It honestly hasn’t felt like it. I’ll be honest, it’s not like I completely forgot about the blog. Well, I do sort of forget about it during the week with all the medical school stuff going on (it really feels like a full time job, and that actually sort of doesn’t sit well with me to be honest). I do usually remember it on Fridays, and try to remind myself to write an end of the week reflection at the very least, but then I just make up an excuse or forget. Sometimes I’m just so ridiculously lazy. To make up for that, I hope to write a super long post today and be particularly candid about my thoughts (within reason obviously).

My First Exam

In my defense, one of the key reasons I’ve been sort of occupied is that I had been studying for my first exam which I took this past Monday. The two main topics of the exam were Respirology and Cardiology, followed by a few questions on Pharmacology and muscle biochemistry. I did really well in Respirology, but I did not so well in Cardiology/biochemistry – in fact I barely passed that latter section (gosh, I hope I passed. I got 71%, and you need a 70% to pass – so if I misbubbled a single question, I’m screwed!). I’m not completely screwed of course – I would just need to do remedial work, but that’s a pain, not to mention a blow to my ego.

Overall I got 81% on the exam, which is okay I guess, but it’s always a crappy feeling when all your friends got over 90%. I mean, it’s really hard to whine when my mark is a function of my effort and performance. I forgot some information, I had some really poor lapses in judgment, and my common sense was pretty terrible on the exam. So, no, I’m not surprised with the mark I got, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t preventable. It just feels kind of embarrassing when you’re standing around, enjoying a beer with some friends, and someone goes “that exam was pretty easy, I’d guess the average was probably ~90%”. Ouch.

All that being said, it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Since UofT’s medical school now has a pass/fail marking system, a 71 is as good as 100. I guess it really is just an ego thing, partially a social thing, but more so a personal disappointment thing – I think it’s human nature to wallow in self-pity whenever you don’t do as well as you think you can.

Of course, you could argue this is just how I’m rationalizing it. Instead of considering the possibility that I’m just dumber or inherently worse at school than my peers, I choose to argue that I could have done better if I tried harder. Well, of course I consider the possibility, but like anyone else, I’d like to believe that’s not the case – I have an ego just like every other human being. Everyone wants to believe they’re as smart as everyone else. That being said, I guess I can be somewhat happy that I can at least acknowledge the other possibilities.

And I’m okay writing how I feel about this, and being open and honest, because I think that will encourage other people to be honest. It’s okay to be vulnerable sometimes – it seems like vulnerability is stigmatized, especially in today’s world where everyone wants to look strong.

I mean, Tiger Woods is one of the most mentally strong individuals in all of sports. Do you really think he never goes to bed thinking “man, I am the worst golfer in the world, I can’t believe I played so awful today”? Of course he does! Everyone does. You do it, I do it, we all do it, whether we are willing to admit it or not.

Taking Control of my Education

Anyways, the gist of it is that unless I really want to prioritize my ego, marks don’t really matter (as long as I pass). So I’ve come to the realization that, if my marks don’t matter, why let that control my life (and specifically, my overall education)? I feel like I’d rather expend my energy doing things more productive or fun than studying more than I really need to.

So in terms of my medical education, for me that means spending more time exploring various specialties and trying to get a better grasp on what I’d like to be doing in the long term. While things could of course change, at this point in time, I’m not interested in any of the surgical specialties. I’m just not interested in working with my hands for hours on end, and the lifestyle (i.e. longer hours) just don’t suited the type of life I want. So that leaves medicine (this might be confusing, but apparently, medicine just often means anything non-surgical). Right now internal medicine and neurology are at the top of my interest list, but I’m leaning back towards neurology (after sort of writing it off earlier this semester for reasons I don’t really want to mention now).

I’ve found some neurologists whose work really interests me, so I’m going to try and connect with them in the next week, maybe set up some observerships and possibly get involved in some side research work so I feel like I’m actually being productive. An interest in neurology (and its associated disorders and illnesses) is what got me into medicine in the first place, and if I’m being completely honest, nothing else has excited my yet. I figure this is the right place to start.

Wait, so Am I a Leader or Not?

As part of our U of T Medical School curriculum, we tackle more than areas like anatomy, physiology, histology, embryology, etc. I have already mentioned that we look at Determinants of Community Health and the Arts and Science of Clinical Medicine.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that we also explore other perhaps less obvious aspects of medicine, and one that we will visit several times a year over the next four years is the theme of management. As part of exploring the concept of physicians as managers, we spent one afternoon a few weeks ago learning about different leadership styles. A particularly interesting concept came up recently that I think would be good to share, especially since I think growing up, students have such a huge misconception about it.

