I figured I have a million other things to do right now, so why not post a little blog? Ain't that the way of it. We have our histology midterm coming up on thursday. Histology, for those who don't know, is where you look at a bunch of blobs under the microscope. The more seniority you have, the more often you will be correct when you identify one of these blobs. If you are a department chair, you will be correct 100% of the time. Assistant professor- 98%, adjunct professor- 92%, all the way down to students, who are right between 60-80%, depending on how big your smile is (and by smile, I mean boobs). These blobs have no actual correlation to real life (I mean, they are microscopic- duh!), but you still have to memorize the arbitrary names that the department chair gives them, so that you can randomly assign one of these names to the particular blob with the arrow drawn to it on the exam. Again, it doesn't matter which name you choose, so long as it is from the proscribed list, because you will not be able to improve your percentage without a promotion or cosmetic surgery.
They say you have to get over how hard this stuff is, stop complaining and telling yourself and your (dwindling) friends how unfair it all is, and just get down to it. It's the same information that they've been teaching for thousands of years and those crusty old guys in the ubiquitous portraits hung down every hallway had no trouble memorizing it, so suck and deal. But what the hell fun is that? How much smarter am I than all those morons who just put their nose to the grindstone, if I can piss and moan and whine and still get around to memorizing huge lists of latin/greek/sanskrit names for every single goddamn fiber in the body and blob on the slide? Way, that's how much.
After the anatomy midterm, a few of us went out to the Red River Gorge (aka 'the Gorge' (or 'the Red' if you're a douchebag). We ate pizza and camped at Miguel's, the place at the gorge where you eat pizza and camp. Got its own little culture going on there. Then we did some climbing and I led for the first time. It was a fearsome 5.6. I took the rest of the weekend off from studying, too, and now I'm having trouble getting back into the swing. Mariam was sick yesterday- hopefully nothing serious. Tim and Amy had their little girl, Joleigh, on Fri night, and we have yet to see them. I should go try to learn these stupid cells for the test on thursday, or make an appointment for a "teeth whitening" ;-)
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Med school blog?
I'm thinking about turning this into a med school blog, but I don't want to be 'that guy.' So I'm just going to write it as if it is notes to myself for the future, for when I write the med school admissions book that I'm gonna write, because I do want to be that guy. The book I'm writing is going to be kind of a response to the "Med School Confidential," "White Coat," etc books that I read when I was thinking about med school. Most of them were stories of fairly traditional students, either going straight through undergrad to med school, or coming from impressive biomedical engineering careers or some such, and all getting in to Harvard, where their stories start. My story is going to be one about the tortuous path that a mediocre student with no idea what he wanted to be when he grew up took to get into med school. It will be a book for all the non-traditional applicants out there- we are usually a footnote in those mainstream books ("A post-baccalaureate program can be a wonderful way to boost your GPA before reapplying"- that kind of bullshit). I was the guy who had to worry about every step of the way, because I felt like nobody had done it like I had before. I had a crappy undergrad GPA, I was told at Harvard Extension Post-Bac that there was basically no chance that I would get in with my GPA (Owen Peterson told me that he wasn't going to say anything was impossible, but...), I never did any research, I spent loads of time bumming around New York and New Zealand and Central America, without any specific job or focus to point to. When I started my Harvard Extension post-bac, my resume was: farm worker, traveller, summer camp counselor. So, there is no book for people like us yet, and I want to fill that nook.
