Comments on: Reflection on 1st Week of Medical School

By: Rory

Rory — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 05:13:48 +0000

Joshua, that’s relieving to hear.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:48:58 +0000

I also think it’s completely normal that not everything in the trade will be as pleasant/interesting to deal with. I remember, in a math course that focused primarily on proof (rather than computation), I had an amazing TA who also refused to do any number-crunching on the board because in her words, “I hate number-crunching and I’m so bad at it”, even though the number-crunching part, along with the theoretical proofs, are both essential to doing mathematics well. In a similar vein, anatomy may be just as pedantic and boring as naming chemical compounds in high school, but that doesn’t mean that human bio will be just as pedantic!

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:03:08 +0000

Hey,

Good question and I’ll try to answer it from my perspective the best I can. I think that realistically medical students, clerks, residents, and doctors will all have a different balance of motivations and interests when it comes to medicine. As we are continuing to learn in class (and as I expect we will continue to learn over the next few years and our the rest of our careers), medicine is more than just the basic sciences, clinical skills, people skills, etc. etc. – it really does encompass many things that we will enjoy more/less and be good at more/less.

Anatomy and the other basic sciences are important foundations for much of our learning, and I recognize that, but it’s only one piece of the overall puzzle in terms of medicine and what it means to be a physician, and perhaps more importantly, what it means to be a good physician.

I think very few medical students are going to have a high interest in every single thing we will need to do in the process towards being physicians, let alone the things we will do as physicians. As with any job or training, there will be things you lack interest in, but that doesn’t mean you will not enjoy or be good at what you do in the long term.

Also, I think I may have exaggerated my lack of interest, and I think Medaholic may have pinpointed the reasons why. I would say that some of what we’re learning can be interesting, but anatomy is by far the least interesting to me – it’s very factual based (i.e. learning the names of different parts), and I am much more interested in the implications of what we’re learning and how to use that information to solve health problems as a physician.

By: annonymous

annonymous — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:13:06 +0000

you’ve raised an interesting point here. i wanna say that i love your blog and your perspective on various subjects. but this post has made me think really hard… because if one doesn’t like human biology but wants to make a difference, to work in a collaborative environment, to be challenged intellectually etc.. why be a physician? why not be a detective, a teacher, a pharmacist, a writer etc? so wouldn’t a genuine interest in the subject be necessary for one to be a good physician? i mean i love to have a sociable physician, but i do like to know that my physician is knowledgeable in the subject. i’m not trying to start an argument, i’m just curious. i think this really comes down to which aspect of an career is more important, the academic subject area or the work environment?

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:43:25 +0000

Medaholic: It was interesting to hear how anatomy is spread differently at your school. I get what you’re saying about learning it in context. I think that’s why one of the clerks I’ve met said that the first few months here are pretty meh, but it’s awesome after that.

Paris: Thanks! Yah, I think being out of school so long, and never having dealt with this amount of lecture was quite a sudden jump. Here’s to hoping it does start to go by a bit faster. I’ve only been here for a week so far, but it almost feels like a month!

By: Paris

Paris — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:34:24 +0000

Josh I think you are going about it with the right attitude. I told a friend of mine (one of your peers ) earlier after seeing the tiredness in their eyes and that is: THE WORST IS OVER! You may not believe me but it is in fact true. Think about it you have been out of any sort of classes for around a month and your body is out of shape for studying, classes, and learning. Now with a week done you will get into the routine and will see that classes are going by faster and faster. The first week is the worst, the first month is the hardest but after that youll see that the year is almost over … just wait and see Good Luck with everything!

p.s. with the end goal in sight there is no stopping you now

By: medaholic

medaholic — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:52:14 +0000

It’s also about learning in context. Learning anatomy without understanding the physiology, pathology and possible surgical interventions just becomes a long list of latin names to memorize.

I don’t think the way they teach anatomy at UofT is the best because having a short and intense anatomy session can make the information dry. I’m finding my anatomy labs this year exciting and super fun and I think that has a lot to do with learning in the right context.