One question that was brought up (and one that I think many individuals think about) goes something like:

We say being leaders is a good thing, but if everyone in a group is a leader, won’t the group be dysfunctional? Don’t we need some people to be followers?

I think the first thing that needs to be addressed is the concept of being a leader. Especially in today’s school and work settings, we are bombarded with the idea that we need to become leaders. Leaders are important of course, and we often praise leaders in the media. However, it’s important to keep in mind that leaders are individuals who lead in a specific setting – that is, leaders exist only in the context of the activity they are leading.

For example, when we say Barack Obama is a leader, what we’re really saying is that he is the “leader” of the United States of America. Put him in another context, say the local pick up basketball team he plays with (I’m just making this up as an example), and he may certainly not be a leader. Of course his leadership skills are always there should he need to rely on them, but it would be wrong to say he is a leader in the absolute sense – because he isn’t.

What we’re really trying to do in today’s world is cultivate leadership skills in young people, so that they may be leaders of tomorrow, but in a variety of contexts and not necessarily in everything that they do. So while you may end up with a group full of individuals with strong leadership skills, not all of them will end up being the identified leader of the group. Most commonly, the individual with the skill set and background most relevant to the group will end up being the leader. For instance, if a group regarding promoting science to young people formed, I am more likely to be the leader, whereas if a golf club was forming, I most definitely would not try to be the leader because I would just be wasting everyone’s time.

Furthermore, it’s important to realize that an important aspect of being a good leader is recognizing strengths/weaknesses of your teammates, as well as knowing when to lead and when to follow. It’s a mistake to think a good leader is always in the leadership role. A good leader recognizes achieving the goals of the group is most important, and that can sometimes be best done when someone else is in charge.

Contrary to intuition, dysfunctionality within a group full of strong minded individuals is actually a sign of poor leadership skills because good leaders would have come to a peaceful consensus on who is most adept to lead the group. Anyways I think that’s sort of a cool concept that we tend to misunderstand, and I hope some people find that helpful, especially if you’re struggling within a group setting.

Real Patient Contact

As I mentioned before, I had been practicing interview sills on standardized patients (i.e. actors). Two weeks ago, I began practicing my interview skills on actual patients. Without a doubt, real patients are more difficult for a variety of reasons (one obvious one being that you can’t “time out” and ask your tutor for advice!). Whereas standardized patients will answer your questions directly, real patients can sometimes be all over the place, and it’s up to you to try and keep the interview focused. That being said, there is something rewarding about working with real patients, I guess for the very reason that it’s actually real.

I also finally got my stethoscope, blood pressure cuffs, and other pieces of equipment. I think we’re going to start learning to use those soon, and I think that starts with real patients this Friday, so that should be cool.

Coming Up…

I have my first Anatomy exam coming up (bellringers…), so I think my writing here will be sporadic again (but hopefully not, we’ll see). I have a lot to learn – here’s to hoping I can pull off a pass again.

Sorry to everyone who wrote a comment or sent me an email in the past month – I am way behind on those things, I apologize. I will try to get back to everyone soon, but I really don’t know.

Hope everyone is doing well!

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But no, instead, we go “damn, I’m so unlucky – how could it rain?” But when it doesn’t rain the other 90% of the time, we never say to ourselves, “wow, I’m so lucky that it didn’t rain!”. Now, you might say to yourself, well, that’s not getting lucky because it’s not supposed to rain the vast majority of the time. And I’m here to tell you, sorry, that’s actually not the case. You are getting lucky.

The reality is that anytime something occurs above the expectation, well, then you’re getting lucky. So if it’s supposed to not rain 90% of the time, but in this specific instance it did not rain, well then in this specific moment, it did not rain 100% of the time. Thus, you were on the good side of variance – which is being a bit lucky.

Now, if this scenario were to occur over a long period of time, say years, then most likely it will have rained 90% of the time in the long run (unless you get really, really unlucky). But most of the time when we talk about luck, we’re referring to specific, single events, in which case we often misunderstand luck.

One of the interesting things about our conception of luck is that we seem to overestimate how unlucky we are (while underestimating how lucky we actually are). For some reason, our minds tend to focus on and remember the times we were unlucky way more than the times that we are lucky. Maybe we are naturally cynical and whiny, and we like everyone to know how unfair our lives are.

A common example I read in a book was how we often remember and complain about the times we get stuck in a long line at the grocery store, but how often do we really stop to think and remember the times when we ended up at the fast line?

I dwell on how “unfair” or “unlucky” my life as much as the next person. But not today. I can complain all I want about how much life sucks or about how much stupid crap happened the other day, but the fact is that I’m really damn lucky, and I should admit it. I think we all need to do it more. Or at least admit how lucky we are as often as we complain about how unlucky we are, you know, to balance.

