Playing the game

In many ways, medical school is a lot like constant preparation for an endless game of Trival Pursuit (tm): you memorize seemingly random facts about many obscure diseases in the hopes that when you role the dice, your random facts will come in handy.

It has taken me almost a year and a half to come to this realization. I have struggled with my grades and my self-confidence as a tried to always seek out the "bigger picture" in whatever we were studying. I lived in denial of the fact that medical school is an anti-intellectual endeavor. But the truth is to do well in the didactic portion of medical school does not require analysis or puzzle solving. It requires the regurgitation of thousands of disjointed facts. And for someone (read:me) whose academic career prior to medical school involved pondering over ONE idea for years, trying to excell in the academics of medical school is a challenge.

So, at the advice of one of my close friends in school, I decided to try to play the game for my most recent test. Instead of trying to understand pathways and signalling cascades, I memorized the facts. I searched through each lecture and wrote out a "testable" question from each paragraph of each lecture as well as the answer. I tested myself on those questions:

• Q: where do corticospinal neurons decussate (i.e., cross midline) in the CNS?
• A: in the pyramids of the medulla
• Q: what periperal neuropathies display a classic "glove and stocking pattern" (numbness and tingling in the hands and feet)?
• A: Guionne-Barre and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease
• Q: What are the side effects of antimuscarinics (cholinergic antagonists)?
• A: no pee, no see, no spit, no shit

So, I went into the exam with my facts. No context, no big picture, just facts. I was scared. The test included many case presentations with answer choices below. But I'll be damned if those answers weren't merely a display of random facts! Now, I still did not do stellar, but I did better. And as I go into out final exam in Neurology next Friday I will tackle this test like it is the most competitive Trivial Pursuit game I have ever played!

Livin' just enough for the city

It was a wonderful day today. I took my first neuro test this morning at 7:30 am and it went fairly well.

After class, I had what I would call an idyllic city day. What I mean by that is I feel like I love living in the city for the rare days like this. Joe left work early and we spent an hour or so at the park with our dog, Milo. We sat on a picnic blanket whilst Milo played fetch. We then decided to grab some margaritas at a nearby restaurant. We picked Oscar up at school and headed back home. For the rest of the night Oscar played with our neighbors' daughter, Alex, while all the parents drank wine on the front porch and gossiped about the neighborhood, US Weekly and other stuff. A woman from down the street walked by with her son and the evening morphed into ALL of us sitting around drinking and laughing while our respective kids ran around playing with each other. Idyllic. I do think it is moments like these that make me appreciate living in the city.

I thought I was going to be in bed right after I put Oscar down an now it is 11 pm and I am sitting on the couch watching a Project Runway marathon on Bravo. Jeez.

Taking a break from studying Neuro....

Welcome to my first blog posting ever! Allow me some time to get the page looking pretty, please. I thought this would be a good way to communicate with everyone who has been wondering/worrying about me during my school year. I rarely have time to call or email people individually these days, so hopefully you will check in periodically to see what I and my family are up to.

Right now, I am taking a break from studying for my first exam of the school year (I am a second-year medical student). Our first block is neurology and this test is going to cover neuroanatomy, neuroembryology, synapses and action potentials, some basic neuropharmacology and the travelling of neurons through the spinal column (easiest way to put it).

It was wonderful this summer to not think about academic performance, whether I was capable of this task, and all of the other insecurities that seem to come along with medical school (at least for me). So, coming back to class last week was difficult. I am hoping that our psychiatry block will help me figure out why the thought of medical school sends me into GI upset and fits of self-doubt. Whatever the reason, I am SURE there is a drug for it. Our psychiatry block runs concurrent to our other blocks in school. Today, we discussed Autism Spectrum Disorders (Autism, Aspergers) and interviewed parents of children with Autism/Aspergers. Having a healthy, cognitively normal 3-year old son, it was difficult to see the videos that some of these parents had of their children. I could not imagine my child not acknowledging his name when I called him, not hugging me when I wanted to show him affection and not being able to respond to his friends in a socially appropriate manner.

So, my test is this Friday, after which I am looking forward to movie night with Oscar (my son) and Joe (my husband) and just hanging out all weekend. The weather has finally cooled off here which should make our weekend mountain hike very pleasant. But unitl then, it is back to memorizing the pathway of the corticospinal tract. G'night everyone. -b