It has been a month since I last blogged. To be honest, blogging has not at all been on my mind up until this past week when my “summer break” finally started (I use that term loosely because I am, like many of you guys, working this summer, but it’s a break from school nonetheless).

The last month of medical school at UofT was the most hectic! May started off with our Brain and Behaviour final exam (passed!), followed by our Clinical Skills final exam (a practical exam known as an OSCE – probably the most fun exam of the year), then our Determinants of Community Health final, and finally, our Pharmacology exam (good thing this exam was only covering the last two weeks of school!). Without a doubt, we had more exams in our final month than any other month during the year – but I guess that made finishing all the more sweet.

Medical school was a brand new educational experience for me. While it is similar in many ways to undergrad, there are of course many huge differences. I definitely had to make adjustments, and when I couldn’t, had to deal with heavy lessons (that hopefully I better take into account during my 2nd year of medical school). The following are a few things I wish I could’ve told myself before starting the year.

Pace Your Studying

This might sound obvious to those of you who already do this, but there are a lot of medical students who got through undergrad learning everything they needed for an exam the night or two before. I still procrastinated a lot this year, but as everyone knows, procrastination makes things really difficult (stress, exhaustion, etc.). If I could do things over again (and if I could muster up the motivation), I would spend one or two days a week reviewing everything covered that week. That doesn’t even mean necessarily studying hard; at the very least it means familiarizing myself with the material so that when I do need to study for the exam, I will have the key concepts already ingrained in my memory. Of course, there are students who study/review everyday or every other day. Do what works for you so that you aren’t cramming so much at the end.

Practice Clinical Skills Regularly

Our final OSCE required us to know all the practical clinical skills we learned throughout the past year (history taking, physical exams, etc.). The week leading up to the OSCE, many of us put in a lot of heavy review and practice. When I look back at it now, clinical skills was relatively easy – if you put in the practice. Many of us didn’t practice regularly, which led to a lot of practice in the week(s) leading up to the OSCE. But once you have the stuff done pat, it’s basically muscle memory. I wish I practiced more regularly so that my clinical sessions during the year would have gone more smoothly, and then I could have just walked into the OSCE with little practice required. Moreover, you will be using these clinical skills all throughout clerkship, residency, and for some physicians, the rest of their lives. It’s arguable that if there is one thing you should make sure you know inside and out from 1st year of medical school, it’s the clinical skills stuff.

Ignore the Rush and Take Your Time

It’s easy to get caught up on the rush of choosing your residency. Although you don’t apply for residency programs until your 4th year of medical school, it helps to begin exploring early. However, given the competitive nature of the process (with some programs being significantly more competitive than others), it’s easy to get caught up in the rush of trying to position yourself to have a strong application. Research, networking, extra-curriculars – it’s easy to feel pressured and scared to fall behind when you see some of your classmates getting involved and building their C.V.’s to a specific specialty from day 1.

That being said, I think it’s more important to realize that the choice you make for residency is huge – where you end up significantly determines much of your medical career. You might feel pressured to decide very early on and start working towards something specific without fully exploring your options. It doesn’t help that a lot of opportunities become available early on in the school year. It is so easy to, for example, apply for a research position early on in the year and then realize months later that you would never want to work in that field ever (and then wish you had waited to apply for a completely different research position, or spend your summer doing something completely unrelated to research entirely). I myself felt like I changed my mind constantly throughout the school year in terms of where I saw myself being in medicine.

So take your time, explore, and don’t get swept up in the rush.

Learn How You Learn Best

Feel free to take initiative in your learning. Some people learn best by coming to class. Some people never come to class and just watch the recorded lectures later online. Beyond mandatory things, don’t feel obligated to do things a specific way. You know what works for you!

Take Advantage of Everything Being a Medical Student has to Offer

A friend of mine recently shared the following quote with me: “school really begins at 3pm” (or the case of UofT med school, 5pm, haha), basically referencing how much of our education comes through additional opportunities outside the classroom. Medical students have relatively easy access to the medical world in terms of shadowing, electives, research, etc. Often times it’s as simple as just asking.

Summer Plans

I’m really enjoying my summer break so far. I’m doing a research project at a hospital right now full time, but it’s not stressful which is great for me. Spending my time seeing lots of friends and pursuing side projects.

