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.