My First Week of Med School
23/10/23 (Mon)
First day of lectures! Thankfully class started at 9am
today, so I got to catch an extra hour of sleep before heading to class. My
first two lectures were great, mostly because they were all introductory-level,
but my anatomy lectures came all at once and gave me a headache. Anatomical
planes are going to be tricky to get right (I never was one for directions) but
hopefully with practise it will soon come naturally. General Embryology was my
favourite lecture of the day; however, it did have a lot of new terms I was
unfamiliar with, but as many of my lecturers mentioned, I’ll just have to try
to keep up with them.
As a side note: I only have three subjects this block –
Anatomy, Biochemistry and Physiology. Anatomy has four subtopics under it –
General Embryology, Gross Anatomy, General Anatomy, and Histology.
I didn’t plan anything for tonight – just to make my notes,
review for tomorrow, and eat my dinner, but then one of my dorm-mates invited
me over to her room to have dinner with some friends, one thing led to another
and we ended up spending over an hour just chatting and laughing. I’ll be
seeing their faces for the next five years, so the sooner we warm up to each
other the better. Gossip, tears, and embarrassing photographs were shared, so
just the usual female bonding experience. I’ve caught up on almost all my
notes, so I’ll see how it goes
24/10/23 (Tues)
I’m definitely not catching up soon enough to my notes lol.
How I’m doing them currently is to take notes on the slides during class, then
coming back home and drawing mind maps. It’s unfortunately taking too long, as
your girl also needs to get at least seven hours in order to make sure she’s
not dozing off in Anatomy. Classes today got a little overwhelming – One week
of A-level lectures is equivalent to a day and a half of med school (or
possibly a day, when I don’t have any free periods). The main reason I’m even
alive is because the lecturers make the subject matter so exciting. They barely
look at the slides and can tell me everything on it from memory – and they’re
so passionate about subjects they like. One of my lecturers took a five-minute
detour to tell us about mad cow disease – he’s met the man who discovered it –
and it intrigued me to do my own research. Let’s just say I might stay away
from beef for a while…
Tonight, I went swimming with the swim club on campus – finally I got to give in to the temptation of diving in the pool (it looked so delicious) – but, it was drizzling and therefore freezing cold. It was fun anyway – we had a really nice coach, and it was fun to spend time with a new friend (who shares with me a deep desire to go snorkelling in crystal clear waters). After I showered, I knocked out so fast that I forgot to continue this entry and am only doing it 24 hours later.
25/11/23 (Wed)
First lab session today turned out to be slightly
disappointing, as we didn’t get to use the microscope or handle any samples
because our lab books were still on the way. But hey, at least I look good in a
lab coat! The labs here are gorgeous. I’m glad I get to experience a really
good one, especially since neither my IGCSE days nor A-level days had
particularly extensive or impressive lab facilities.
Halfway through the
day I switched from just annotating slides to making my notes right in class,
then just reviewing them when I get back. I think it’s good to be flexible in
note-taking methods, especially in a course like Medicine, where you’re taking
in so much information every day and have to retain it for the next five
years, and I’m glad I caught on to the fact that, should I continue with my
current method, my weekends would be wasted making notes. I’m planning on doing
active recall – which, if you’ve watched one or two med school advice video’s
you’ll recognize easily. Funnily enough I’ve been doing it since I was a kid,
and I just never knew the proper word for it until now. I also want to do past
year questions, but unfortunately 1) I haven’t received my student ID and
therefore can’t borrow any library books, and 2) The library closes on
weekends, which sucks because weekends are the perfect time to do those! Oh
well. Today I also found out Horlicks
tastes delicious. Can you believe I’ve never tried it until today?
26/10/23 (Thurs)
I think the Spinal Nerve anatomy lecture just killed half my
braincells. No hate to my lecturer, but I barely understood half of what he was
saying – it’s bound to happen at some point, though, where the syllabus jumps
to such a deep level you’re drowning in it. No worries, here’s the game plan:
I’m getting my student ID by (hopefully) tomorrow, so I can head to the library
during a free period and borrow as many books as they’ll let me so I can stuff
my head this weekend. My lecturer’s favourite thing to say seems to be “You
should know this information from your high school/college biology class, so
we’ll skip it”, when in fact none of us have learnt anything remotely close
to what’s on the slide. My lecturer looked us in the eye and told us fifth
graders know this – his slide had a transverse section of the spinal cord with
like, twenty labels on it. In fifth grade I learnt about seed germination in
science class! Not the grey and white matter of the spinal cord!
I saw my first cadavers today. We all went into the Anatomy
Lab feeling excited (typical of med students, getting excited to see what is in
essence a dead body), but once our professor began speaking the mood turned
sober, especially when their faces were revealed. We all took a person oath,
which means we spoke and signed one to keep for ourselves, as a promise to use
this opportunity with respect and wisdom. I look at their faces and found
myself sad – what were these people like when they were alive? They were once someone’s
sons and daughters, someone’s mother or father, someone’s sister, uncle,
cousin, friend, boss… I am eternally grateful to their families and next of kin
for providing them to us, because I don’t know how anyone could give away
someone who was precious to them. Then again, it is just their bodies –
their soul lives on, as does their memories, which is comforting to know.
