After one week of classes, I already feel like I’ve fallen into the same rhythm. Summer seems like a dream already. Unlike last year, I am waking up to a rhythm that is familiar and people I recognize.
I can’t help but marvel at how fast my first year went by, and wondering where I’ll be this time next year; already through several third year rotations if all goes as planned. This fast-paced academic schedule and my classmates will be replaced with clinical rotations, shelf-exams, residents, and doctors. Now that I am a second year, I realize that the familiarity I’ve found will be short-lived, so I am trying to enjoy it.
I’m less exhausted by the schedule, people, and studying. We started lectures immediately: Introduction to Pharmacology (an overview of drug classes and calculations), Neuroscience (neurology), and Phsycopathology (psychiatry). Introduction to Pharmacology is a 2-week course, so my final exam is this Friday!
Yet it seems expected, and I’m already back in high-gear. This afternoon I spent several hours working through math problems to determine drug clearances, volumes of distribution, and half lives (which involved graphing on logarithmic paper- something I never imagined would be part of medical school training).
Yesterday I had a phlebotomy session where I practiced drawing blood on a classmate with a butterfly needle (a thin needle connected to tubing which goes to a test tube) and a straight needle (a needle directly connected to the test tube). The straight needle is a bit thicker, and harder to maneuver. In fact, the hardest part of the whole job (for me) is popping the test tube in and out of the needle device while holding the needle perfectly still.
I managed to get blood with both needles. Unfortunately my partner did not have the same luck with me because my instructor determined that I did not “have the veins for it.” She meant my veins were too small, possibly because the room was freezing!
Then, I practiced putting IV’s into a dummy arm, but made a huge mess of that. The instructor told me not to worry, since we’ll have plenty of time to practice. For once, I left without doing it right and I was not worried about it.
Tonight I am off to volunteer my evening at my medical school’s free clinic. I expect to see a lot of new first-year students there, and wonder what it will be like to be part of the “experienced” second-year students at the clinic. I certainly don’t feel so experienced, but in comparison to where I was a year ago, there is clearly a big difference.
I hope your test on friday went well. I have never hear of a 2 week course before.