I don’t want to go into a whole spiel about everything I should be grateful for, but I do want to say that I have some damn awesome friends. There are a lot of things in this world I’m willing to lose, but losing my closest friends would destroy me. I am human, so I’m a social creature by nature – take that away from me and life will seriously blow.

The end of this past week was a bit emotionally taxing for me. Some sad, depressing stuff happened. Last night I hung out with my closest high school friends and had a great time, and felt rejuvenated today. Went out for some solid Korean BBQ, and then ended up at my friend Jason’s place just to hang out. Mad props to Jason for figuring out that my laptop wasn’t completely broken in the first five minutes. Turns out I had a corrupted driver, so he transferred all my important data out, wiped my hard drive, then reinstalled the operating system and copied my files back. Thanks for saving me $1,500+ or whatever the heck I was going to spend on a Lenovo Thinkpad. This is why you should never assume you know what’s going on when you honestly have no idea how something works.

The karaoke on Friday seemed to have helped me eliminate some of my self consciousness when it comes to singing. I guess 4.5 hours of karaoke does that to you. Played some Rock Band last night, and I felt a lot more loose and willing to let big notes fly on the microphone.

Anyways lots of good conversation, lots of good jokes. Just an all around solid night. I feel really lucky that despite many of us ending up at different universities, we still find time at least once a month to just meet up and chill.

So there you go, me bragging about how lucky I am. Try it sometime, you’ll feel a ton better.

Alright, I better spend the next half an hour trying to cram some more anatomy into my head before calling it a night. Have a good week!

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Fortunately I was able to back up my most important folders on an external hard drive (including my medical school notes, I would be very sad if I lost those!). It’s just frustrating because my last Dell laptop’s screen busted, and now this one just busts after maybe 1.5 years of use. I guess I’m not buying a Dell ever again.

A Light Week at Medical School

This was actually a pretty light week, at least in terms of UofT medical school standards. Most of the week was spent on our respirology unit, including a visit to a hospital to see some pulmonary function tests in person. Nothing too interesting or memorable about that.

I had my second session for my Arts and Sciences of Clinical Medicine course yesterday. They are pretty much slowly easing us into learning clinical skills. This week we discussed how to write a good case report (i.e. a report you write after interviewing a patient). After that, we split up into our small groups and had another go at interviewing standardized patients.

The standardized patient I interviewed was elderly, and came in with stiff pain in her knuckles. Although I wasn’t nervous last time, I still felt a bit out of place in terms of figuring out what to ask and having some direction in the conversation. This time I felt a lot more comfortable, and felt much more in control of what I needed to do. At the end of the interview, when the standardized patient was giving me feedback, she told me that she could see the empathy on my face when I spoke with her, and my tutor said the same as well. I was just like “what?” because I honestly wasn’t feeling empathy because I knew it wasn’t a “real patient”. But hey, that’s still got to be a good thing.

Best part of this week was that we got let out early at around noon yesterday, which is a pretty nice start to the weekend. I met up with some friends from class and we had lunch at this Thai restaurant, followed by an insane four and a half hour session of karaoke.

I started off by completely butchering Jason Mraz, but I think I recovered alright by the end. Highlights included attempting to rap Eminem and Jay-Z and realizing how tiring rapping is – I have a lot more respect for that craft now.

Oh Screw It

I got some unsettling news last night. I don’t want to go into details, but it’s just one of those things that makes you reflect on how short life really is. I’m not one of those big believers in living every day as if it were your last (I don’t think that phrase even makes sense), but I’m trying to be a bigger believer in just going for things and worrying less.

So many times an opportunity will come along, and I will think about going for it, but just chicken out at the last minute because I waste so much time thinking.

Something like that came up this week, and I finally just said “screw it” and went for it. And even though it didn’t work out the way I’d hope, I’m really glad I decided to just go for it. I hope this is a sign for many more “oh screw it” moments to come.

Anyways, I’ve taken the last few days off from studying, so I really need to get back in the swing of things. I also need to study more efficiently because I’m generally wasting time on the Internet half the time at the library.

Have a good weekend!

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Courses

I realized I probably never actually explained how medical school, at least here at the University of Toronto, works in terms of courses/curriculum. For this first year, we are doing three courses at a time, with two of those courses running throughout the year while the third will change a few times during the year.

The two courses that remain the same are ASCM and DOCH. The Arts and Science of Clinical Medicine (ASCM) course (which runs half day a week) is where we work in groups of 5 or 6 students in a hospital setting, led by a tutor (who is a physician), to learn actual clinical skills like taking a medical history, doing a physical examination, etc. The Determinants of Community Health (DOCH) course also runs half day a week, with the goal of teaching students to “be aware of the social, physical and emotional needs of individual patients and communities as a whole”.

