Seeing as an entire year of medical school has somehow managed to go by, I thought it would only be appropriate to take a moment to share some of the things I've learned and reflect on my experiences.
Things I've Learned:
1. Each kidney has more than one nephron--approximately one million more to be more precise. Somehow I managed to not pick up on that key fact until the end of my first week studying renal physiology. Afterwards the kidneys made so much more sense.
2. I probably shouldn't walk around outside barefoot any more.
3. I probably shouldn't eat meat unless it has been burnt to a crisp just to be safe.
4. I probably shouldn't eat anything when I go abroad and I definitely shouldn't drink the water.
5. I have probably been exposed to Toxoplasma gondii (my sister jabbed me in the leg with the broom we were using to sweep up around our cat's liter box) and Histoplasma capsulatum (endemic in Missouri). While that may sound somewhat alarming (especially if you haven't studied microbiology), it's actually not a big deal. Unless, of course, I become immunocompromised, but then every pathogen is a big deal.
6. I should probably live in a bubble just to be safe.
7. I can live on much less sleep than I ever realized.
8. Redbull and watermelon sour patch gummies together make a highly satisfying diet.
9. People really do trust you the moment you put on a white coat.
10. Vacuuming spiders up is not a good way of killing them because, if they survive, they can crawl out again or lay eggs in the vacuum.
11. Loads of other "temporary truths" (i.e., things we think are true now that will be disproven in a couple months or years or decades) and (perhaps) some permanent truths, but I see no reason to bore you by attempting to list all of those. If you want to know the more important ones, go get a copy of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1.
12. Speaking of First Aid, I bought a copy of it at the beginning of medical school but didn't open it for weeks because none of our courses were about first aid. It wasn't until our second block that I realized the book does not contain tips on how to care for someone's wound, but instead contains many "high yield" facts on all the topics covered in medical school.
13. Medical students seem to love things that are "high yield" more than they love food.
Things I Still Don't Understand:
1. How my body isn't falling apart.
2. The brain.
3. The immune system.
4. How to interpret a chest x-ray.
5. How to interpret an EKG.
6. Why no one has taught the Office of Medical Education that punctuation goes inside the parentheses. For example the patient described his pain as "worse than being stung by a thousand bees."
7. Why people always say that we have four eight hour exams when the exams are, in fact, closer to nine hours (8 am to 4:45pm = 8 hours and 45 minutes).
8. Men.
Momentous and/or Memorable Moments:
1. Meeting my classmates for the first time and discovering what an amazing class we have.
2. Having my first (and hopefully only) panic attack.
3. Developing the "crush and flush" method of disposing of spiders after learning that it's not enough to just vacuum them up.
4. I was wearing my white coat once when I got out of my car at my apartment and an elderly man nodded respectfully to me. I wanted to tell him, "Oh, no, you don't need to do that--you have no idea how little I know and how useless I would be to you if you were to have a stroke or something right now." But instead I just nodded back and vowed to never wear my white coat in public again until I can actually be of use to people.
5. It was near exam time, and I was shadowing a doctor and kept thinking about all the things I needed to do when I got home. The patient we were seeing started to cry, so I handed her a box of tissues and her daughter turned to me and said, "You're a very nice young lady." That reminded me that there's more to medicine than memorizing as many little details as possible.
6. Social events! Some of my favorites were our Halloween party, karaoke, our trips to the winery, and of course anything that involved dancing.
7. Baking for my classmates--there are honestly few things that I love more in life than feeding people. (And by "feeding people" I mean providing them with food, not literally putting the food in their mouths.) I love seeing them smile and knowing they're happy at least for the few moments that they're eating whatever I made.
8. One of my tutors told us how a child who had undergone an operation explained surgery to a child who was about to have an operation: Men (doctors) in their pijamas (scrubs) come in and they take you away in a red wagon (what they used at the time to take children to the operating room) to a big white bathroom (the OR walls were all tiles) and they have you lie down on a big table and they cover you in a blanket so you don't get cold, and then you disappear.
Med School Nights' Dreams:
1. In our first block I dreamed that I was being followed by two men and then I ran into our possum-loving professor. I gave him our secret signal so that he knew I was in danger, and he went to my house and alerted my dad that, when I got home, there would be two men following me. On my way, however, I ran into one of my male classmates, and the two men stopped following me. When we got to my house, the professor and my father were convinced that the guy with me was trying to harm me and he had to correctly identify several histology slides in order for them to believe he was my friend. Afterwards we all had dinner together.
