Medicine and Life

M2. I am creating this blog to help chronicle my journey.

[medmedmed1234]

I’m still alive

Hey folks, I haven’t used this blog much in almost a year. I am currently post Step 1 and in the middle of my third year rotations. Hope everybody is doing well and I’m happy to answer questions!! I may or may not try to get back to writing regular posts, we will see haha

[princesconsuela]

[medmedmed1234]

Step 1 Orientation

Well, we officially had our introduction. My school gives us ~7 weeks for dedicated starting in March. It was a mix of scary and exciting. Our dean presented a lot of data about our school, and talked about historically successful and unsuccessful students at our schools and what habits they have, etc.

I am actually weirdly excited about Step 1, and I don’t think I get the same sense of foreboding about it that some of my friends do. That may change as I get closer to March/April of course, but I just think its kind of a cool challenge that I want to rise to meet. I guess I just enjoy all the medical knowledge (which is fueling a crisis in the whole specialty choice, more on that later). After our test next week we only have 4 more systems!

I also think another part that makes Step 1 so weird is that you finish and then immediately begin clerkships (after an orientation of course). That’s going to be a weird transition.

[medmedmed1234]

Catch a goat, eat its genitals.

Sawbones, episode on ED

[medmedmed1234]

What, you don't know how to do heroin??

one of our professors the other day, lol

[medmedmed1234]

in highschool where in a hospital/ medical office did you volunteer at and what did you do there

I volunteered at a variety of different front desks answering phones, walking patients back, and just being a general extra set of hands. I personally volunteered at same day surgery, radiology, and the emergency room. Once I was in college I was able to work back in the OR and actually get some exposure to surgery.

Volunteering in high school is mostly about gaining exposure to the hospital and healthcare in general. You could also look for opportunities to meet physicians and attempt to make connections for shadowing.

[breathinghistories-blog]

SOS - Step 1 Q-banks question

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well or hanging in there in the medblr community. I haven’t been on here in a while (first year got a little hectic…) but I was wondering if I can ask for some help. 

I’m not planning to study for Step 1 anytime soon, but I have some free time and wanted to learn about the resources that are available before I start drowning in my systems courses. Specifically, I was wondering if anyone could just explain the different options for Q-banks!! I keep seeing all these words like Rx and Uworld thrown around and I’m just like

When I begin my second year, I’m thinking of incorporating a q-bank into my study routine. Throughout my first year, I’ve found that I really struggle with questions – I feel I can know the material but applying it to questions is difficult for me. I did well and passed everything, but learning how to think through questions is still a learning process for me. Also, I have a bad habit of just getting tired of questions, and my mental stamina goes down. Obviously, this makes me really nervous Step, so I feel incorporating more questions into my regular studying well help.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated!!!!!!!!

[slowdownsimplybemd]

M2 also looking for advice🙋🏼

[medmedmed1234]

I've been using USMLE-Rx ever since we started our organ systems at the end of last year. I aim to finish all of those questions before the exam. It's basically first aid in question format and helps nail down the facts you need to have. I also bought Kaplan because they have a sale going on, and I think I'm gonna use that to make random blocks of questions from past material to begin reviewing. I've heard that Kaplan is harder and more detail oriented, but closer to step than Rx

[medmedmed1234]

Only a day and a half until our first exam of M2, feeling pretty good about things. I’ve been feeling the looming weight of step a lot ever since school started back, any other M2′s been feeling the same way?

It almost feel like my courses are more of an ends to a means of getting to step1/clinicals than they felt last year. Don’t get me wrong, I still really enjoy classes its just a little different in a hard to describe way

[medmedmed1234]

yo you get into your mid-20′s and its like all of your friends end their long-term relationships. Weird shit

[intrainingdoc]

Dear medical students, I’m sorry. You had just finished two years of didactic learning and couldn’t wait to feel like a “real” doctor. You were finally starting your clerkships, that is, finally working with patients and getting deep in the trenches.

“Your time on the clerkship gave me the best histories and physical exams. You were always a welcoming ray of sunshine and optimism even if it didn’t feel that way. By the way, Mrs. Smith complimented you because you went back to her room a few hours after the delivery to check on her and see her baby.”

