Anatomy Lab: Fantasy vs. Reality

So, before med school I was REALLY excited for anatomy (a.k.a. cadaver) lab. Perhaps that makes me weird, but you have to be a little weird to enjoy science.

Anyhow, anatomy lab turned out to be my least favorite part of med school—by far. But I’ve saved you all from vivid, elaborate descriptions of everything I didn’t like and drew a cartoon instead.

If you’ve dissected, you probably get it. If you’ve dissected and you don’t relate, enjoy being a pathologist! :-)

So You’re Thinking About Becoming a Doctor

First of all, how sure are you about wanting to be a doctor? Before you start worrying about how you’ll do on the MCAT or how to finance medical school, I'd start by trying to decide whether you really want to be a doctor.

It’s been said that if you're deciding between medicine and something else, choose something else—and I agree. I think you should only go into medicine if it's your calling. That doesn't mean you should already know, it just means that now is the time to find out how much you really love it.

The best way to figure that out, in my opinion, is to shadow a doctor. You can ask any doctor you know whether they let students shadow. This includes your personal doctors—I shadowed my Ob/Gyn!

Image source: www.afuturemd.com

What is shadowing? Basically, you follow a doctor around all day, observe everything they do, and ask all the questions you can think of. Ideally you'd shadow a doctor over a period of time, instead of as a one-off situation. That way you really get to know them and feel comfortable asking more questions about the lifestyle, what they do/don't enjoy about medicine, etc.

Look out for an upcoming post on shadowing tips: what to wear, how to treat patients, what to ask, how to impress the doc, and how to get a rec letter out of it.

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As always, please leave comments & ask questions!

How to Spell 'Defecate"

I have NEVER been able to spell “defecate.”  I always want to write “defacate,” because that’s phonetic: de-fuh-cate. Why isn’t it an “a”?

While spell-checking, I looked at "defecate" and... OOOOOOOH! It’s de-fecate—like getting rid of fecal matter! Wow. Duh.

It’s really strange how the brain works. Sometimes I make these connections instantly, and sometimes it takes me a ridiculously long time.

I’m a big reader, and I always have been. I used to read books that were way beyond my comprehension level, so I think I ended up memorizing the meaning of a lot of words through context. When you learn a word before you can really understand it, it’s like it’s stored in an area of the brain that is removed from connection-making.

Now the next point of interest: exactly which book in The Baby Sitters Club series included the word “defecate”? Maybe Kristy Goes to Medical School?

Image soure: someecards.com

Hand Hygiene Shaming

As a solution to my last post, I designed this fantasy bathroom, which enforces hand-washing compliance via shaming.

Who wants to make it happen?

Potty Talk: Cell Phones in Public Bathrooms

I just used the restroom at work—great start to a blog post, right?—and a coworker, who I don’t know well, walked in before me, talking on her cell phone. She stayed on the call throughout the entire process, including the flush (ew—fecal spray!) and “hand-washing.” I use scare quotes because she stuck the non-phone hand under the water and grabbed a paper towel.

Image source: www.myfoxaustin.com

This happens quite a lot in public bathrooms and it keeps getting more bewildering to me. It brings a lot of questions to mind:

1)      Just… why?

2)      Do you actually enjoy talking on the phone in these circumstances?

3)      Who are you talking to? And why don’t they mind hearing your body functions and the toilet flushing?

4)      Doesn’t this ever create uncomfortable situations? You know… sound-wise?

5)      Aren’t you embarrassed to do this in front of other people? I mean, obviously not, but why not?

6)      Why do you think it’s a good idea to flush a toilet near your phone (which I’m guessing you never sterilize)?

7)      Why wouldn’t you wash the hand that’s holding the phone? That’s the one right next to your mouth!

8)      No, seriously: WHY???

…I’m just at a total loss. I don’t get it at all. In any way. On any level. But the International Center for Bathroom Etiquette (ha!) agrees with me.


Update 7/6/13: Apparently Corning is coming out with an antimicrobial phone display. Cool! ...But what about the buttons & case? Check it out.

Please comment if you can enlighten me on this strange phenomenon. Is this actually normal?

