Insane in the Brain

This is what med students do on Friday nights:

友達: so! encephalitis. crazy stuff.

自分: yup

insane in the membrane

actually no, that’d be meningitis

Say Ah…

mature cystic teratoma

Although it’s independence day back home, at Ross, it’s the Saturday before Mini II, so instead of celebrating, I’m trying to be diligent and review all of the pathology we’re covered over the past four weeks. While there’s probably a million things I’d rather do than spend my day looking at hundreds of pictures of diseased genitalia, this one, with its absolutely perfect caption (and three exclamation points), made me laugh out loud (in the middle of a crowded classroom, no less). Apparently, 25% of ovarian tumors are dermoid cysts and 90% of those have random contents like teeth, hair and sebaceous material. But seriously? Come on. Of all the things one would expect to find growing in one’s ovary, teeth is probably the very last on the list.

Back to the grind… Happy 4th of July!

In Memoriam

Merlin Bass Jr.

March 17th, 1932 – June 12th, 2009

How to Survive Semester 3

Although I promised to pen this post two weeks ago, I’ve hesitated, not just because in 4th semester you have to hit the ground running, but because, having passed 3rd semester by the skin of my teeth, I might not be the best source of advice. There are few concrete things I can point to that caused me to struggle so much with microbiology and, other than studying more diligently and not choking on Mini I, I can’t really think of what I could’ve done to avoid the difficulty I encountered. That said, here are my suggestions for making it through with less difficulty than I did:

頭にくる 6 – Liat Airlines

Despite having flown in to Dominica on Saturday, I only just received my luggage yesterday afternoon. My bag made it from JFK to ANU (with a layover at MIA) just fine but when I checked it at the Liat counter at the V. C. Bird International Airport, it disappeared into a black hole (maybe the Bermuda Triangle) and resurfaced on Sunday. It then sat at Melville Hall for 2 days, wishing it could answer the phone at the Liat Luggage Counter (since no one else was answering) to tell me it was okay and to ask me to pick it up and bring it home before the ants got in it. Alas, ants got in it anyway.

This is not the first time that Liat has failed to send my bag along with me – over Christmas break, my luggage somehow missed the flight (even though it had been checked in 4 hours prior to takeoff) from DOM to ANU and I didn’t get it back until a few days before my flight back to the island. Nor was I the only person to suffer this mishap – scores of people were lined up on Saturday when my flight got in to file lost baggage claims and dozens waited at RUH on Sunday and Monday, hoping that our bags had been sent. When I lamented to my pals, quite a few of them, while not unsympathetic, asked “What did you expect? It’s Liat.”

There are two airlines that fly to Melville Hall, Liat and American Airlines. Unfortunately, American Airlines makes only only flight a day to Dominica and that flight usually fill up pretty quickly. Often, Liat is the only option for hundreds of students trying to travel to and from the island between semesters. They don’t have to provide good customer service or assure people that their luggage will arrive on the same plane they do because most of us haven’t got any choice other than to fly Liat. All they have to do is make sure none of the planes crash. That other stuff is just frills.

The  worst (or best?!) thing about Liat is that all their fares are non-refundable. So even if I called them up to curse them out and cancel my return flight (provided they answered the phone, which they seldom do), I couldn’t get my money back. And what would they care, they’ve already got my money. Sigh. I’m seriously considering canceling it anyway.

There but for the Grace of God

One point. That’s all that stood between me and a repeat of third semester. It was tough, friends, but I managed to crawl one point past the minimum passing score in microbiology, thus ensuring my ascent to fourth semester. This is no great accomplishment – the MPS was pretty low and given all the time I put into studying, I probably should have done better. But I made it and I’m very, very glad. Fourth semester, here I come!

The death of my camera and some family issues have made this interterm break a bleak one but it has given me lots of time to relax and reflect on how I got myself into the situation with micro and how I can avoid such a situation again. I’ll be posting a ‘how to survive 3rd semester’ post later this week, but for now, forgive the long hiatus and allow me to enjoy a few more days of solitude.

Oh – one more thing: This semester, I’m president of the Ross Chapter of SNMA, a great organization that you can help by checking out our website and leaving a comment or donation.

Lots of stuff on the plate for fourth. I hope I can handle it.

In The Trenches

Exams are upon us, so this will be my last post until after finals. Check out my crazy study schedule:

*notes*

Green = behavioral science, yellow = pathology, orange = pharmacology and red = microbiology. Each hour block has a 10-minute break built in for stretching, snacking or wiping the blood out of my eyes. Gym is actually workout + pharm because it’s easy to read lectures while on the elliptical machine.

As you can see, it’s pretty heavy on the micro. Micro’s my lowest grade and it’s the course on which my ascension to 4th semester rides. Let’s hope I can make it through with some amount of diginity (or at least a respectable 3.0). Encouragement is always appreciated – I’ll need something other than Rumba to get me through these dark days ahead.

Don’t Let the Admin Grind You Down

Although I tend to accentuate the positive aspects of my med school experience, it’s not all sunshine and roses. One of the sobering, souring aspects of the Ross experience is the way the administration interacts with the student body. Sometimes, it can seem like they are acting without the students’ best interest in mind. Other times, it can seem like they are being downright cruel. And yet others, it’s as if they don’t think things through thoroughly before they act.

The Home Stretch

An update?! Is it some April Fools’ Day miracle or a trick? Well, it’s not a trick. Things have been so busy lately that I’ve scarcely had time to process them, let alone chronicle them. There’s less than a month left of school and everything seems to be moving at the speed of light. Not even mediasite on double-speed is this fast. And yes, I gave up on mediasiting. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather go to class.

Today’s April 1st, the beginning of the end, and I need to quit fooling around.

The Sunday before last I once again participated in the Salybia 5K run and to my delight, finished 15th out of all the women (32) with a time of 27 minutes and 25 seconds, 3 minutes better than my time last semester! As usual, I tried to glean some sort of greater meaning out of the race because each semester is like a mini-marathon. Will I be able to do better than I’ve done so far when the scores come in at the end of the term? I certainly hope so. This semester has really been kicking my butt.

The Mediasite Experiment

After a not disasterous but still disappointing showing on Mini II, I have decided to switch gears in my study style. As was recommended by the people at medicalschoolreport.com as well as several upperclassmen here, I have decided to forgo all lectures for which attendance is not mandatory this week and instead, adopt a “my pace” mediasite-based study regimen. Apparently, the point of mediasiting is to save time wasted by sitting in class and absorbing (or “actively listening”) and get more things done. We’ll see how that works out for me. Incidentally, this week is one of my busiest weeks yet – supplementary patient interview today, suture clinic or ICM review tomorrow (haven’t decided which one to bail on), SNMA’s Mini Med School on Thursday, 6 or more hours of lecture a day…and it doesn’t get easier. It’s week 10 – there are 36 days left in the semester and I’m going to need all the help I can get to scrape by with something respectable at the end. Updates may be infrequent, but maybe the time I save mediasiting will allow me to have an extra few minutes here and there…