Meanwhile, I'd just like to put down for my own memory what UK College of Medicine is like so far. I said earlier that I had my ass kicked in the beginning. I've since realized that I actually need to study or be in class about 40 hours/wk. And it needs to be real studying, for the most part, which means no Sox game on in the background. The thing that helped finally for anatomy was making notecards, which I've never done before really. First off, finding the info and translating it into bitesized pieces for notecards helped immensely, and then having the cards to quiz myself wherever I am is a bonus. I just did this for the second anatomy quiz, and even though I made the cards like 2 days before the quiz and therefore didn't get a chance to do a lot of self-testing/memorization, just having made them boosted my score by 100%, from 8/20 to 16/20. And now I have those cards for the midterm, which is in a week. We've got histology now, too, which has been much more manageable- more like a post-bac class (I can't compare to undergrad classes because a.) they were so long ago and b.) I never did any of the work there anyways) where you go to lecture and then study a day or two before the quiz. The third class we're taking is called 'Patient-centered Medicine,' and it is all about how to actually be a doctor. It is a great class, where we learn how to do the physical exam and take a history, as well as where we listen to all kinds of stories from real doctors about their work. I love it and look forward to it. But most people hate it because we don't have any tests for another 2 months, and they feel it takes away from studying for anatomy and histo. I tend to dislike those people, whose lives seem to revolve around studying or talking about studying, which tends to put me on edge and make me feel like I'm slipping behind even when I'm doing fine. So screw all you for stressing the rest of us out. Just chill out and go to PCM and stop whining- this is what we all want to be doing eventually (except for you few MD/PhD research freaks who will never lay a hand on a patient)(I also tend to feel like I should have twice the say of other students since I'm paying out-of-state tuition, which is double in-state, which is why I am justified in taking such a self-righteous tone). I feel the other way around- like anatomy and histo are a waste of time that we could be spending learning how to actually treat patients. Not because I don't think anatomy and histology are important, worthwhile things for a future physician to know, but because the level of detail that they teach and test is ridiculous and instantly forgotten. We should be learning anatomy and histology in broad strokes that will actually stay with us, instead of this pseudo-weed-out style flood of information that they try to drown and intimidate us with. Especially in histo. So it pisses me off when those knuckeheads complain about having to learn real medicine in PCM because it takes time away from their memorizing the amplification pathway of G-protein receptors. The other problem is that these are the only people you hear from, because the cooler people tend to be less vocal about all this school stuff- they just take it in stride and spend the rest of their time climbing or riding bikes or saving the world, and not being my friend, so I'm left with all the obessive-studying christian-fascist whackjobs (not you, Adam- you're cool).
I meant to blog all the responses to the kinds of things you're supposed to notice when you start med school. You're supposed to dream about your cadaver- I finally did today during a nap. Actually, it wasn't about my actual cadaver, but about my class, who had this body where there was some interesting thing going on in the liver or kidneys or something, and they wanted to cut into them and find out more. But I realized it was my dad's body, and I didn't want them to chop him up, and so I said something to everyone. And they all grumbled, and agreed not to cut him up, but I could tell they were pissed and disappointed and didn't understand what my problem was. And I dreamt I had to strangle my dog, Afon, and I could feel her little cartilaginous trachea and everything. It was a horrible nap. So I think the dad-cadaver thing has to do with how much thought we put in to the fact that these are the bodies of people, with families and everything. I always think, with each new dissection, whether I would want to donate my body to a med school, or have a family member donate theirs. On the one hand, it is just a vacated, useless body, and we really do learn so much from them as students, and we try to maintain a fairly respectful environment. On the other hand, it is a very intimate act to cut into somebody's naked, dead body and see their insides. I feel like we judge people a lot, based on how fat they are, whether they have gallstones or pacemakers or lung cancer, or even just unusual venous patterns. What kind of a person or family would let themselves or their loved one get into this kind of situation healthwise. And then I think of my own family and how people would be judging me based on my parents' bodies, or my own body- all the cadavers are old people, so they've been through a lot. If I had to say today, I would probably vote not to donate to a med school. Take my organs, but spare me the dissection table of a bunch of twittering 20 somethings.
