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.