Hello World! Since this is my first ever post, I figured that I’ll keep it light, telling you guys a bit more about myself (stuff that wasn’t already covered in About), along with a tangent, and some of my plans with MedHopeful.

Being ‘serious’

Josh and I recently had a discussion about first impressions, and as the topic shifted to our first impressions of each other – we first met at O-Week – he told me that his first impression of me was “serious”. I responded with a “what?!”, but to be fair, I had already known that I had given off that vibe.

On the first day of O-Week, we had a welcome talk delivered by the Associate Dean, where he said something along the lines of: “It’s traditional for the Associate Dean to present statistics about the entering class…This year, we have one 19-year-old student…” A small buzz in the auditorium arose, and I simply shrunk in my seat, thinking to myself, “No one will know it’s me.”

I had gone through the whole medical school application process without disclosing my age, and had no intention of doing so in medical school either. In undergrad, I realized that letting people know that you are younger than your peers is a double-edged sword. On one edge, you felt ahead of the game, but on the other, some will question your capabilities and maturity level.

It turns out that a good friend from high school, who was also in my class, had literally squealed in excitement, saying, “Oh! Oh! I know who it is!” By the end of the day, my cover was blown, and I spent the rest of week overcompensating by pretending to be an overly mature and incredibly serious person, before I couldn’t keep it up anymore.

Different types of impressions

A first impression is most commonly associated with the classic idea where, within the first 30 seconds of an interview, the employer decides whether or not they want to hire an interviewee. This type of first impression explains how I came off as serious. Most people are aware of this type of impressions, and as a result, medical school applicants will often pay particular attention to their demeanour, dress, handshake, and speech in their interviews – especially for the first 30 seconds.

However, if you’ve been reading closely, you’ll notice that we’ve touched upon a different kind of first impression, one that most people often don’t think much about. This is the type where an impression is formed after someone receives concrete information about you. It’s no longer a quick subjective assessment, but rather a slower and more complex ‘evidence’-based assessment. In my story, being known as the youngling can precipitate such an assessment.

So, why is this second type of impression important? In submitting any application, you are handing in concrete information about yourself – be it your prior employment records for a job, your resume for a scholarship, or your personal essay for medical school. Other than the actual information that you are handing in, it is important to consider the impression you are giving the reviewer with the information and its method of presentation. Do you sound sincere? Or are you coming off as pretentious? Do you sound mature? Or does it seem like you’re fooling around? You are giving off an impression before you have even met the interviewer, and this can make or break your application.

To identify these hidden impressions, it’s a good idea to get someone to read over your application and give you feedback as to what kinds of impressions they got from it. Ask yourself whether these impressions match who you really are. Are these the impressions that you want your reviewer to receive? Are there things that you should clarify in your application? How can you rephrase things to prevent yourself from being misinterpreted? Simply knowing that these impressions exist is frequently going to be the first and best step in getting them to work for you.

My affair with MedHopeful

I’ve always enjoyed writing and recounting my stories and thoughts to others. So when I decided to start blogging, Josh suggested that MedHopeful would be a great place for me to do that. As we hail from vastly different backgrounds and experiences, we can offer more wholesome and diverse perspectives, which would be great for our readers.

What will I be writing about? Everything concerning high school, undergrad, personal stuff, life lessons, applying to medical school, the actual medical school, answers to your questions, and everything in between. (The one topic I might not blog about is scholarships, as my co-blogger is much better endowed in that area.)

I’m really looking forward to an awesome experience with MedHopeful and its readers. That wraps up this first post and, hopefully it made a good impression on you guys!

Related posts:

1. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...
2. UofT Meds Orientation Week Day 1 Wow what a tease that title is. Came home super...
3. Major Change Coming and Pre-Med School Update I’m sorry for not having written so long, and for...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So I’m happy to say that I passed my Brain and Behaviour midterm – barely, with a 70.96 (a 70 is a clear pass). It was a pretty difficult midterm, with a bell ringer for neuroanatomy in the morning and then a written exam in the afternoon.

It’s funny how easily I went from not only wanting and getting 80′s and 90′s in undergrad to hoping I get a 70 in medical school. For the most part, I don’t think the material is any harder, and often times it’s actually easier. As I’ve stressed before, there’s just a lot more material.

I was talking to one of my best friend’s tonight (who is also in first year of medical school, but at McMaster). I was telling him about how I couldn’t remember details on the multiple choice exams here, and he said he was surprised because he remembered me knowing all these random details during undergrad and doing well on multiple choice exams.

I started thinking about the differences between the two, and it sort of hit me. In undergrad, I would spend usually just the day before studying for a test, so all of the information would be fresh in my head.