I was supposed to attend my university’s Christian
fellowship tonight, but as soon as I came home I practically collapsed. I even
forgot to buy dinner – thankfully, a friend was ordering from Grab and helped
me out. I looked through one set of notes from the day and promptly decided
that my brain was in no mood to function properly and therefore went straight
to bed. The next day was the first time the whole week I didn’t wake up until
my alarm rang.
27/10/23 (Friday)
I caught up on my notes fairly easily the next morning
during a free period. Embryology is quickly shaping up to become my favourite
Anatomy subtopic, despite the fact that I’ve only had two lectures for it this
week. It’s so interesting because I’m mainly learning about myself – though
that can be said for literally everything else in Anatomy, the female
reproductive system has constantly been bothering me for every single month
since I turned twelve, so you might understand why I had so many questions about
it. Honestly the reproductive system is
so wack – in both males and females. Like, isn’t 2 million primary oocytes a
little too much? Just a little?
We got a massive free period today, so me and my friends
headed to the library to do some studies. It was interesting seeing our
different study methods – one person was reading textbooks, another annotating
their online notes, another printing out physical copies of the slides to make
their own notes, all while I was making flashcards for memorizing amino acids.
We worked in pretty much pin-drop silence, as the library was basically empty
save for us and a few others. Too much silence makes me anxious, though, so I
put on some lo-fi music while working on my cards. The internet connection is
surprisingly smooth considering how many of us are using it – I feel like I’ve
never seen it below three bars, even during peak hours like lunch.
At night, I started doing active recall using a method
recommended by a lovely senior I met today – she said to glance through your
notes, then get a piece of paper and write everything you know on the topic,
without referring to anything else. Then compare what’s on the paper to what’s
in your notes. It worked well! I’m going to do it more often.
28/10/23 (Saturday)
Soooo… today was a big first for me. Washing clothes in a
laundromat without my mom’s watchful eyes this morning was a first. While our
clothes were washing, me and my friends headed for breakfast and got lost in
the toy aisle of Mr. DIY – I sincerely hope that none of our future patients
were watching as we pretended to slice each other with plastic katanas and
hugged a wall of soft toys. It was truly healing for our inner children.
Speaking of inner children, there’s my second first – I
watched the Five Night’s at Freddy’s movie. I’ve been a fan of the franchise
since I was a kid, and I can proudly say I’ve watched every single Game Theory
video on the subject, as well as most of Markiplier’s playthroughs. The
intriguing storyline (LOOOOOOOOREE) of the games got me, ok? So, like most
fans, when the movie came out, I wanted to watch it as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to meet any fellow fans, and those who were still
otherwise interested in watching the movie couldn’t make it to this weekend’s
showing. So? I took matters into and went to the mall by myself. I expected to
feel awkward, nervous, scared even… but I didn’t! I really enjoyed myself in
the cinema, getting to be surrounded by like-minded fans (who all gasped at the
same times I did whenever a major cameo appeared). Solo shopping was a bit
anxiety-inducing, though, mainly because the mall was packed with people.
I slept early tonight, because after two hours of studying
my brain gave up and nothing was getting in. Though, I only slept after
cleaning my desk for the second time, because ants were trying to crawl up my
books! I have no idea where they are coming from, and no idea why they’re here,
because I’ve cleaned this whole place top to bottom. Nevertheless, I will
continue to try and sweep them away.
29/10/23 (Sunday)
I went to church today! It was such a breath of fresh air to
be able to get back into worship and praise in a community after a whole week of
just doing personal prayers and reading one chapter of the Bible a night. I got
to meet some other students from my university, and we decided to head out after
service to have lunch together. It was a fun time of fellowship (and laughing
about how crazy med school can get) and delicious Korean food. However, I am
now officially a broke college student as I have spent far more money than I
have been remotely comfortable with considering I’m on a strict budget and will
therefore never be eating outside again. This was also true for many of my friends,
as we all gathered in one person’s room to feast on the only approximately
priced meal – Maggi cups. Yes, we are aware they are bad for us.
After church, I headed to the study room in my hostel to
study with some friends. It’s got free Wi-Fi and air-conditioning, as well as
comfy chairs and a generally relaxed vibe. We broke for dinner then came back
straight after, which brings me to writing this now :) I hope you enjoyed this
post, and don’t expect me to be making another one anytime soon… Though, I’m
working on one explaining my journey of getting into Med School, which, as a
heck of a roller coaster ride, so look out for that one soon if you’re
interested. Till next time!
Talk to you later, world.
Yours Truly,
Joy
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