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first off, let me state for the record that the act of writing this post is complete and total procrastination from current organic chemistry cue cards and mechanisms. i have a midterm on friday and my usual (although sometimes plodding) motivation has completely flown out the window.

i would rather write the exam RIGHT NOW and get a barely passing grade, than continue to review material for another 48 hours and do well. that is a very very bad sign. and extremely unusual for me. a lot of people use the statement “i work better under pressure” to rationalize their procrastination. i just feel like i’m analyzing cracks and mortar in a brick wall in front of me instead of looking for the nearby door…

i’m not saying i never hit this brick wall. every exam – whether measly midterm or fatal final – has a brick wall somewhere on the horizon. i often call it my “saturation point” because it will slam up against me after countless hours of review and recall. over several years of experimentation, i have come to trust it as a reliable indicator that i know at least 90% of the material well enough to kick the exam’s butt all the way back to the prof’s office.

so when i sit down at my desk to start another hour of re-re-re-review and looking at my notes for the bazillionth time makes me want to throw up… i know i’m good to go.

BUT, i have only spent a handful of hours on friday’s organic chem midterm and there’s bile in the back of my throat. how does one swallow it down and push on?

even though they don’t currently seem to be working, i thought i’d share my techniques for pushing past procrastination and back into productivity.

1. take a break
if you feel like you need a break, you’re probably right. but do something constructive with it. i don’t like to add any new non-essential information during my short study breaks so things like television and reading are out of the question.

instead, go for a walk or have a shower or clean your toilet or wash the dishes. repetitive actions that don’t require a lot of thought are the best for me. they become meditative and my brain has a chance to coalesce all the important info that was slipping away minutes earlier.

2. take a nap
i’m not advocating 3 hours in the middle of the day, but 10 minutes around 2pm does wonders for me.

3. work on something else
my current example is this organic chem midterm. i just couldn’t seem to wrap my brain around the cue cards and mechanisms, so i decided to work on this week’s lab exercise instead. it’s something related to what i should be studying and will need to be done eventually anyway.

4. force-feed yourself
this is my last-ditch extreme measure if the above tactics fail miserably. it is also what i’m going to be doing about 5 minutes from now when i press the “publish” button for this blog post.

the key here is small mouthfuls. force-feeding large amounts will only make you throw it all back up (and i think we were trying to avoid bile in the first place). spend 10 minutes studying and 10 minutes on cleaning the toilet (or going for a walk or whatever). wash, rinse, repeat. repeat. repeat.

once i’ve realized i can keep it down, i’ll bump the studying time up to 15 minutes… then 20… then 30… still with 10 minutes off in between for something else. soon enough, several hours have passed and i’ve actually accomplished some studying!

and with a sparkling toilet to boot!

Samuel Shem’s book was one of the first “medical novels” i read nearly four years ago when i decided i wanted to go back to school. i had heard it was a good book to read if you wanted to be talked out of a career in medicine… definitely true, but it didn’t work.

i almost never re-read novels, but figured since it had been a few years and i liked it so much the first time around, this one deserved a little more face time. it’s just as sexually explicit and depressing as i remember. :)

i recently gave it to jonathan (my boyfriend, sans pseudonym) to read. a few years ago, he gave me a great novel called “The Cheese Monkeys” by Chip Kidd on art school and graphic design. it was a very entertaining read and actually helped me to understand his profession and academic history a little bit. i hoped “House of God” would do the same for him.

after reading it he said something along the lines of: “i’m Berry and you’re Roy. this is going to be tough, isn’t it?”

oh, and the other book on my beside table is “Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul” by John and Stasi Eldredge that my grandma sent to me recently. it’s a bit churchy, but the fact that it’s from my grandma (i RARELY get books from my family) gives me some sort of guilty impression that i have to read it.

“Med school is like taking a drink of water from a fire hose.”