In an attempt to make myself more productive this summer, I set up a personal planning document listing my goals for the summer, and coming up with the necessary action plans to achieve them. I’m going as far as setting end of month goals, and then coming up with an action plan each week for what I need to achieve those goals. Having this plan has made me a lot more organized, and thus, more likely to get things done because I always know what needs to be checked off on my list.

Unfortunately, my goals might be a bit too ambitious. My goal last week for this blog was to write 3 times. Fail. Oh well, here’s to a more productive week!

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Sometimes people ask me what my goals are in life, to which I answer, “To be happy.” I know it’s a cheap answer because it lets me avoid saying anything concrete and specific. The real truth is that I don’t know exactly what I want in life. I know I want to be happy, and I do have some ideas about what can get me there.

That being said, getting into medical school (May 15 2009) was possibly one of the happiest days of my life. I still remember the morning, almost one year ago, where heart pounding, I clicked on an email with a subject title of “University of Toronto – Co…”

May 7 2010

One year later, last Friday night, I was studying with one of my best buddies from class and we often study together on campus. Since the undergrad students were off school, no campus libraries were open past 6 pm on Fridays.

Unphased, we decide to set up shop at the Medical Sciences Building cafeteria for the night. To say the least, it turned out to be a funny but sad situation. Here were two burned out students, with huge coffees and highlighters sprawled over the table, studying a thick pile of neurology notes. To top it off, there was no one else there, save for occasional loud partygoers who walked through the building (and gave us stares) and the janitor who noisily cleaned around our feet. The thunderstorm flashed at us every so often, and, of course, we both had headaches. I chuckled every time that he sighed and said “This is so sad.”

The question now is – how did I get from extreme happiness one year ago to this?

Winning the lottery

This is how I rationalized it to myself – I used a study that compared the happiness of people before and after they won a medium-sized lottery. The study had found that the people’s level of happiness increased significantly for the year after the win, but after that, their happiness reverted to approximately the baseline level that it was before. It wasn’t that they had finished spending their money, but it was just that the money became a part of their life, they took it for granted, and it wasn’t a source of happiness anymore.

After May 15 last year, it was almost as if I had won the lottery. I would have given up anything to get into medical school, and when I got in, I was so happy. I spent the rest of the summer busily filling out admission forms and wearing rose-coloured lens. And, like the people who won the lottery, I thought that maybe I was starting to feel the end of the ‘year of happiness’, and reverting back to my baseline. (It’s not like I was unhappy about medical school. I was just starting to get used to the whole thing, and like the lottery winners, it had became part of life.)

May 13 2010

You may know the significance of this date – it’s the day when all Ontario medical schools email out their offers of admission. I know this date because I have a few friends in the admission process, and I was waiting for their news. This morning, one of those friends texted to me: “guess who you’re going to see a lot of next year!!!!” (I’ve faithfully reproduced the number of exclamation marks.)

At that moment, vivid memories of my own application process rushed back – me screaming “I GOT IN!” at 7am in the morning, clicking on the admission offer email with a pounding heart, attending interviews and sweating during them, writing the MCAT, my first day of undergrad… And then, I suddenly realized how extremely happy that I’m in medical school. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do and I’m actually where I want to be. I’m definitely above the happiness baseline again, and this time, I plan on keeping it this way.

Just before I get back to studying for my finals, let me say this: for all those who got good news today, enjoy the ride, it’ll prove to be a lifelong one. For those who are still waiting to get there, it’s worth the wait, I promise!

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Open vs. Anonymous?

One of the things I thought about when I started this blog was whether I should be open about who I am, or whether I should be anonymous. Of course there are pros and cons to being open about my identity. The pros of being open is that people who know me will find it interesting, I get credit for any ideas I write about, etc.

But some cons are that it will influence the way people view me without having met me or immediately before meeting me. For example, during my orientation week, I met two people who told me they saw my blog. Immediately I start thinking, “oh crap, what does this mean? Do I come off as an okay dude when I write, or do I sound arrogant and like a jerk?” I honestly feel like my writing is only a small extension of who I am, and that the way I come off when I write is not all that close to how I am in person. I think I write in a pretty blunt, purposeful manner, but I don’t really conduct myself that way in real life.

