope and how it would be a good tool in diagnosing heart problems. He then said that the proper way of wearing your stethoscope is to insert the earpieces with the earpieces pointing outward. He added that if one wore the earpieces with them pointing inward would make us like nurses. Seriously? Do we look stupid? Does he look at nurses to be airheaded individuals?


I wish I could stand up and ask them what their problems were with nurses, unfortunately, med school has its hierarchy. If a med student tries to speak up to a consultant, rest assured, you will be a "favorite". Sad, I know, so most of us who are nurses would just have to be content at reacting from a distance and venting out our frustrations when needed. One day, I will be a nurse-doctor and hopefully I don't turn out to be like them.

Best day ever!

..not! Today starts the seven day exam week or as we students would like to call it "hell week". Seven subjects, ten exams, seven days. Today was our pathology practical exam and I must say, my three-hours-and-something-minute-sleep didn't seem to do me any good. I wasn't sleepy during the exam. My brain was working well a few minutes before the exam. I knew the slides. I knew what you were supposed to look for. But the exam brought out the worst in me.

I blame question number one. The very moment I saw that question, my brain went blank. My confidence shut to zero. It's never a nice feeling to not know the answer to the first question of a fifty item exam. Believe me, when that happens, you will freak out. That's exactly what happened to me. That question broke my game face. I didn't even stay to listen for the feedback. I didn't want to know the answers.

Tomorrow is another day. Another exam. Hopefully it doesn't hurt me like this one did. Weird thing is, I'm still hoping I passed the pathology practicals.

*The yankees won their game against the rangers today, so at least that made me happy.

Sportsfest is here!!

Because med school is getting more stressful by the moment, we are almost always thankful for events like this. Heck, I even joined the soccer team even if I have never played before just to release any stress I've experienced from the week. So far, I'm doing okay or so I think.

I'm really happy that we have Sportsfest is here but sometimes, it pushes me to be a little more stressed as some of our games are scheduled the night before our quiz for major subjects. Sometimes I study and sometimes I give in to fatigue. Seeing my grade is starting to fluctuate, I have to give a lot more effort to hitting the books than the effort I give to hitting the ball. Sports is temporary but medicine is my future.

Go 2013!

Eager Beaver

..is never the correct way to describe me. I don't jump up and down just to please someone or to do school work for that matter. I don't do cartwheels to be appointed as anything in a class or club. I'm not built that way. I procrastinate longer than my willingness to do things in advance. I don't enjoy being the early worm for anything. I don't find pleasure in being told what to do or volunteer to do something. I have a brain that finds eagerness as a virus. It should be deleted.

Here in medical school, I think they prefer a class of eager beavers to (for the lack of a better metaphor) a procrastinating sloth. I don't think you'd get anywhere if you consider yourself to be the latter. So, I'm trying to be a reformed sloth. Trying to throw cramming away, trying to volunteer for certain things. Keyword: trying. I actually find it hard because I've been a "sloth" all my life that the fast paced life of eagerness is wearing me out too early in the game. I usually feel the butt load of stress at the end of the week and not all throughout. Then again, that stress was always too much. A weekend was never enough to make up for sleep debt. Maybe changing my old ways for this school year will do me good. After all, I am getting satisfactory grades (although I'm aiming for something higher this time). Hopefully I don't get tired of this trial lifestyle.

Eager beaver is never the correct way to describe me. But for the love of medicine, I will try to be an eagerly-reformed sloth.(if that is possible)

Because i'm happy.

God has a great way of surprising you at times. Well, at least, He did surprise me in a really big way.
We were on our way back to the dorm when our classmate asked if we have seen the list of students who were exempted to take the Anatomy finals. Since we thought that the list wouldn't be posted until 4pm that afternoon, we said 'no'. Thinking that I was still short on effort to get the grade for exemption, I told my classmate that I wasn't hoping to be in the list. Especially when he said that there were only about 49 students who were listed, my hope got shot to just about 10%. I still prayed but I prepared myself to accept the fact that it was next to impossible to be exempted. I still decided to check the list since some of my friends did really well and I wanted to tell them that I saw their names on the list since they already went home. A few flight of stairs later, there it was. The list of exempted students for the Anatomy finals. To my surprise, I saw my name. I restrained myself from shouting even if I wanted to knock at the door of the Anatomy department to ask them if the list was correct.
After all my worries and fears shot me to a near-quitting moment, God took them all away with just that big surprise. It was a perfect ending to my freshman year in med school. 'Til next school year. :)

When in Med School..

Now that my freshman year in medical school is almost over, I would like to list down a few things that one should expect if one does enter this profession.



1. Expect to learn the value of sleep.
If back in your pre-med days you were able to sleep for more than 8 hours, expect lesser hours when you step into medical school. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for a good grade. Sleep just happen to be one of them.

2. Expect to either lose or gain weight, the latter being the most likely to happen.
Stress can take its toll in many ways and to fight it, we eat. In med school, you'd probably eat your stress out with any food you can get your hands on. Junk or healthy foods, it doesn't matter as long as they're food. Some people even say that the weight you gain or lose(if you decide to still go on a diet or to not eat) is equivalent to the stress you acquired in med school.