~ Miller & Bissell: “Med School Confidential”

kendra over at island med student has compiled a great list of study tips for med school. it’s neat to see that such a simple set of tools would work equally well for pre-med courses or just about any other discipline that requires you to get through large amounts of info.

she touches on a few things i have found worked for me in the past 4 years (own mnemonics, repetition, schedule) and some things i definitely do NOT do (group/buddy work). here are my top 5, in no particular order…

1. attend class and take notes
while i may not pay attention in class for every second of every lecture, i’m always physically there and physically taking notes. sometimes i’ll review material written in my own hand and can’t remember actually writing it down. i do enjoy day-dreaming! but as noted in #4, seeing things in my own hand really helps my photographic memory recall.

2. repetition and 3. schedule
i find i retain information best when my environment is routine and predictable. this makes repetition and scheduling the two most important tools in my personal study arsenal. i like to know when i’m studying and for how long. i like to repeat and review material in concentric circles (ie: eliminating the cue cards i know by heart, but adding them back in again later).

4. creativity
i also really like to use my own drawings and diagrams and mnemonics – all in my own old-fashioned printing or handwriting. i can look at a diagram 100 times, but will retain it much longer and in much more detail if i draw it out in my own hand even once.

5. efficiency
saying “i studied for 12 hours today” might sound impressive, but i am not efficient or effective at retaining information when confronted with HUGE blocks of time like that. the big picture gets lost when the brain tires and i always prefer to get a good night’s sleep before a big exam than stay up late cramming a few extra tidbits of information. if i use my time wisely, i will get more done in a shorter period and eliminate deterioration through distractions.

a lot of people that have already made it to med school did so because they know how to study. but a lot of people that would make great doctors don’t have 4.0 GPAs and have to work that much harder to keep up or stay competitive with their classmates. some people are naturals at the piano or basketball. some have to practice for hours and hours each day.

like playing the piano, studying is a skill. you may have been born with the talent or you may need to sit down and practice on a regular basis. everyone learns differently, so techniques should be tailored to suit your particular style – but “learning to learn” effectively and efficiently is a skill that can be improved with practice.

speaking of which… i have an organic chemistry midterm on friday and should really get back to hydrolysis of nitrile mechanisms…

i should hear about the MUA may ‘07 waitlist within the next few weeks… but even if i don’t get in until september, i will be leaving prince george in april – for good! :)

which means all the crap i’m not taking with me has to go into storage. and why wouldn’t i rather rather donate, recycle, or freecycle most of it than unpack it again in 3+ years?

i’m not sure how much i’ve talked about it on previous blog incarnations, but part of my plans for a medical career have always included an interest Médecins Sans Frontières. an MSF petition was recently brought to my attention by a fellow student and – while i normally don’t feel petitions have much leverage – i have decided to start a new category devoted to topics of this sort.

a pharmaceutical company is legally challenging the Indian government on their patent law. if Novartis is successful, over 80% of the medicines used to treat AIDS in over 30 countries would essentially dry up.

Novartis is challenging a specific provision in India’s patent law that restricts patenting of medicines to innovations only. If the provision were overturned, patents would be granted far more widely in India, heavily restricting the production of affordable medicines that has become crucial to the treatment of diseases across the developing world.

If Novartis is successful in its challenge against the Indian government and its patent law, more medicines are likely to be patented in India, making it very difficult for generic producers to make affordable versions of them. This could affect millions of people around the world who depend on medicines produced in India.

while millions of signatures are still needed, this petition has the potential to pressure Novartis to drop their lawsuit.

please take a few minutes to learn more and sign the petition.

it’s been an amazing week (as usual) here in vancouver. very near the top of my list of fave things about this city – and it’s a pretty looong list – is spanish banks (above photo). maddy’s review is as follows: “there’s an ocean for swimming, seagulls for chasing, and a large part of it is all off-leash, all the time. what more could you ask for, really?”