Another con is that having an open identity forces me to be careful about what I write. I am hesitant to write negatively about anything or anyone because I know words and ideas can be misconstrued and really bite you back hard. Some of you will be upset about that, because I know I try to come off as honest as possible – but I’m sure you also understand I have to be cognizant about who might end up reading this and what the ramifications could be. On the other hand, if I were anonymous, I’d probably be a lot more open about any less than happy thoughts or criticisms.

Once I got into medical school was when I actually started worrying a bit about this blog. Would it alienate some classmates who saw it?

Friends

As it turns out, nothing bad has happened yet, fortunately. In fact, a few of the friends I’ve made found out about it. One in particular has kept prodding me to mention her on this blog as an example of a really awesome friend I’ve made thus far. I’m not sure if she’s being serious or sarcastic, because she tries to be sarcastic like 90% of the time, but I guess be careful what you ask for…

Well I guess I’ll say I really enjoy my conversations with this friend. She’s very open-minded, which is a good thing, because I think people sometimes jump to conclusions with a lot of preconceived notions, but she’s willing to take a step back and look at things objectively. Which for me is good because I take maybe a radical or unconventional standpoint on something and I know she won’t instantly judge me because of it.

She’s also pretty sarcastic and not all that sensitive, which I like. I think I’ve mentioned several times here that I don’t like taking life to seriously, so it’s nice to have a friend who you can poke fun at or make a sort of “inappropriate” remark in a joking manner and not be looked at like an insensitive jerk.

I’m not sure, but I also get the feeling she understands people well. Like she is good at recognizing why people are doing what they do, what their motivations are. I could be completely way off base though with this one, it’s just a feeling I get. At the very least I think she’s interested in it.

It’s also kind of funny that we share some of the same interests when it comes to medicine. On of my UofT medical school essay, I ended with “Nothing would make me happier than being a pediatric neurologist…”. One our bus ride to some event during orientation week, I was talking to another friend about how I read that there was just one pediatric neurology residency position at UofT every year but no one made it their first choice last year. She turns around all excited when she heard this, and say, “don’t tell anyone else!” or something to that effect. Turns out she is interested in neurology, studied neuroscience in undergrad, and likes kids too. Unfortunately she doesn’t realize that single residency spot will go to me . (Actually, while I really do see myself doing something in pediatrics, I’m not so sure if neurology is for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up somewhere completely different).

It’s also weird how small the world is. When I found out which high school she went to, I immediately asked her if she ever went to the science fair (her school is notorious for doing well at it). And sure enough, she went to the Canada-Wide Science Fair the year before I did. I take that to mean she’s a tiny bit geekier with science than I am.

Of course, we are not completely similar. I would say the biggest difference is that she seems to have a really good work ethic while mine is terrible. I think she has reviewed a fair bit of the material already, while I’m still on Page 5 of last week’s notes. Uh oh. I think I should still get some major props for actually doing some studying the first week of school. I have never done that in my life, so this has got to be a pretty good sign.

Anyways I promised to write this, so here you go! On a related note, I actually really like the friends I’ve made so far, and I hope the trend continues with each new person I meet in my class. Although I realize I won’t click with everyone in my program, I feel pretty lucky to have met quite a few friends that I’ve clicked well with so far.

It’s crazy how many friendships are due to chance though. I met the friend I wrote about today because I had two hours to blow in the afternoon on the first day of orientation week. I saw a few people talking, and I said what the heck, I’ll go say hi and introduce myself. Lo and behold, I now sit with these same people in class everyday so far.

Reminds me of how I met one of my best friends at York. It was my second day of calculus, and I sat next to this dude. I noticed he was listening to some music. I asked him if he liked Death Cab for Cutie (because I did at the time) – he told me he thought their lead singer was terrible (though he denies saying this, I really do remember this). In any case, somehow we became really good friends. Funny how these things happen.

What’s next?

Tomorrow I’m going to head for lunch to catch up with some friends before they start school again, and then I really need to buckle down and study so that I don’t look like a complete moron in front of my lab group on Tuesday.

Hope everyone had a good long weekend!

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