Meanwhile, I'd just like to put down for my own memory what UK College of Medicine is like so far. I said earlier that I had my ass kicked in the beginning. I've since realized that I actually need to study or be in class about 40 hours/wk. And it needs to be real studying, for the most part, which means no Sox game on in the background. The thing that helped finally for anatomy was making notecards, which I've never done before really. First off, finding the info and translating it into bitesized pieces for notecards helped immensely, and then having the cards to quiz myself wherever I am is a bonus. I just did this for the second anatomy quiz, and even though I made the cards like 2 days before the quiz and therefore didn't get a chance to do a lot of self-testing/memorization, just having made them boosted my score by 100%, from 8/20 to 16/20. And now I have those cards for the midterm, which is in a week. We've got histology now, too, which has been much more manageable- more like a post-bac class (I can't compare to undergrad classes because a.) they were so long ago and b.) I never did any of the work there anyways) where you go to lecture and then study a day or two before the quiz. The third class we're taking is called 'Patient-centered Medicine,' and it is all about how to actually be a doctor. It is a great class, where we learn how to do the physical exam and take a history, as well as where we listen to all kinds of stories from real doctors about their work. I love it and look forward to it. But most people hate it because we don't have any tests for another 2 months, and they feel it takes away from studying for anatomy and histo. I tend to dislike those people, whose lives seem to revolve around studying or talking about studying, which tends to put me on edge and make me feel like I'm slipping behind even when I'm doing fine. So screw all you for stressing the rest of us out. Just chill out and go to PCM and stop whining- this is what we all want to be doing eventually (except for you few MD/PhD research freaks who will never lay a hand on a patient)(I also tend to feel like I should have twice the say of other students since I'm paying out-of-state tuition, which is double in-state, which is why I am justified in taking such a self-righteous tone). I feel the other way around- like anatomy and histo are a waste of time that we could be spending learning how to actually treat patients. Not because I don't think anatomy and histology are important, worthwhile things for a future physician to know, but because the level of detail that they teach and test is ridiculous and instantly forgotten. We should be learning anatomy and histology in broad strokes that will actually stay with us, instead of this pseudo-weed-out style flood of information that they try to drown and intimidate us with. Especially in histo. So it pisses me off when those knuckeheads complain about having to learn real medicine in PCM because it takes time away from their memorizing the amplification pathway of G-protein receptors. The other problem is that these are the only people you hear from, because the cooler people tend to be less vocal about all this school stuff- they just take it in stride and spend the rest of their time climbing or riding bikes or saving the world, and not being my friend, so I'm left with all the obessive-studying christian-fascist whackjobs (not you, Adam- you're cool).
I meant to blog all the responses to the kinds of things you're supposed to notice when you start med school. You're supposed to dream about your cadaver- I finally did today during a nap. Actually, it wasn't about my actual cadaver, but about my class, who had this body where there was some interesting thing going on in the liver or kidneys or something, and they wanted to cut into them and find out more. But I realized it was my dad's body, and I didn't want them to chop him up, and so I said something to everyone. And they all grumbled, and agreed not to cut him up, but I could tell they were pissed and disappointed and didn't understand what my problem was. And I dreamt I had to strangle my dog, Afon, and I could feel her little cartilaginous trachea and everything. It was a horrible nap. So I think the dad-cadaver thing has to do with how much thought we put in to the fact that these are the bodies of people, with families and everything. I always think, with each new dissection, whether I would want to donate my body to a med school, or have a family member donate theirs. On the one hand, it is just a vacated, useless body, and we really do learn so much from them as students, and we try to maintain a fairly respectful environment. On the other hand, it is a very intimate act to cut into somebody's naked, dead body and see their insides. I feel like we judge people a lot, based on how fat they are, whether they have gallstones or pacemakers or lung cancer, or even just unusual venous patterns. What kind of a person or family would let themselves or their loved one get into this kind of situation healthwise. And then I think of my own family and how people would be judging me based on my parents' bodies, or my own body- all the cadavers are old people, so they've been through a lot. If I had to say today, I would probably vote not to donate to a med school. Take my organs, but spare me the dissection table of a bunch of twittering 20 somethings.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Look at me
Wow, life is so easy now. I just pulled up my old blog, on my laptop, on a wireless network, while I'm just sitting here in the library (yeah, these days I can occasionally be found actually sitting in a library). And I was remembering how much more trouble it would have been to post down in Guatemala. And, after rereading (damn I am boring and long winded...) a bit, and realizing how easy it would be, I decided to post something. I've had a busy few weeks here.