Med Students: Not Normal

Not even CLOSE to normal.

Why Asking Me for Medical Advice is Against Medical Advice

I think it’s really flattering (and fun) that all my friends have started asking me for medical advice. However, I tend not to be very helpful. Here’s how the conversation usually goes:

Friend: Hey, I have a medical question for you.

Me: [Mental flashback to watching 1,000 episodes of Bones instead of studying Micro] Uh, okay. Shoot.

Friend: Have you ever seen Chagas Disease?

Me: Uh, sort of. I’ve seen pictures of it, but never in person.

Friend: [Texts a picture of a swollen eyelid] Do you think that’s what this is? 

Photo credit: cdc.gov

Me: Um, it looks like a lot of things besides Chagas. Do you have a fever?

Friend: No.

Me: Have you been to Central or South America recently?

Friend: No, why?

Me: Well, to get Chagas, someone usually has to get bitten by a kissing bug in Central or South America. And there are a lot of reasons for a swollen eyelid that are more common than Chagas. [Many, many questions, determining that it’s probably an allergic reaction] …But I can’t give you medical advice. So if you’re really worried that it’s Chagas, you should go to the ER.

Basically, all I can tell you is that your abnormality does/does not look like a picture I’ve seen of Roseola/scalded skin syndrome/plague (a picture that you can Google yourself).

In summary: if you ask me for medical advice, I’ll probably send you to the ER.

Rhino Attack!

Or How My Coworker Gave Me a Cold

(Thanks to Picmonic, this is how I visualize diseases now.)

Bad Handwriting

We all know doctors are notorious for bad handwriting, but check this out:

NEWSFLASH: This is NOT the handiwork of a doctor! My other boss, who was in insurance forever, wrote this.

Spoiler: that word is supposed to be "positioning." Impressive, huh?

Work vs. Med School

No contest!

Why I Ended Up Liking Things I Don't Like

One surprising and interesting part of first year was finding out which classes I enjoyed. The list turned out to be completely impossible to predict. I ended up loving the classes I thought I’d hate (Micro) and not enjoying the classes I thought I’d love (Anatomy, Neuro). I don’t think that my interests are actually that far off from what I expected. Instead, I think that the syllabus, course structure, lecturers, and communication end up being much more important than the content. (As evidenced by the fact that I love reading about neurology and anatomy.)

Lets start with the syllabus. In med school, at least every one I’m familiar with, you don’t really have textbooks; you get a syllabus for each course, which is written by the lecturers and is hundreds of pages long. You’re responsible for the entire content of the syllabus for each exam, down to the most minute comments, figures, and captions. In other words: if the syllabus is awful, the class is awful. There’s no getting around it. I had more than one class where the syllabi were TERRIBLE—full of typos, redundancies, self-contradictions, blatant errors, grammatical errors, figures that contradicted the text, etc. It’s a real bummer when there are so many typos in a single sentence that it takes you 20 minutes to even guess what a lecturer was trying to say.

(Note: if a syllabus is just unreadable, you can always use BRS instead and just accept the fact that you will miss questions over whatever minutia BRS doesn’t cover.)

Beyond the syllabus, general lack of communication and clarity in a course can really bring me down. For example, constantly changing the grading criteria (unless it’s a change that benefits everyone) or failing to provide study resources. These things make me angrier than they probably should (HE INCREASED THE WEIGHT OF THE TEST BY 0.5%! KILL THE BEAST!), but hey—I strategize! I study more for exams that are weighted heavier. I don’t think it’s very cool to pull the rug out from under your students.

Look, med school is one of the few times where course content is actually difficult. Undergrad was mostly an issue of time management; it was rarely difficult for my brain to actually comprehend biology. Nerve tracts, the actions of extraocular muscles, every single developmental anatomy image, HIV, and cardiac pressure-volume loops are another story. When my brain is struggling to make sense of something, a typo or confusing email is certainly not going to help. 

So, in other words I like clear communication—through  email, in lectures, and in the syllabus—NO SURPRISES. I’ll enjoy any course that meets this criterion, even underwater basket weaving. 

Image source: www.reed.edu