Finally there is the variable third course which takes up most of the week. Right now we are doing the Structure and Function component, which covers “Gross Anatomy, Embryology, Radiologic Anatomy, Histology, Cell Biology, Cardio-Respiratory Physiology, Haematology, and an introduction to Pharmacology”. But by the end of first year we will also have covered Metabolism and Nutrition, as well as Brain and Behaviour.

First Interview Attempt

The second week of medical school was the first time I was engaged in all three courses. This past Friday morning I had my first session for ASCM. For the next two years I will be doing my clinical skills sessions at Toronto Western Hospital (TWH) (but I was at Toronto General Hospital on Friday just for the first introductory session). By some major coincidence I had already met the other four students in my group, and I like all of them, so I’m really glad with the group I got. At the beginning of the session we got meet our first of three tutors. She is a family physicians at TWH and seems pretty fantastic so far.

As part of our first ASCM session we each got to have our first attempts interviewing and taking the medical history of a standardized patient (a standardized patient is essentially an actor who is trained to act like a real patient with a specific medical history and medical problem). The standardized patient I interviewed had a shoulder problem, but also some personal relationship issues she was trying to deal with. I was glad that I didn’t feel nervous at all, but I definitely had some blank out moments where I had no idea what to ask next. I think patient interviews are just one of those things where you get better at them with time. All of the standardized patients were terrific people, and they were very positive and gave a lot of good feedback. I have to say my experience with ASCM so far has been very positive, and probably the most fun I’ve had thus far in the program.

Maybe I do Belong Here After All

As you guys know from my 1st week reflection, there were moments where I questioned whether I belonged in medicine because I lacked the enthusiasm some of my classmates had for the human body. But on Wednesday during an embryology lecture our professor showed some photos of children and infants who were suffering from errors in development, and for the first time, I actually felt something. I actually cared about what I was seeing and learning.

I have always had a concern for children and youth. It just never sat well with me that a two year old could die of health complications that he could not do anything about, and would never be able to live a decent life. While I do feel for adults and older individuals with health complications, I don’t feel as strongly because often these health complications were preventable, and obviously older people have still lived much longer than infants and children. I guess that’s why I want to go into pediatrics – partly because I really enjoy working with kids, but also because I feel every kid should have the chance to live as long as possible.

And so right then I felt for the first time that maybe I do belong here, which was a nice feeling.

Mastering a Craft

I have always been in awe at masters of a craft – and what I mean by that are people who are so much more talented and skilled at a craft that anyone else. Forgive me for the overdose of sports analogies, but for examples, Tiger Woods for golf and Roger Federer for tennis. These guys are so much better at what they do than anyone else that my jaw drops at how amazing they are at their respective games.

But I’m not just in awe at how amazingly talented and skilled they are. I get the feeling that they, more than anyone else, would describe their crafts as beautiful. Because they understand their crafts so well, they understand intricacies and subtleties of the craft that pretty much no one else can even comprehend, and that they probably find these things beautiful. I say this because there are a few tiny things I think I understand significantly better than the average person, and in those few things, I believe I see beauty where most people can’t. It just makes me wonder how beautiful our world really is in so many ways, and how sad it is that I won’t be able to full appreciate all the beauty there is around me but will never see or quite understand.

Anyways, one of the things I have always thought about was whether I’d be able to ever find beauty at that sort of level – whether I’d ever be able to come close to mastering a craft. Since I will be spending much of my life in medicine, I guess you could say I’m hoping maybe medicine might be that craft for me. If I could come close to finding beauty at such a deep level in medicine, that would be amazing.

Looking Ahead this Week

This is actually a really good week for me school-wise. I have quite a few breaks and early finishes, including getting Friday afternoon completely off (then again I guess that means more time to catch up in anatomy…). I mentioned in my last blog post about one of my best friends from York who I when I first met told me he thought the lead singer of my favourite band at the time was terrible. He’s coming to visit me on Friday and apparently he has a lot of stuff to tell me about his experience in McMaster Medical School so far. I haven’t seen him in a while, even though we talk online a fair bit, so I’m really looking forward to catching up in person again.

Wish me luck in finally catching up with anatomy this week! Hope everyone has a good one.

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Open vs. Anonymous?

One of the things I thought about when I started this blog was whether I should be open about who I am, or whether I should be anonymous. Of course there are pros and cons to being open about my identity. The pros of being open is that people who know me will find it interesting, I get credit for any ideas I write about, etc.