However, because there is so much more information in medical school, I have to start studying say four days before the test just to get through the material once. So while say 1/4 of the material I learned the day before is fresh, the other 3/4 of material I learned over the first three days start slowly fading away. Unless I spend more time reviewing the material, I’m going to keep forgetting a lot of the details by test day.

Of course, I doubt this is the only reason. It’s quite possible that it might just be the psychological effect of only needing to pass – in fact, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the case. Once medical school applications were sent in, marks dropped a bit, and once acceptances came, final exams weren’t taken very seriously. I’m sure this is normal for a lot of people (in fact, I see this more often in medical school than I expected to see it).

I have my Brain and Behaviour final exam in two weeks (yay, not cumulative!) and I told myself I would study yesterday and today – I think you can guess what happened (lol).

In other news, I’m heading to the TD Scholars Alumni Conference tomorrow night until Sunday. If anyone who reads this is going, definitely drop by and say hi if you see me =)

Related posts:

1. So This is What It’s Like to be “Below Average” Looks like I started a trend with the very last...
2. Things I Wish I Knew before starting Medical School It has been a month since I last blogged. To...
3. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’d like you to give a nice warm welcome to a good friend of mine from class, Shelly Luu.

Having skipped two grades growing up, Shelly studied biochemistry for three years at the University of Ottawa before being accepted into medical school at the University of Toronto, McMaster University, and the University of Calgary.

She decided to attend UofT, being the youngest student to enter our class at 19 years old last year (sick!).

She is insanely smart (though she won’t admit it) and a really good friend, and I think she’ll bring a lot of fresh, interesting, and different insight to MedHopeful.

I think you guys will be impressed. =)

Related posts:

1. So I think I know why my marks have dropped… So I’m happy to say that I passed my Brain...
2. Best Birthday Surprise Ever *Please turn up your volume Thanks a bunch to Shelly,...
3. And so Medical School Begins… Day 1 So yesterday I am wearing the T-shirt I got in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So to get back into the swing of things, a story from the doctor’s office today.

I went to get a referral but also left with a splint on my pinky finger and a form to get an X-ray done tomorrow morning.

I have a bump on the distal interphalangeal joint and the tip of the pinky remains bent downward.

I hope it’s a mallet finger and not early signs of osteoarthritis… fortunately there isn’t any pain or inflammation, so I guess it’s unlikely to be osteoarthritis

Here’s a photo of a mallet finger… I’d rather not post photos of osteoarthritis (lol)

Related posts:

1. Roller Coaster of a Day Okay not really much of a roller coaster, but definitely...
2. Iron Man 2, Pinky, School, and Healthcare Innovation Last Friday I went out with my close high school...
3. And so Medical School Begins… Day 1 So yesterday I am wearing the T-shirt I got in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Alex and I both attended Shad Valley the same summer, but at different programs, but one of his best friends attended Shad Valley at McMaster with me. We found each other on Facebook, discovered we had a lot of common interests, and began chatting and sharing ideas.

Since the start of this year, Alex has been the President of Impact – Canada’s largest student-run entrepreneurship group. The funny thing is that it was I, a few years ago, who got Alex in contact with Kunal Gupta, the founder of Impact, after not really even knowing Kunal (I had just met him briefly the week before). But it seemed like a good person for Alex to contact. Funny how things turn out. (Or just my way of reminding Alex that he is in debt to my for life. Just kidding though, as Alex is talented enough to have gotten to where he is on his own, I’m sure).

At lunch, we started off by catching up with how each other was doing. I shared with him my progress with a project I was working on (and one you will all soon learn about).

But the biggest thing we talked about was basically about turning my life around and being more productive. I think I don’t come off that way, but I am super, super lazy and am very unproductive. Really, I am. I was very busy in high school and kept myself occupied with many cool things, but since undergrad, I have gotten very lazy. I think it’s partially due to my interests changing (and not finding things that really stimulate me) and partially due to my being way to lazy/burned out to take initiative. I also think it’s because I like instant satisfaction, and in the real world, you really got to put in the work and effort before you reap the rewards, and I struggle with that.

One key thing Alex talked to me about was developing better habits. He told me that if I could pick up a habit and perform it 21 days in a row, it would likely stick. So my plan is to pick up a new habit every 7 days, and hopefully after 21 days of performing each habit, it’ll stick. And I’ll slowly pile on new and improved habits that will become a part of my everyday life.

So the first habit I’ve decided to pick up is getting at least 7.5 hours of sleep every night. To be fair, I already broke this habit last night (in my defense, I was studying for my Determinants of Community Health Exam today). Hopefully I won’t break it again for a long time. Some future habits I’m thinking about picking up include a small bit of daily studying, daily workouts, regular productivity with my blogging, etc.

