Round 3

7:49am, Tuesday, third week of Med 3 (semester 3) and all I can think about is how I can't wait for Med 4, when we get our first real patient contact.

This semester, my courses are Neuroscience, Microbiology/Immunology, Medical Psychology, and Ethics.

So far, I'm really enjoying Neuroscience and Med Psych. In just two weeks, I've learned how to read MRIs and CT scans, how certain nerve related diseases manifest, how nervous system related cancers differ in adults and children--and that's just the tip of it. In Med Psych, we mainly focused on substance abuse this block, from marijuana to ecstasy to opiates to cocaine.

It's true what they say, "cocaine is a helluva drug", "crack is whack", "there's no hope in dope!"

We had to watch a documentary called "Crackheads Gone Wild", and true to the title, they were wild. It was insane. If a "normal", sober person did the things the people in the movie did, there's a good chance, I would have laughed, but while watching this movie, I was heartbroken. How can a human being do this to their body, their mind, their life?

Unfortunately, some drugs are extremely addicting and even the withdrawal symptoms are so bad that you'd even want to provide the drug to the addict. So, in terms of drugs, prevention is ideal. Don't start it. Just don't.

Opiates like heroin, and morphine, or Vicodin are also very addicting, especially heroin. Your body builds up tolerance so fast that you'll need a higher dose to get high each new week.

Ethics is a...boring class, but I can definitely see the importance of it. As physicians, we need to learn how to talk to others with respect, compassion and authority. So although, I sometimes find the class to be a waste of study time, I'm learning to be patient so I can learn, but also, so I decrease my chances of getting sued in the future. LOL.

I'm feeling good that I managed to post two entries back to back, with just a few hours (or 12) in between.

Until next time,

BoomStarzMD

Catching Up...

No no, I don't mean in school. You never want to put yourself in a position where you have to catch up, because that is disaster!

I mean, catching you up on my life, school, etc. I was unmotivated to write any entries during Med 2, but let me fill you in.

Med 2 courses are Physiology, Biochemistry, Epidemiology and Genetics. I went in thinking I would absolutely love Physiology, but it was slightly subpar for me. I didn't enjoy the way it was taught but it is actually one of the more important courses in Basic Science and plenty of it will show up in USMLE Step 1.

Biochemistry, I went in thinking I wouldn't care for but I loved it! I feel like I learned so much from that course--from the way our bodies break down nutrients, to the way congenital blood illnesses manifest. It wasn't at all like organic chemistry. I feel like every single thing I learned in this course was important and will be useful in clinical practice.

Epidemiology and Genetics were small courses and they were alright. It's hard to do bad in these courses. They were easy and not very interesting.

OK, more about social life. My birthday is June 19 so it was in the middle of the second semester. It really sucks not spending your birthday with the people you actually care about and the people who you know care about you. Being away in a foreign land with new people on your birthday isn't the best way to spend it--at least not for me.

I felt really lonely and became extremely homesick. I also got to RELEARN that nobody really cares about you. I feel like the prior 5 months, the people that are "close" to me, I did my best to make their birthdays special, and when it came to mine, it was depressing. I certainly didn't do those things to get something back, but it put things in perspective. Regardless, next year, I'll probably still do the same things for the same people.

I'm my own person and I don't let someone else's actions affect mine. I'll do what I feel comfortable doing.

I don't want to make this post too long, so I'll stop here. Next post will be about the first two weeks in Med 3.


BoomStarz, MD