Recovering

I know I haven't post in a very long time. I'm recovering...

Recovering from the 8 exams we wrote in the last 10 days of semester three.
Recovering from semester 3.
Recovering from eye surgery.
But presently, just recovering from christmas food :)

I've got one more week before going back to the rock and this break has been the most relaxing yet.
Semester three ended. That's all I can really say about it. It was the most stressful thing I have ever gone through - I am through and not looking back.
As soon as I got home I had an eye surgery so I was forced to relax, sleep and not do anything strenuous... It's harder than I thought!! After the constant stress of third semester sitting down and dwindling your thumbs for 4 days straight was frustrating. I couldn't really read or watch much TV so I was forced to sleep. (hahaha most people would not be complaining if they were forced to sleep.) Trust me, I wasn't complaining but I needed to get up and do something. It's weird that I started missing school, studying and... the island. I know, I know I wasn't expecting it either but I think it's become my new home and part of my new life. Yes, I admit that I am looking forward to starting 4th semester :)
So until I go back I have a whole list of things I'd like to do: more reading (you probably could've guessed this by now!), watching TED talks - I've come across some really cool ones which I will be posting here - and spending some time enjoying the snow that will hopefully arrive.

wishing everyone merry christmas/happy holidays!

Ramblings about a rant

I came across "Why you should not go to medical school - a gleefully biased rant" by Ali Binazir a while back and found it quite interesting so I thought I would share :)

As a medical school graduate, the author made his own comprehensive list of what it means to go to medical school:

Here are his ten reasons NOT to go:
1. You will lose all the friends you had before medicine
2. You will have difficulty sustaining a relationship and will probably break up with or divorce your current significant other during training.
3. You will spend the best years of your life as a sleep-deprived, underpaid slave
4. You will get yourself a job of dubious remuneration
5. You will have a job of exceptionally high liability exposure
6. You will endanger your health and long term well-being
7. You will not have time to care for patients as well as you want to.
8. You will start to dislike patients - and by extension, people in general.
9. People who do not even know you will start to dislike you.
10. You're not helping people nearly as much as you think.

The ONE reason he came up with for why you should go into medicine was...
You have only ever envisioned yourself as a doctor and can only derive professional fulfillment in life by taking care of sick people.

Definitely recommend reading his rant. Interesting take on the medical profession. Sadly, most of the things he touches on are true... like the fact that you will not have time to care for patients as well as you want to. However I would like to stay the optimist that I am and end with saying that you only need ONE reason to go to medical school. If you want it bad enough the rest become challenges that you want to improve when you become the doctor you envision to be.

During my first semester at Saba, I wrote down the things I wanted to accomplish in my life as a doctor. The things I would like to become or people I aspire to be like. I put it in an envelope, sealed it and is in safe keeping until I graduate my residency. I want to be able to open that letter and feel like I became what the 'naive' me  dreamed of - when I had the future in front of me.

So, yes, there are many many many hardships of going through medical school but you are giving up something for an opportunity to be happy.  I think that's a good enough reason. Fulfill your dreams, don't worry about the stuff in the way.

on that inspiring note,

goodnight

3.4 & a quick word

Block 4 of semester 3 is done. This means 20 days until home for the christmas holidays! I can finally say that these sets of exams went relatively well (much better than any of the previous 3 exams :) ). I might just survive this stressful semester - even though I loved the material we were doing... finally more clinically centred rather than basic details.

On another note, I was reading an interesting article today from the globe and mail (read it here). It touches on the concept of over-treatment in today's medical world.
Are physicians over prescribing medications? should we deal with the common cold the 'old fashioned way' - tea and a couple days of rest? Talk about over treating symptoms with drugs has been present for many years now and is starting to become a serious problem in some cases. (Over prescribing can lead to drug resistance).

I found it interesting how they mention we should regress backwards and limit our use of new technology and innovations in the medical field. I'm not sure how to respond to this. On the one hand, I understand that, in some cases, it is better to do nothing and let your natural immune system battle it out. However, if we start restricting our use of new discoveries and technology, what is the point of research advancements? with new ideas we have to accept their consequences/ side effects.
Do you see where the conundrum lies? When do we say that over-treatment is bad and that regression is good? is it a matter of cost and government spending? do we decide on a patient - by - patient basis where history of medical illnesses is at the forefront?

the dilemma is essential to medical care decision making. As a future physician, I'm not so sure I would skip out on a CT scan for a child with minor head injuries just so I can save money and risk missing something important.

where do we draw the line?  is/ will medical decisions always be restricted by money?
does the scare of being sued have anything to do with over-treatment? (eg. physicians trying to cover all their bases)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and get a discussion going. There are so many angles this can be approached from.