i can be a pretty solitary and independent person… and isolating myself in a much smaller, and much more remote city like prince george must do more overall harm than good. but another thing i like about being back in town is all the face-time i get with long-lost friends. after a couple of days catching up with the boyfriend, here’s what the rest of my current whirlwind vancouver tour looks like:

sunday: snowshoeing with derek, julie, sue, & stan
wednesday: coffee with colin
thursday: breakfast with mel, movie with chad
friday: drinks with alex*
saturday: breakfast with lee, drinks with amber
sunday: dog walks with christina (and jo!), breakfast with julie, snowshoeing with jonathan’s co-workers

unfortunately, there are a few people missing from that list… but i’m only here for a week. flying back to prince george monday morning and spending the following five days/nights studying for the organic chem midterm next friday.

i think maddy’s ready to go home. but i am never really ready to leave vancouver behind. :)

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* the fact that that photo is from 2002 is a testament to how “long-lost” he really is.

today was the first of many (okay, at least four) appointments to get my immunizations and blood tests up-to-date so i can safely leave the country for med school. MUA requires a certificate of the following:

- tetanus (within 10 years)
- measles
- mumps (proof of immunity)
- rubella (proof of immunity)
- PPD (proof of immunity)
- HIV (results current within 60 days of matriculation)
- hep B vaccine (for clinical program)

… which meant 4 needles in total today, another on thursday, and follow-up hep B boosters in a month and 6 months from now.

ouch.

it’s a good thing i don’t mind needles. my family doctor works in a teaching facility and i was a *tiny* bit nervous on behalf of the medical student poking me. she did a great job though. after a couple of piercings, a little sting in the arm is nuthin’.

i know i won’t be posting photos like this next february…

a lot of people i’ve talked to think going to med school in the caribbean will be like a vacation. i’ll admit it’s tough to imagine getting stressed out when you’re only minutes away from beautiful beaches, but i certainly have no delusions about spending all my time sipping piña coladas and working on my tan.

and while i generally favour hot weather over cold… i will really miss the snow. i love having four* seasons. i love our Canadian winters. i love snowshoeing. i love snowballs. i love warming up indoors. i love rosy cheeks. i love frosty noses and fingertips.

but i also love flip flops and vitamin D and the perfect blue of the caribbean sea.

tough trade-off, eh? ;)

ps: gung hay fat choy!

————
*three in vancouver.

i’m nervous about maddy flying for the first time. i think she might bark her head off the whole way… right now she smells like wet dog. but that is a million zillion times better than wet goose.

i will likely update from the big city. i have an immunization appointment with my family doctor while i’m there. i’m hoping to get all my “Let Me Leave My Country and Live In Yours” shots and tests out of the way.

hope you all have a great weekend!

when “Grey’s Anatomy” first aired a couple of years ago, i didn’t have a TV. i would download the episodes on my computer and (apart from that ridiculous initial opening sequence with the red shoes) loved it for what it was: a soap opera that happened to revolve around quirky surgical interns with quirky problems.

this season, “love to hate” is a more appropriate reflection of my feelings. i find the show overtly melodramatic (”i have more to say, but i’ve disappeared” – oh come ON) with repetitive character flaws and flimsy inter-intern relationships. i could go into how annoying it is that izzy disapproves of george marrying kali. or how cristina just needs to get over herself already. or how meredith’s lame opening monologue should be cut ASAP. i think the budding relationship between karev and addison is the only thing i like right now and i definitely i never thought i’d ever say/think that!

further to my personal pet peeve list, i have been mentally rolling my eyes at the medical treatment delivered. but as Kevin, M.D. mentioned, “we’re talking Grey’s Anatomy here.” how does anyone with a medical degree even sit through this show without squirming?

graham at over my med body! has an even more detailed peeve than my own: incorrect delivery of CPR.

Normally it’s fun to get mad at the medical dramas for their medical inaccuracy, because we medical folks know better, but I honestly think the producers and medical consultants for the show really did viewers (and the public at large) a disservice, as CPR is one of the areas of medicine that the public may be called upon to perform.

his post goes on to include helpful references for correct CPR technique and resources to help you find a CPR course in your area. as much as well all love mcdreamy, 2 breaths for every 5 compressions is not proper technique.