I survived my first week of medical school

Well I survived my first week of medical school. That sentiment seems to be the general consensus among my classmates. For me, it flew by so quickly that until now I've had little time for reflection. That's a good thing, in my opinion, because it speaks to the fact that I'm fully engaged both in learning the material and in the gestalt of the medical school experience.

To my pleasant surprise, lectures have for the most part been very interesting - at least, interesting enough to keep me awake from 8 in the morning until noon, then into the afternoon. The director of the Human Body block Dr. Michael Carry has given the majority of the lectures, and he's exceptionally good at what he does. There were a few lectures about medical imaging and the nervous system that I didn't necessarily need to attend, but I figured that it can't hurt to give myself a little refresher on the material.

In addition to lecture, we also had our first Foundations of Doctoring class. The purpose of this course is to teach clinical skills right from the beginning in an effort to tie in all the basic science and anatomy material during the first two years. We met one of our standardized patient instructors, who taught us how to do some of the basic components of the physical examination: making general observations, measuring waist circumference, taking blood pressure, and taking temperature. Even with something as simple as measuring waist circumference, I did feel like I was fumbling with my words and the tape measure a bit, but better to learn in this no-pressure environment rather than in the clinic with a real patient.

There have also been plenty of opportunities to get involved in interest groups, either medically related or not. I signed up with the CU Surgical Society, which is connecting me with a cardiothoracic surgeon for a one-day internship. I also signed up with the CU Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG), which holds events throughout the semester that teaches real world skills: suturing, intubation, needle sticking, EKG, and ultrasound. Even if I don't end up going into either, it's still great exposure to these fields and helps me meet people and network.

Then, of course, surviving my first week of medical school also required getting through the first day of cadaver dissection. It went very well, but more than the previous four and a half days it thoroughly exhausted me. I'll talk more about it in another post.

Overall, the first week of medical school treated me better than I had hoped. I do feel overwhelmed by the volume of material I have to memorize, but I'm now confident that I can handle it. Getting over my anxiety (irrational, but real to me) that I wouldn't cut it was a very important achievement for me during this past week, along with establishing a pathway for studying, learning, and memorizing anatomical structures. Most importantly, I am very happy to be here: in Colorado, a first year medical student.