2. Oftentimes when I studied anatomy before I went to bed, I would have zombie dreams.
- Particularly Memorable Zombie Dream #1: While we were in the midst of a PBL (Problem-Based Learning) session, the zombie apocalypse hit the United States. However, because our labs are in a basement, my classmates and I all survived. Our professors informed up that we should split up into small groups, gather supplies in the hospital, and find a place to hideout while they contacted the CDC to see how bad the outbreak was. My group was gathering food and found ourselves in a room with a large window. We could see the zombies approaching the hospital and were all afraid that the end was near. Fortunately I woke up.
- Particularly Memorable Zombie Dream #2: I was visiting friends in Atlanta and decided to borrow a motor cycle and go for a ride through the countryside by myself. (Note: In real life, I have never ridden a motor cycle.) As I was riding, the speed limit suddenly dropped from 60mph to 30mph and I try to slam on the breaks, but couldn't slow down enough. Two cops (also on motor cycles) pulled me over and I noticed that they were walking in a very jerky manner. As they got closer, I could see that their skin was peeling off and they smelled like our anatomy lab (i.e., horrible if you're never been in an anatomy lab). I ran off into the woods and eventually found an abandoned house and barricaded myself in a bedroom. Somehow I managed to fall asleep, and when I awoke I found it was pitch black outside and I was wearing a wedding dress. In the background of the dream, "Hurricane" by 30 Seconds to Mars started playing. A hand broke through the window next to the bed I was on and shattered glass flew everywhere. The hand grabbed me, but I managed to get away. I ran down the hallway and everything proceeded in slow motion. I ran slowly and the veil and dress slowly trailed behind me. I made it out of the house only to find that I was completely surrounded by zombies. I tried to fight my way through them, but eventually I was just too tired to fight any more and I gave in. Only then did I wake up.
4. In our neuroscience, endocrine, and reproduction block, I woke up one morning and thought to myself that I hadn't made enough of some hormone yet and so I went back to bed. I also missed lecture that day.
5. I've also had a number of dreams where my family members are sick or dying and it's up to me to save them. Initially, I was utterly helpless, but by the end of my first year I was at least able to keep everyone alive for long enough for help to arrive.
- In one dream, my mom, dad, and I were being help hostage in a hotel room. Three men with machetes demanded that we give it to them. We tried to explain that we had no clue what it was, tried to tell them that they had the wrong family, but they wouldn't believe us. I suddenly realized my sister was missing and asked, "Where's my sister?" One of the men laughed and said, "It's too late for her now." Then he tapped the ceiling in three places with his machete and the ceiling collapsed and my sister with the rubble to the floor. She was coughing up blood and with all the dust and debris I couldn't find where she was injured. I screamed her name in the dream and woke up crying.
- In another dream, some of my friends and I were at a lake and everyone was jumping into the water. My sister was there but she was only maybe seven or eight years old (much younger than she is in real life). Despite my warnings about checking for rocks, she dove in head first and then slowly floated up to the surface of the water, belly down. I ran into the water and carefully flipped her over and swam her to the shore where she immediately started coughing up water. She had a bump on her forehead but claimed she was fine and that she just wanted to go home and rest. We started walking towards the bridge that lead into the town where we lived in the dream and she stumbled. She said her head suddenly hurt really badly and that she was seeing two of everything. I asked her if she was feeling nauseous and she said yes and vomited and then fainted. I grabbed a Wii remote out of my backpack and hooked her up to it and began pressing the buttons every couple of seconds because, in the dream, that was the best way to keep her intracranial pressure down. I carried her across the bridge, pressing the button the entire time. When we got to a restaurant a man called an ambulance for me and the EMTs were able to make it in time to save her and they took her to the hospital and she lived. The doctor told me, if I hadn't kept her intracranial pressure down, she would not have made it.
Obviously I've learned more than thirteen things, still don't understand more than eight things, and have had more than eight memorable experiences and five dreams in the last year, but I figured I'd just hit some of the highlights. If I were to tell you everything, we'd be here until this time next year.
So I suppose I'll close for now, with another of my favorite quotes: "Life's too short to be anything but happy. So love deeply, forgive quickly, take chances, give everything, and live with no regrets. Forget the past, with the exception of what you have learned from it, and remember: everything happens for a reason."
Until next time.
