Midway reflection

On Saturday night our semester (3rd) hosted the traditional midway party. The whole school is invited to celebrate getting through half our basic science training here on Saba.

I thought this would be a perfect time to link in the reflection post I've been writing about for quite a while now....

Midway. I can't believe it. and then I think again... in less than a year I will be in a hospital as a medical student doing basic procedures on real people. My heart starts beating. Is it excitement? Beating faster. Is it anxiety? A flow of questions start rushing through my head. Have I learned enough to be able to do procedures on real people? Will I remember everything? Did I study the right way? What about the things I didn't really understand?... The more scary part is that some of those questions are answered by "no". The calming thing is that I assume every medical student that goes through this gruelling training has the same questions and fears. Whew! I am not alone.

But what if... what if I'm not ready? what if.

Clinical rotations are also supposed to be educational - hands on education. Putting students on the spot (and of course giving us the grunt work). From what I know about myself, acting in the moment and learning through seeing how it's done is one of my strengths and probably why I loved the lab portion of anatomy. I am hopeful that this will also be true in the hospital setting.

It's just so contradictory: on the one hand this 2 year basic science training is intense and seems soooo long from our final goal. But if you think of it the other way, we've only had 2 extra years than the common person on the street ... you can put a scalpel in our hand and we should be able to preform a tracheotomy because we know the anatomy. That is scary. Is two years enough? is it too much? Throwing ourselves into the hospital will be a steep learning curve, without a doubt. Especially because we will most likely be traveling from hospital to hospital for different rotations so we have to get used to each hospital, their doctors, nurses, protocols etc.

However, it's amazing how much I have learned and picked up in the last year. We had a bench-to-bedside lecture on the current research in brain tumour treatments on friday evening. We were honoured to have guest speakers Dr. Roger McLendon (Chief of Neuropathology and Surgical Pathology, Director of Anatomic Pathology Services, and Director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center Tissue Bank.) and Dr. David Reardon (Clinical Director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer institute at Harvard where he also teaches as an Associate Professor of Medicine). The 3 hour session went into the genetics, biochemistry, immunology and neurology of brain tumours and how you can apply the integrative information into actual treatments (and even patient tailored treatments). A very informative session which really showed me how all the separate classes I have taken can be combined and applied in the real world. I was amazed at how much I understood... and remembered! I guess all the information is in there - somewhere.

Don't get me wrong, I am not doubting my choice. I am more in love with medicine and more curious about how everything works (probably more than before, if that's possible).

But, that fear. It's real.