Week One.... Week Done!

I finished my first week of medical school... Huzzah!

Alright, begin week 2. Go!

That's what it feels like. Each week seems like a hurdles race. The gun goes off and you start to run.

Oh, look out! Learning issue ahead! First hurdle...Jump!

Shit, is that a journal club paper? Get ready.... Jump.

Lunchtime meetings and sign ups!!!? Crap! Stumble, swerve, dodge.

Where's my lab? Where am I? Damn  you empty and dilapidated neuroscience building! Got to get back on the track!

Screw it! Time to go home. Wait! I've still got to make today's cards, study tomorrow's lectures, and chat with my med school mates! Ahhh.... it's ok, someone posted a google doc. I can relax..... Thank you angel.

Did I forget the required reading for tomorrows lab? Oh shit! What about the residency roundtable and career builder? Am I not serious about my goals? Arrrrggghhh!

Ahhhh, it's Friday. All done. Time for sleep and to catch up.

Bang! Sunday's race begins for week 2! Yeee haaa!

Perhaps this paints too grim a picture. I'm actually still super happy and excited to be here. Perhaps it would be different if we started with a subject I was less familiar with. It's definitely the case though that before I've even reviewed and internalized all the material from this week, I'm worrying about all the lecture slides and required reading for the following week which is available online and calling to me either through faculty reminder emails or through my own insistent conscious.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's kind of what I was looking for. I was expecting medical school to be an immersive experience. I often described my future goals as getting "stuck into medicine" and "swimming around in it." I look forward to living it. I want to be one of those annoying blokes at parties who loves talking about new diseases and treatments. I believe it's this immersion which is the best way to learn and remember and quite frankly, I came to study this stuff because I love it.  I love the subjects, I love the people, I love the dialogue.

In many ways, medicine is another language, another culture, another country. The first step to travelling there is learning the language and the best way to do so is to dive in head first.

Even though I complained about writing up Learning Issues, I actually love PBL. It begins the week-long medical dialogue that doesn't stop until Sunday morning's hang-over. Our proctors keep it a very high energy experience and I always come out feeling charged and excited. I hope my group mates feel the same.

Regarding lectures:

I have a very good memory, and can more or less retain a week's worth of discussion in my head at a time, so it really excites me to see how all the information comes together from multiple sources to paint a complete picture. However, having a good memory is dangerous as well. It makes me lazy. Instead of making flashcards in lecture, I sit there and listen, absorb, and understand with the intention of going back and writing the notes later.

... It turns out I hate writing notes later.    ... A lot.     I'm sitting here at my computer screen staring at the lectures and wishing they'd convert themselves into the pretty notes that exist in my head.

Remembering a weeks worth of material is useless 2 weeks later when all that material has been replaced with new. Oh well.

Clearly, something has to change. I'm going to try taking notes directly in class next week, directly into ANKI. We'll see how that goes.

Also, I was at a fourth year party last night chatting to some wiser, drunker companions who were offering advice about the Dean and about studying. One bloke warned me on the dangers of review books and that I should keep my notes wide at the beginning. That I really should focus on all that the lectures encompassed. He also warned me on the dangers of starting a Qbank too early as I don't want to run out of questions (too late for that... Damn you overly excitable me!)

I understand his argument and while I do agree that it's important to learn all of the weeks dialogue (whether from lecture, lab, or PBL), I like the review books as they give me focus. I can't memorize all that each week contains, so what's the point of repeatedly studying everything? I don't know. There isn't a right answer at this point, but I'm going to move forward with trying to make my flashcards in lecture and focus a little bit more broadly than the review books.

Oh yeah, we get these 2 quizzes each week (an open and a closed book one). I think they're a great idea. My biggest complaint is that the answers are not described afterwards. There's no digest for why certain options are wrong. Also, I wish the quizzes were 10X as long or that there were 9 more of them we could take later. I've never really appreciated just how important practice questions are until recently. We're not graded, and so the questions they give us really are gifts to help us study. I guess I'm greedy. I want a bigger present. I want to know more of what I don't know.


On a lighter note, my boogie board, climbing shoes, and wok arrived recently. Time to hit the waves, the cliffs, and the kitchen! Oh yeah!

Rock on med school! Rock on!