But some cons are that it will influence the way people view me without having met me or immediately before meeting me. For example, during my orientation week, I met two people who told me they saw my blog. Immediately I start thinking, “oh crap, what does this mean? Do I come off as an okay dude when I write, or do I sound arrogant and like a jerk?” I honestly feel like my writing is only a small extension of who I am, and that the way I come off when I write is not all that close to how I am in person. I think I write in a pretty blunt, purposeful manner, but I don’t really conduct myself that way in real life.

Another con is that having an open identity forces me to be careful about what I write. I am hesitant to write negatively about anything or anyone because I know words and ideas can be misconstrued and really bite you back hard. Some of you will be upset about that, because I know I try to come off as honest as possible – but I’m sure you also understand I have to be cognizant about who might end up reading this and what the ramifications could be. On the other hand, if I were anonymous, I’d probably be a lot more open about any less than happy thoughts or criticisms.

Once I got into medical school was when I actually started worrying a bit about this blog. Would it alienate some classmates who saw it?

Friends

As it turns out, nothing bad has happened yet, fortunately. In fact, a few of the friends I’ve made found out about it. One in particular has kept prodding me to mention her on this blog as an example of a really awesome friend I’ve made thus far. I’m not sure if she’s being serious or sarcastic, because she tries to be sarcastic like 90% of the time, but I guess be careful what you ask for…

Well I guess I’ll say I really enjoy my conversations with this friend. She’s very open-minded, which is a good thing, because I think people sometimes jump to conclusions with a lot of preconceived notions, but she’s willing to take a step back and look at things objectively. Which for me is good because I take maybe a radical or unconventional standpoint on something and I know she won’t instantly judge me because of it.

She’s also pretty sarcastic and not all that sensitive, which I like. I think I’ve mentioned several times here that I don’t like taking life to seriously, so it’s nice to have a friend who you can poke fun at or make a sort of “inappropriate” remark in a joking manner and not be looked at like an insensitive jerk.

I’m not sure, but I also get the feeling she understands people well. Like she is good at recognizing why people are doing what they do, what their motivations are. I could be completely way off base though with this one, it’s just a feeling I get. At the very least I think she’s interested in it.

It’s also kind of funny that we share some of the same interests when it comes to medicine. On of my UofT medical school essay, I ended with “Nothing would make me happier than being a pediatric neurologist…”. One our bus ride to some event during orientation week, I was talking to another friend about how I read that there was just one pediatric neurology residency position at UofT every year but no one made it their first choice last year. She turns around all excited when she heard this, and say, “don’t tell anyone else!” or something to that effect. Turns out she is interested in neurology, studied neuroscience in undergrad, and likes kids too. Unfortunately she doesn’t realize that single residency spot will go to me . (Actually, while I really do see myself doing something in pediatrics, I’m not so sure if neurology is for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up somewhere completely different).

It’s also weird how small the world is. When I found out which high school she went to, I immediately asked her if she ever went to the science fair (her school is notorious for doing well at it). And sure enough, she went to the Canada-Wide Science Fair the year before I did. I take that to mean she’s a tiny bit geekier with science than I am.

Of course, we are not completely similar. I would say the biggest difference is that she seems to have a really good work ethic while mine is terrible. I think she has reviewed a fair bit of the material already, while I’m still on Page 5 of last week’s notes. Uh oh. I think I should still get some major props for actually doing some studying the first week of school. I have never done that in my life, so this has got to be a pretty good sign.

Anyways I promised to write this, so here you go! On a related note, I actually really like the friends I’ve made so far, and I hope the trend continues with each new person I meet in my class. Although I realize I won’t click with everyone in my program, I feel pretty lucky to have met quite a few friends that I’ve clicked well with so far.

It’s crazy how many friendships are due to chance though. I met the friend I wrote about today because I had two hours to blow in the afternoon on the first day of orientation week. I saw a few people talking, and I said what the heck, I’ll go say hi and introduce myself. Lo and behold, I now sit with these same people in class everyday so far.

Reminds me of how I met one of my best friends at York. It was my second day of calculus, and I sat next to this dude. I noticed he was listening to some music. I asked him if he liked Death Cab for Cutie (because I did at the time) – he told me he thought their lead singer was terrible (though he denies saying this, I really do remember this). In any case, somehow we became really good friends. Funny how these things happen.

What’s next?

Tomorrow I’m going to head for lunch to catch up with some friends before they start school again, and then I really need to buckle down and study so that I don’t look like a complete moron in front of my lab group on Tuesday.

Hope everyone had a good long weekend!