3. Expect to miss certain occasions because you're studying for an exam.
Birthdays, weddings, get-togethers. Yes, at some point you will miss them. You'll find yourself staring at your papers or books, highlighting the hell out of your handouts, while dreaming of the fun of being able to celebrate with your friends or family.

4. Expect to cry.
It could be because of your grades, the stress or the feeling of homesickness. Eventually your eyes will give in and those glands will produce those secretions we call tears. Don't worry. It's normal to cry in med school.

5. Expect to lose track of what's happening in the world.
Remember those sacrifices? TV or the internet is also one of them. I'm not saying you'd completely lose track of the world but sometimes you just happen to be living in a different world other than earth and old news would sound like new news to you.

6.Expect the desire to cut class because you have to study for a different subject.
This will happen. At first you would screen out subjects and put them in two categories: must go to and it's okay to not attend. Warning: The lines between these two categories are thin that at some point they are interchangeable. Everyday you might fight with the question "to attend or not to attend" in your head even when you're already in class.

7. Expect the desire to cut class to sleep or if not possible, sleep in class.
See number 1. This is one of the solutions med students discover.

8. Expect to dislike a teacher just because of the way they teach or give exams or both.
There are teachers who expect that you know what they know or at least half of what they know. They'll either teach too fast or too slow and give questions that make you wonder if you really did attend his/her class.

9. Expect to like a teacher just because of the way they teach or give exams or both.
These are the teachers that Goldilocks would have said: "just right."

10. Expect to have read an entire book without knowing it.
Sure it happened during the whole school year and you weren't able to notice that you did but still, you did. The only problem is you're not sure if you can recall what you read the whole year.

11. Expect certain moments where you question yourself if you made the right choice.
It happens. You just have to remind yourself why you made the choice in the first place. But if you question yourself everyday, then you probably have to think long and hard before owning up to your decision.

12. Expect to get a grade you never thought you'd get (ever).
This can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

13. Expect weekends to go by fast.
Weekends are like holidays if you're a med student. After a stressful week, they are all you need. Unfortunately, they go by fast so make the most of them.

14. Expect your threshold for disgust to increase.
You won't notice it but it does happen.

15. Expect medical school to change you.

Realty bites.

I think I got a little too cocky. I got too comfortable with the thought of exemption from the finals that I let things slipped. That was stupid of me. Stupid for being too cocky and stupid for not doing the math. So now, I have to deal with the disappointment that I still have a long way to go to get the grade that I want for Physiology or for any of my subjects for that matter.

Gee.. when reality bites, it bites hard.

On a different note, I think I should do what my classmate says she'll do. Everyday she would write good things that happened to her. I've just realized that I've been taking too much time thinking about the negatives that I didn't notice the positives in my life. For example, I passed my neuroanatomy practical exam. Sure, I have another one coming up and I would be taking the finals. but nonetheless, it's the freaking practicals and I passed it! I guess no matter how hard medicine is, it's always going to be a matter of perspective. After all, even if reality bites you or slaps you, you can always fight back. Reality can wake us but we still make our own fates.

Good things for today: I was able to jog without my heart or lungs wanting to give up on me. Ate ice cream with some of my closest friends. Understood some concepts of neuroanatomy.

Last January we started with our Neuroanatomy module and may I say, we are very complicated beings. Simple movements already go through a complicated tract. Even the feeling of cold or heat is complicated. With all this complexity, I find myself asking, what the heck did I get myself into? Don’t get me wrong. I love medicine. I love the field of healthcare, I always will. But right now(with a great fear of mistake and failure), I ask myself, what did I get myself into?



Sometimes I wish that in med school they would only teach you things regarding your specialty of choice and squeeze in a few basics like CPR and first aid. Though I’m not sure if that would make us competent or stupid doctors in the future. All I know is that it’s less hassle. (sighs) Less hassle. Hah. I don’t think doctors know that kind of life. Once you enter med school, you made the choice to make your life more complicated than it already is. Pretty soon, we get adjusted and complicated becomes normal. We’re just like adrenaline junkies, except we don’t jump off buildings or go sky diving. We hold scalpels, work through thirty six hours of duty and plaster smiles on our faces. The practice is our adrenaline. Medicine junkies.. that’s what we are.. or at least what I’m hoping to be in the future. For now, I just have to pass all my subjects.

(Starts reading book again)

D-NILE.

(As inspired by Meredith Grey's opening and closing quote of Season 2 Ep. 4 Deny, Deny, Deny.)

The key to surviving medical school is denial. We deny that we're tired. Deny that we're burned out.Deny that our brains at some point, no longer work like sponges. We deny that we're scared. Deny the fear of looming failure. Deny the feeling of relief of a passing grade.We deny pain. Deny that our bodies need rest. And most importantly, we deny that we are in denial. We only see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe. We lie and deny so much that pretty soon the school year is almost over and we are left with the same tired and scared persons we started with.


We are tired, we are scared, denying it doesn't change the truth. Sooner or later we have to put aside our denial and face the world. Head on, guns blazing. De Nile. It's not just a river in Egypt, it's a freakin' ocean. So how do you keep from drowning in it?