I'm in med school, my wife's pregnant, and we're buying a house. I want to squeeze in here how absolutely excited I am about all this, especially the ectoderm in the oven part, before I start making fun of myself. I mean, if you know me from my old life, maybe from the ten minute breaks we used to take between double-block chem, or Friday nights in the Woods, or the Hovey Lane house or Burning Man, then maybe you are having a bit of trouble believing that I am talking about the same guy. In a way, I'm not. But we have the same name: Jake Danger Kissel. (Speaking of names, anybody have any good ideas for the spawn?) Saying those three life events are happening to me (all within a three week period, mind you) makes me feel kind of old. Like I might as well have said "Gee willickers, guys and gals, my knees started aching, I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy, and me and the missus invested in neighboring plots down at ol' Oaken Fairmeadow Glendale Granite Heights Cemetary." Actually, you could all probably have seen it coming when I started a blog, which, as everybody knows, is the beginning of the end.
Med school is hard. I know I told everyone, including myself, that it was going to be a breeze, that nothing could be as hard as working full time at the hospital, taking classes at night, and volunteering on the weekends. That it is only school, and out at noon every day, and so I would have plenty of free time. In actuality, I've found that I can have plenty of free time, along with an F- as a GPA. And here, a C avg is failing (which is shitty- if you get too many C's, they send you to some committee which decides if you have to repeat the year or not- there is no hard and fast cutoff). So, in order not to repeat my Dartmouth experience of shitting in a hole, jumping in, then spending the next 3.5 years trying to climb up the slippery walls, I have actually started studying my ass off. Which is why I can be found in the library, right now. When not here, I spend time with Mr. Bouncie, our cadaver (so named because of a tattoo on his arm that said Bouncie, in cursive, with the "i" dotted with a little heart...), trying to identify the flaps of jerky that we've reflected off his thorax and upper limbs. We've just finished dissecting the heart, which is amazing. Anatomy in general is awesome. At first it took some getting used to slicing up a dead person, but I can tell I'm comfortable now because the sight of those well-marbled muscles actually makes me hungry these days.
Buying a house is fun, especially when you're already as far in the hole as we are. What's another $100K? And that is how much our 3 bedroom place is costing us- eat your hearts out, Manhattanites.
Mariam is pregnant. I have to say, I still don't know anyone (maybe Mike and Emily?) our age who has had a kid on purpose. We were close, but we were planning on settling in here, buying the house, getting health insurance, getting Mars off the rock. Oh well. The worst part is that I'm taking embryology, which is pretty much following exactly the course of our pregnancy. Sounds great, you say? First, we learn about all the gajillion little things that happen as that little pile of ectoplasm develops- miracle of miracles that it happens at all. Then, we learn the name of the gajillion syndromes that you get if each of those little noodly appendages doesn't plug in exactly where it should. Then we look at pictures. I have something they call an "Embryology" textbook, that I paid $37 for. It is actually just a big dead baby picture book. It is a frigging horror show.
But really, it is so cool, being pregnant. She's got a little baby in there. It's gonna come out and grow up and call me Pa or Dad or Babba or something (assuming it doesn't have a foot where its mouth should be: podo-oro-switchesia), and drool, and smile, and listen to music (again, hopefully doesn't have podo-auro-rearrangia), and see the ocean for the first time. It's going to be born in Kentucky, in the South, and yet still be a Red Sox fan. It'll be all smooth and helpless and smell like babies smell. So, we're very excited, and feeling blessed and miraculous. And hungry. Well, Mariam is hungry, and I just use it as an excuse to eat more. We take a picture of her belly every Sunday- you can't see any difference yet, hardly. But she's gonna have one of those big old pregnant bellies that sticks way out and hopefully she'll show off. Kid's due in mid April, so I guess her belly might get cold if she's showing it off too much in the middle of winter. I'll post a picture when it's worth it.