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.

Unique

I'm a little disappointed in myself that I haven't posted much this semester... especially the reflective-type pieces. I've had a back log of ideas (and I know I keep saying this) but I can't seem to sit down and write a coherent blog post that is more than just describing my days here on Saba.
So, I'm going to challenge myself to sit down and do it by the end of this weekend :)

In the meantime, as a blogger I love reading and following others in this 'blog world'. (Most of my study breaks consist of this and watching TED Talks!) So, the other day I stumbled across this amazingly unique/ weird art by Matthew Cox -- embroidered X rays. Something about it is intriguing. Maybe because it is so innovative, so different or, most likely, the fact that it combines anatomy and art.

I realize it's an art that will not be appreciated by everyone but,
if nothing else, it definitely captures your attention.

A-lo-ha!

A little delayed, but here is the picture we took at the end of our 2nd week. Love the amount of colour and the fact that we all look so happy (and well rested)!!

appealing to the population

Stumbled on this video.
In theme with my last post on breast cancer, this is a great way to catch attention and motivate women. I think using social media to really expose underlying issues and raise awareness is the new stream of public health promotion - especially when targeting the younger generations.



Even if the number of self-checks don't increase, I think it will become one of those "viral" videos or at the least catch attention... which is what it was meant to do in the first place.
Innovative idea.
What do you think?

Be aware, it's October.

October is breast cancer awareness month. Be aware.

my new necklace.

Breast cancer, unfortunately, affects almost everyone. So why not raise awareness about the importance of noticing self changes and performing self examinations.

The women's medical student association (WMSA) held our annual community event today! We walked around 'the bottom' and had a short informative session about breast cancer and how to raise awareness (including a great demo using breast models from the school to break the stigma/ embarrassment around doing self breast exams).

The turn out was great... see for yourself :)

I had a chance to talk to some friendly Saba locals about the impact breast cancer has had on their life.
successful study break?! I think so.

Takin' it easy

Sushi dinner on friday night!

After all the stress and frustration third semester has caused, a group of us caught a great deal on flights to St. Maarten and needless to say we made a trip  of it! Spent two nights in st. maarten and a full day at Orient beach (on the French side). It was so nice to be able to relax and hang out with friends outside of school.



Highlights?
Great food, swimming at 4 o'clock in the morning, enjoying island music, cocktails on the beach, sea-doos,  driving around st. Maarten in our rental cars and many ... adventures :)

finally got all 3 of us in the air!... only took 20 tries 

Amazing weekend. Can't say I came back well rested, but it definitely helped clear my head and de-stress. Ready to jump right back into it for the second half of the semester as long as this cold/flu doesn't get the best of me.

A 2 day vacation can do wonders on motivation.



here we go... 2 months till christmas break.

on our way back to Saba 

3.2

What a hectic day. 3 exams between 8am and 3pm. Fun!

Glad to say this block went much better all round than first. Not where I want to be but it will hopefully get there.... lesson learned? hard work pays off. Second lesson? my body doesn't respond as well to lack of sleep as it did in undergrad. I used to be able to pull all nighters (without the aid of caffeine or energy drinks - so bad for you) and now 4 hours of sleep did not suffice. Probably because undergrad is no where near the intensity and pressure of medical school.

__________________________

As a side note, I've been trying to get a new page at the top of the blog going for posting ongoing hobbies, interesting topics and the like - pretty much anything outside the medical school world (when it comes into existence after each set of exams). However, I couldn't seem to figure out how to do multiple posts.. so if anyone knows please send directions my way :)

Till then, I wanted to share this with you... super cool for a sci-fi reading nerd like me (don't make fun!)

books to read...It's been added on to my bucket list (still in the making but I think I will post a temporary one soon just so I can start checking things off :) )
For those new sci-fi lovers out there I would also recommend anything by Aldous Huxley.