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I woke up at 7:50am on this beautiful Saturday morning after sleeping at 2am. I was exhausted from the entire first week of medical school, and I was looking forward to finally sleeping in. Of course, my biological clock is apparently broken now, and I woke up around the same time I normally would to get to class. Damn. I actually turned on my laptop to write a blog entry complaining about this, but then the internet wasn’t working, and I realized I should probably at least try to “sleep in” or else I’d be grumpy the rest of the day.

So what to say about the first week of medical school. I think I said this last time, but the days are long. I’m not used to being in school for 9am to 5pm with only a one hour break. But more than that, it’s the fact that I’ve been in lecture most of the time that’s getting to me. I’m going to be frank and say that I don’t think I’m a school person. I think I used to be when I was younger, but something changed, and now I find it hard to sit still in class. It’s one thing if I was extremely fascinated with what we were being taught (for instance, I guess I could watch TED lectures for seven hours a day if I have to), but I’m going to be honest and say that I’m not interested in, for example, human anatomy. I guess that’s okay though – I mean, even one of our professors came in and said he hated anatomy when he took it here.

But it didn’t make me feel better during our anatomy labs, where we are dissecting cadavers. Some of my peers are more into it, excited about learning some of the different veins or arteries, and walking around to check out the other cadavers. Me, I’m not as excited – I’m just not all that passionate about the human body. I’m just trying to get through the lab if I’m being completely honest.

And so for a short while, I started to feel a bit bad and it made me start to question why I’m even here in medical school. I am clearly not at all interested in the basic sciences they are teaching me so far, and some of my peers clearly have an enthusiasm for the human body that I do not.

But the more I started thinking about it, the more I realized it was okay. I remember that I didn’t come to medical school to learn histology or anatomy. While I knew I would have to do those things in my journey to be a physician, that’s not what I was looking forward to. Maybe I’m looking too forward, but I’m excited about being a physician some day. That’s what excites me more than anything else in this whole process.

I mean, we all have different reasons for wanting to be a physician, and along with those, we will have different interests. I want to be a physician for the intellectual challenge, for the dynamic team environments, and for the privilege to impact people’s lives in a positive way, among other things – but needless to say, a genuine interest in the human body is not at the top of the list.

What does this mean? Honestly I don’t think it means anything, and I don’t think it should. Do I think I will be a good doctor? I believe I will, or else I wouldn’t be in medical school right now. I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t genuinely think I would be happy being a physician and that I would be good at it.

I think sometimes we forget that there isn’t just one way to look at something or go about doing something. We get too caught up in trying to figure out the right or wrong way to frame something that we ignore the reality that sometimes there is no right and wrong and there is just different.

So I don’t like sitting through lecture learning human anatomy and I don’t get excited about identifying the location of the lateral thoracic artery – that’s okay. I still believe I will make a darn good doctor and a few months of anatomy isn’t going to discourage me from trying to live up to those expectations.

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My dad responds by unbuttoning the front of his shirt and revealing the T-shirt he has underneath: “So You Think You Can MedSchool”.

Oh, and then he says “Pwned”.

(For those of you who don’t watch much TV, those phrases are parodies of the reality TV shows Canada’s Next Top Model and So You Think You Can Dance)

Anyways, I figured I’d share that tidbit with you, both because I thought it was pretty funny, but also because I feel guilty for not providing the Orientation week reflection I had promised. Orientation week was much more tiring than I thought it would be. I had intended on doing a detailed write up after each day, but I gave up on that idea after realizing how exhausting each day was and how little energy I would have to write up anything decent.

I am writing this as I sit in my new bedroom in downtown Toronto at a place I will be sharing with my brother for the foreseeable future. Although the beginning of university or college is often the big transition for many young people, I feel as if this was the real transition I was waiting for. Although I had lived on residence for a few years at York University, having a new “permanent” home is a completely different feeling.

It also has to do with the transition to medical school. The big difference between medical school and my undergraduate program is that medical school is very focused, and in a way, more obviously relevant – I am learning and training for a specific profession. It’s quite different from studying undergraduate biology where that could lead to numerous different destinations. Whereas I could choose my courses in undergrad, I will be learning the exact same thing as all of my peers over the next few years. In a way, all of this might be a good thing – by having to learn things that I know are directly relevant to what I will be doing long term, I will probably be motivated to take my studies more seriously.

There are ~225 students in my class. That’s a big number, when you realize most other medical schools in Canada tend to have a number in the 100’s. I actually think there is a good chance you could go the entire four years of medical school here without having met every single person at least once – it also doesn’t help that the class will have varying schedules once clerkship starts in 3rd year.

Going to medical school in a way seems like a step backwards, at least school-wise, because it’s like high school all over again. You are part of a small community, and you are all in the same class together (unlike undergrad where you and your friends could easily have very different schedules). While this is good because you can form closer, stronger, relationships right away, it can feel weird sitting in one single lecture hall for eight hours in a day (that’s exactly what I will be doing tomorrow!).