I'm in med school, my wife's pregnant, and we're buying a house. I want to squeeze in here how absolutely excited I am about all this, especially the ectoderm in the oven part, before I start making fun of myself. I mean, if you know me from my old life, maybe from the ten minute breaks we used to take between double-block chem, or Friday nights in the Woods, or the Hovey Lane house or Burning Man, then maybe you are having a bit of trouble believing that I am talking about the same guy. In a way, I'm not. But we have the same name: Jake Danger Kissel. (Speaking of names, anybody have any good ideas for the spawn?) Saying those three life events are happening to me (all within a three week period, mind you) makes me feel kind of old. Like I might as well have said "Gee willickers, guys and gals, my knees started aching, I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy, and me and the missus invested in neighboring plots down at ol' Oaken Fairmeadow Glendale Granite Heights Cemetary." Actually, you could all probably have seen it coming when I started a blog, which, as everybody knows, is the beginning of the end.
Med school is hard. I know I told everyone, including myself, that it was going to be a breeze, that nothing could be as hard as working full time at the hospital, taking classes at night, and volunteering on the weekends. That it is only school, and out at noon every day, and so I would have plenty of free time. In actuality, I've found that I can have plenty of free time, along with an F- as a GPA. And here, a C avg is failing (which is shitty- if you get too many C's, they send you to some committee which decides if you have to repeat the year or not- there is no hard and fast cutoff). So, in order not to repeat my Dartmouth experience of shitting in a hole, jumping in, then spending the next 3.5 years trying to climb up the slippery walls, I have actually started studying my ass off. Which is why I can be found in the library, right now. When not here, I spend time with Mr. Bouncie, our cadaver (so named because of a tattoo on his arm that said Bouncie, in cursive, with the "i" dotted with a little heart...), trying to identify the flaps of jerky that we've reflected off his thorax and upper limbs. We've just finished dissecting the heart, which is amazing. Anatomy in general is awesome. At first it took some getting used to slicing up a dead person, but I can tell I'm comfortable now because the sight of those well-marbled muscles actually makes me hungry these days.
Buying a house is fun, especially when you're already as far in the hole as we are. What's another $100K? And that is how much our 3 bedroom place is costing us- eat your hearts out, Manhattanites.
Mariam is pregnant. I have to say, I still don't know anyone (maybe Mike and Emily?) our age who has had a kid on purpose. We were close, but we were planning on settling in here, buying the house, getting health insurance, getting Mars off the rock. Oh well. The worst part is that I'm taking embryology, which is pretty much following exactly the course of our pregnancy. Sounds great, you say? First, we learn about all the gajillion little things that happen as that little pile of ectoplasm develops- miracle of miracles that it happens at all. Then, we learn the name of the gajillion syndromes that you get if each of those little noodly appendages doesn't plug in exactly where it should. Then we look at pictures. I have something they call an "Embryology" textbook, that I paid $37 for. It is actually just a big dead baby picture book. It is a frigging horror show.
But really, it is so cool, being pregnant. She's got a little baby in there. It's gonna come out and grow up and call me Pa or Dad or Babba or something (assuming it doesn't have a foot where its mouth should be: podo-oro-switchesia), and drool, and smile, and listen to music (again, hopefully doesn't have podo-auro-rearrangia), and see the ocean for the first time. It's going to be born in Kentucky, in the South, and yet still be a Red Sox fan. It'll be all smooth and helpless and smell like babies smell. So, we're very excited, and feeling blessed and miraculous. And hungry. Well, Mariam is hungry, and I just use it as an excuse to eat more. We take a picture of her belly every Sunday- you can't see any difference yet, hardly. But she's gonna have one of those big old pregnant bellies that sticks way out and hopefully she'll show off. Kid's due in mid April, so I guess her belly might get cold if she's showing it off too much in the middle of winter. I'll post a picture when it's worth it.
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