[block 1]
“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”
~ Salvador Dali
i’m tired of hearing “C = MD” and i’m tired of feeling apologetic for having moderately higher standards for my own performance. i’m tired of the stories about how sooo many people barely made it through classes, but went on to ace Step 1. i’m tired of the “it doesn’t matter what they see on your transcript — Step 1 is the only thing that counts, so why work that hard in class??” argument. i’m tired of hearing “well, what’s an A from a Caribbean med school anyway?”
i’m sure there are people that barely stay afloat through 20 months of classes and buckle down for 6 weeks of solid studying to slam Step 1. but just because one person that smoked their whole life didn’t get lung cancer, doesn’t mean i’m going to stop believing that smoking causes lung cancer. and it doesn’t mean i’m going to start smoking.
sorry. just needed to get that out, apparently. ; )
genetics
- principles of cytogenetics
- disorders of autosomes and sex chromosomes
- Mendelian principles of heredity
- patterns of single gene inheritance
- pedigree analysis
- another 25 diseases (we’re up to a total of 50 cumulative diseases with mode of inheritance, symptoms, and specific genetic defect)
>> most interesting thing learned: this class is turning out to be a lot more clinically oriented than i initially expected. i love the repeated exposure we are getting to a wide variety of genetic disorders. this block promises a lot more math. which is all bad in my books.
neuroscience
- midbrain
- pons
- medulla
- cerebellum
- blood supply
- ventricles, meninges
- lesions and clinical correlations with all of the above
>> most interesting thing learned: okay, the brainstem is a little closer to the actual brain and is a little cooler than the spinal cord. i think the cerebellum is a freaking stroke of engineering genius and whoever was in charge of naming the parts was probably mostly insane.
immuno/microbiology
- inherited immunodeficiency diseases
- hypersensitivity reactions
- comparison of infectious agents
- comparison of prokaryotes and eukaryotes
- bacterial classification, structure, metabolism and growth
- normal flora
- laboratory diagnosis of bacterial diseases
- bacterial pathogenesis
- sterilization, disinfection, antisepsis
>> most interesting thing learned: keeping a wound open longer (debridement) will actually help to kill anaerobic bacteria and prevent infection. but Hello Kitty band-aids are still cool.
epidemiology
- descriptive studies
- correlation studies
- case reports, series, and cross-sectional surveys
- hypotheses
- cause-effect, probability
- mode, mean, median, variance, standard deviation
- issues in analysis & interpretation
- bias: types and control
- confounding
>> most interesting thing learned: this class prof is driving me nuts. i’m learning that i’m impatient and easily annoyed when 2 hours of class time is wasted on irrelevant rambling.
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looking for MED 1? or MED 2?
I still think you’re channeling a little mick in your diagrams :)
be you.
You ROCK as always! I can’t believe your block 2 is done already…slow down summer! I hope you can take a breather this weekend and get yourself better.
“i’m tired of feeling apologetic for having moderately higher standards for my own performance”
So true… So true…
“C = MD”
“stories about how sooo many people barely made it through classes, but went on to ace Step 1.”
“it doesn’t matter what they see on your transcript — Step 1 is the only thing that counts, so why work that hard in class??”
argument.
“well, what’s an A from a Caribbean med school anyway?””
wow, i havent heard those sentences in a LONG TIME. i havent heard them since i was on nevis actually!
i feel like was a whole different attitude during clinicals. and youre doing a great job preparing for them.
oh and transcripts do matter.
Do people actually say that stuff?? I would think that if you’re not working your butt off, trying to learn absolutely everything you can and gain as much knowledge as you can, you’re not becoming a doctor for the right reason at all. Anyone happy to get by with a C at this stage, seems like a big fat phoney to me. Even with my program, whenever I feel like slacking or taking the easy route, I think “well..I am actually going to need to know this stuff to be compentent in my career” and I hit the books. For students in your situation I’d think that would be even more important (like 100 times more important. Thoughtful learning throughout your years in medschool and crazy cramming to pass some exam at the end are not even comparable.
I see you’ve learnt the joys of epidemiology dull=dull
I don’t know what it’s like in North America but in the UK pretty much everyone who gets their medical degree gets a job to start with (no ness where or what ou want) but then jobs after that depend on other above and beyond stuff and saying you aced your basic sciences/pre-clinical would count… as would all the extra-curricular stuff you have going
I admire your work ethic a lot Jen, I wish I could be as motivated with my postgrad exams… any tips? ;)
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