I have only been in class for one day so far, but all I can is that it is long. You don’t get breaks anymore. Most days I am going for 9am to 5pm with a one hour lunch break. Occasionally I will get a Friday afternoon off here and there, but for the most part, the program here at UofT is pretty packed.

Anyways, since I didn’t give a report on orientation week, I feel I at least owe a detailed report of my first day of medical school. I’ll do my best to keep it interesting, but no guarantees – sometimes it’s hard to make class interesting

UofT Medical School – Day 1

7:44am – I wake up and am unable to see the time on my alarm clock. I panic for a second, thinking that there was a blackout and I slept in. Turns out I woke up exactly 1 minute before my alarm was set to go off. I get up, relieved, and grab some cereal for break fast. The door opens and my parents walk through – they are here during the day to watch over the final day of renovations for our place. I’m glad that tomorrow the place will finally be completely ready to live in. Jerome has 9:10am class as well (all our classes start 10 minutes after the hour), so we head out together at 8:30am. Even though the Medical Sciences Building, the location for all of our lectures, is only 15 minutes away, we leave pretty early because the first day will be packed.

8:45am – I arrive at the Medical Sciences Building. My brother and I split up as he has class in the lecture hall right next to mine. I enter and am relieved to see that while the middle column is starting to fill up, there is still a lot of space. I see a friend of mine from undergrad, so I go over to say hi. I excuse myself for a second while I throw my bag and jacket onto a middle row as I promised to save some seats for friends. I go back to my friend and chat for a bit, before inviting him to come up to sit at the area I have “reserved”. The class is starting to slowly fill up, and I wonder if this will be like undergrad where classes will eventually become a bit emptier as time goes on.

9:10am – I have my first real medical school anatomy lecture on the topic of Chest Wall & Breast. The pace is very fast. While the professor is good, I feel like I am missing half of the things he says because I am trying to write down the other half. At the end of the lecture, I am in a bit of shock, as I wonder if the whole year will be like this and question how the heck I will ever pass my courses at this rate.

10:10am - Remaining in the same classroom with the same professor, we begin our anatomy lecture on the Structure of a Spinal Nerve. The fast pace is no longer a surprise, but the material continues to be pretty dense, especially for someone like myself who has no background in anatomy or physiology. This one doesn’t seem as bad though.

11:10am – Finally just one more lecture until our lunch break. The topic is Overview of the Chest Contents. I am beginning to get a bit hungry, but realize that at least the fast pace of the lectures makes them go by much faster. Still looking forward to finally taking a break at lunch.

12:00pm – We head outside and sit on the stone steps for lunch. The weather is nice outside, but I’m still a bit shocked about how intense the morning has been, and am getting concerned about how I will ever catch up with all of the material I think I have missed in the morning.

1:10pm – More anatomy with 50 minutes of Trachea, Lungs and Pleura. Afternoon is bad for me – I begin almost dozing off at a few points. Pretty sure I missed a bunch of stuff. I’m just not used to class yet. Maybe I’ll grab some coffee tomorrow afternoon.

2:10pm – 1st Anatomy Lab – met lab partners and lab groups, got skull/skeleton boxes, and filled out paper work. We will be starting our first dissection lab on Thursday. After first I wasn’t looking forward to the labs, but realizing how many lectures I will have every day, the dissection labs might just be a good change of pace from the lecture hall.

3:10pm - We end the day with a two hour session on Intro to CanMeds, Physician as a Manager, and Team Work. The lecture starts off pretty interesting, but once we get into a lot of definitions around some theory on team work, I feel myself almost dozing off a few times again. I think about trying to get more sleep tonight.

So that’s sort of a glimpse into a random day in the life of a UofT medical student. Of course, this is not a great representation, because there are many days that will be quite different, such as Fridays when we learn clinical skills. But most days are going to consist of lectures and labs. Tomorrow my whole day is eight lectures in the same room.

I don’t think I will be doing a detailed update everyday, as I can’t see it being that interesting, but I will try and update whenever something interesting happens.

Hope everyone had a good summer, and best of luck with the new school year!

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Came home super tired, and unable to type. Will probably end up doing some really long write up at the end of the week, unless I find some odd time during the week when I’m not completely exhausted.