A sweet story by Karen Tran-Harding, MD at University of Kentucky.

[medmedmed1234]

Clinic

Spent the day with one of my preceptors at clinic today and it was really great. It was just me and the attending, so I got to see every patient alone before we saw them together. There were the usually bread-and-butter type stuff for this clinic. but I also got to see some cool cases and assist the attending with a couple little office procedures. I’m really glad that my school includes this as a part of our curriculum, because it really is so refreshing to be able to actually see patients. The downside being that I now have to spend the evening catching up on lectures, haha

Also, a patients family totally thought that I was a Dr on the elevator and made light-hearted joke about it, and I actually had no idea what to say. Obviously if was examining them or something I would have been clear, but it was funny and gave me a little bit of a warm fuzzy.

[medmedmed1234]

Start of M2

I am one week into our M2 year, which is actually no difference content-wise from the end of M1, but obviously has the included connotations of being an older student and Step 1 on the horizon. So far, things are going well! I’m adjusting to this block well, its nice to see my classmates again including a good friend that transferred into our class. In a weird way it is actually kind of nice to get back into the routine of schoolwork, studying, class, and all the extra stuff that comes along with that.

I am mentoring a group of M1 students along with another M2, and it is causing all of these deja vu feelings about how quickly M1 went, and how it feels like I was in their shoes nervously asking for advice about gross anatomy just a few weeks ago. Medical school really does go by so fast, largely because of the constant sprint/marathon nature of hitting your next short-term goal (block test) while always stressing about the long-term goals (step, rotations, residency). Seeing as this year is even shorter, I’m sure I’ll be on the wards next May wondering about where my pre-clinical curriculum went (and why didn’t I learn more!). If there are any new M1′s out there reading this, don’t be afraid to reach out and I’m happy to chat with you!

They aren’t lying when they tell you that at the beginning of M1 that step feels like its so far away, and by the beginning of M2 its all you can seem to think about. I’m very invested in our curriculum (and doing well in classes), but I can already feel the urge to spend more and more time on step materials. My plan is to try to create a study system that satisfies both step studying and class studying for the given block that we are in, and try to add it more review as the year progresses. Any advice is appreciated.

[medmedmed1234]

Surgery

I had the chance to observe a really cool surgery earlier this week, which directly related to the work that I spent my “last summer ever” doing. It was really cool.

[medmedmed1234]

Summer endings

Summer break is over in like a week and a half and its kind of crazy. These last two weeks are filled with lots of experiments to try and wrap up, as well as making as much progress on my 2 clinical projects as possible. As of today I finished the data collection on the project that I began a couple of weeks ago. The project that I joined back in March/April is still slowly trudging along though, with no end in site quite yet. I have to give a presentation next week for my bench project, so I’m just hoping that I actually get some results to use this week so I don’t look like a total idiot standing up there without much data.

It honestly feels like this summer just began, and like I got married 2 days ago. I’ve been married for almost 2 months! M2 starts in a week, and the long grind to Step 1 is right around the corner. This is weird and exciting and scary

[tarteauxprunes-blog]

Morphologie expérimentale !

[medmedmed1234]

guess who just agreed to another research project, lol

[medmedmed1234]

did you get to shadow in high school? if so, how did you get to do it?

I shadowed a little in high school, but honestly not very much. I volunteered at a hospital for two summers in high school and while there I was able to watch a few surgeries and interact with some physicians, nurses, and other healthcare folk. Shadowing is this weird thing, and as a HS student I think its even harder to get people to agree to bring you along.

I honestly kind of hate the focus on shadowing in the application process because I feel like it rewards people that are more well connected (ie children of doctors). Neither of my parents are doctors (nor do they work in healthcare) and I feel like all my friends with physicians in the family had no shortage of doctors to shadow. I on the other hand cold-called a bunch of offices without ever getting a reply. 

I decided to get the majority of the my clinical exposure through work and volunteering, and picked up like ~40 hours of shadowing by the time that I applied to medical school.