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To be honest, I love and hate change at the same time. I really felt comfortable at York University, and now I will be starting all over. New peers, new classrooms, new teachers, new campus. Things are so easy once you get into a routine, but I have always found transitions challenging. I think it’s partly because I like to keep a wall up, and there’s no need to hold up that wall when you’re in a daily routine and everything is familiar. I’m not sure why (my guess is a combination of genetics and childhood obviously, but nothing specific) but I feel like I am very cautious around new people, but can be pretty outgoing once I know people really well. For example, I feel like I’m pretty shy when I meet people for the first time at say a summer program (and remain shy-ish throughout), but I become much more talkative the very next time I see them a few months later. And this is all kind of funny because my close friends think I am pretty outgoing and have no problems meeting new people, but from my shoes, the reality is that they only see the more sociable, relaxed side of me because I am comfortable with them. The interesting thing is that I was talking to my brother about this a few days ago, and he says he experiences the same type of wall.

So in a way change makes me uncomfortable, yet at the same time, I feel like I thirst for change, though more so in terms of when it comes to being productive. I have sort of an obsessive personality. When I get really into something, I can go at it tirelessly for days or months on end, but at some point I lose interest and want to move onto something else. For instance, when I first started MedHopeful, I was obsessive about it and tried to post several times a week. I had so many ideas and articles just flowed from my finger tips. Now, even this past summer where I had a lot of free time, I lost motivation and my obsessive personality wanted to find a new obsession. I think this new project that I’m working on that MedHopeful is going to become a part of has brought the obsession back to me, but it’s going to be interesting to see how long that lasts.

Which is why going into medicine kind of worried me. I was worried that I was going to spend the next six to ten years of my life learning about something very focused, only to eventually lose interest and want to move on to something else because of my obsessive personality. But the more I thought about it, there was no other career I could see myself happy doing day in and day out for the next 40 years, or whatever it ends up being. And the neat thing about medicine is that there are so many avenues to explore. Besides the obvious act as being a practicing physician, you can dive into research, teaching, administration, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up pursing a route that involved teaching and working with the university in some capacity.

In a way my journey to get into medicine is over, but now is where the journey really begins.

I’d like to share this journey with you beginning tomorrow – hopefully I will feel up to writing for a bit when I get home, but not sure how likely that will be. Thanks again to everyone for their support throughout the admissions process, and continued support as I begin a new chapter in my life.

Oh, and of course, I could not end this blog entry without a plug for Inglourious Basterds. I saw this movie last night and it is insanely good – best movie I have seen all summer. This was my first time watching a Quentin Tarantino film in its entirety and I was super impressed. I would usually show the movie trailer here, but after watching the trailers today, the trailers do not do the movie any justice, and one of the trailers actually reveals a bit too much in my opinion. In any case, as long as you’re not sensitive about stuff like war, blood, and gore, go and watch this awesome movie.

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MedHopeful will be Moving onto Bigger and Better Things

Just to state right off the bat, no, this does not mean I am leaving the blog! I have come into a very exciting opportunity to integrate MedHopeful as part of a bigger and better project, that I think many of you will be very interested in.

I don’t want to give too many details, but the gist is that I will be continuing to blog and write articles (and from this point forward, primarily about medical school admissions and my experience as a medical student), but as part of this new project, there will be many more opportunities and resources for you to become involved.

I’m not sure when all of these changes will come into full effect, but it will be obvious when you come here one day and the design is completely different – I think you will all enjoy the big new things the change will bring to the blog.

500 Days of Summer

While I’m here, I figured I’d do a plug for one of the best movies of the summer. I thought everything was simply awesome except for maybe the last minute, but nonetheless, I highly recommend seeing it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a fantastic actor, and if you like this movie, you should also check out The Lookout.

One Week to Go!

So medical school starts earlier and ends later than most other undergraduate programs, which I guess I can kind of understand. My orientation week starts next Monday, August 24, and my actual medical school classes start on Monday, August, 31. If you’re interested, you can see what my orientation week is going to involve here.

To be honest, I am probably more nervous than excited. I don’t really like change, and I was feeling comfortable at York, and am now basically starting over at UofT. I knew this day was coming, but it’s sort of hard to fathom months ago when I had just gotten accepted and summer was going to start soon. Frankly speaking, I feel like it takes me a while to warm up to people I meet for the first time (maybe some of you can relate) – I tend to be a bit cautious at first, feeling my way through things, so I avoid looking like a jerk or anything. My biggest fear is always just not meeting people that I click with, but I guess the good thing about a large class like UofT’s (~225 students or so) is that there will probably be more people overall that you will enjoy being with.

In any case, I hope to try and document my experience each day during orientation week – I kind of see each day ending late, so I’m not sure if I will have the energy to write before passing out each night, but we’ll see.

The plan for this last week is to spend a few days in Montreal with some friends starting Tuesday, then relax a bit and get ready for the big jump over the weekend.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable summer!

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