I feel really unproductive a lot of the time, and hopefully this will help.

Oh yeah, big changes coming – like I’ve been mentioning for a long time, but things are finally ready. MedHopeful is moving onto bigger and better things. More to come in my next post.

Related posts:

1. So I think I know why my marks have dropped… So I’m happy to say that I passed my Brain...
2. Medical School Week 3 Reflection I sit and type this on my brother’s 9 inch...
3. And so Medical School Begins… Day 1 So yesterday I am wearing the T-shirt I got in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I think this is the first Christmas break in a while where I haven’t really felt any stress or guilt whatsoever, and I guess most, if any of the stress, I’ve had previously was due to school. Even if not stress, just things like worries or concerns. In high school I would have untouched homework over the break and feel guilty afterwards. In university, although I almost never had homework, there were concerns about courses, marks, etc. being geared towards medical school.

Now it’s a bit different since everything in medical school is pass/fail. You could argue that there are still thoughts/concerns over things like working towards desired residency programs, but since the beginning of university, my priorities/values have changed and I’ve slowly began to care less and less about things like this. Not saying that I haven’t thought strategically at all about things like residency (because I obviously have), but what I can do now is pretty limited, and I’m more concerned with doing what I want and finding a residency that fits me than trying to mould myself to fit a residency program.

Group Studying

I have to say that I felt more comfortable with this anatomy exam than the first one. This exam focused on the head, neck, back, and limbs. Before I go into how the exam went, I wanted to talk a bit about group studying because of something I experienced and came to realize.

About a week before my exam, I went into the anatomy lab with four friends to go over some anatomy with the dissected cadavers and prosections. As expected, I was the least prepared person there. However, that doesn’t mean that I would not be able to learn anything or contribute to the learning experience of the others – the problems were that there were too many people and we were not all at the same level of preparedness .

Unless everyone in a group study period (assuming this is an active, discussion based study period and not a quiet one) is near the same level of preparedness, this experience will not be useful/fruitful for everyone. The whole group is not going to completely slow down just for you (okay yah this could happen, but it’s not going to happen in a high stress environment, for example).

I think it might help to explain this with an example. Imagine I went to the anatomy lab with just one other person, and that person was much more knowledgeable than I am. I can’t teach her anything, but she can teach me a lot. Nevertheless, we both gain from the studying. I gain because I learn new things, and she gains by solidifying hew knowledge through explaining it to me.

But imagine then a third person comes along who is more knowledgeable than both of us. The second most knowledgeable person is going to focus her attention on learning from the new person, since that is more beneficial for her. The rest of the roles remain the same. The point being that unless everyone is on the same page, the group studying/discussion is not going to be beneficial for absolutely everyone. Just to clarify, when I say that it would not be beneficial for everyone, I mean optimally beneficial – that is, while it’s true that I am learning something while there in such an environment, there are better group situations where I would learn more.

So the following week, I decided to go to the anatomy lab with just one other person, and found the experience much more beneficial (though I must add i was more prepared). For the things he didn’t know, I was able to teach him, and vice versa. It’s also much easier to look over specimens and test yourself with fewer people around. It’s harder to test your knowledge when many other people are also going over the same specimen as you in front of you. There’s also the thought of not wanting to slow other people down, which is something that definitely impacted me before.

My Last Exam: Gross Anatomy 2

So anyways, back to the exam itself. There were 61 stations in total (with I think 5 or 6 rest stations somewhere in there). During my last exam, countless times I found myself in a situation where I would have to use my entire minute and a half to decide what to put down – I rarely had situations where I knew the answer right away and could relax for an entire minute.

This time, I started somewhere in the middle of the head and neck stations, and was happy to finally experience what I didn’t before. I guess I knew head and neck pretty well because I had an answer for everything and got most of them pretty quickly.

Unfortunately I wish I could say the same for the back and limbs. Well, I think back I was probably okay with, and I don’t remember too many questions about that. My confidence was sky high from head and neck, but started to die a bit when I ran into some trouble with limbs – that was some hard stuff, and I found myself again wishing I spent even more time studying in the anatomy lab. It did boost my spirits to finish my exam back in head and neck where I felt most comfortable.

I felt awful coming out of the exam last time and scraped by with a 74%, so I’m hoping that since I felt better, it’s a sign that I probably passed, but we’ll see.

A Plug, and My Break

I just have to make a plug for the best movie experience I’ve had in a while. You probably all know about it, but it’s so good, I’m going to plug it anyways:

If you haven’t seen Avatar yet, go see it. And if you see it, see it in 3D. The plot/acting/etc. isn’t amazing, but the visuals are stunning, especially in 3D. This movie is all about the experience, and it’s best experienced in 3D. My friends and I are considering going back to see it again in an IMAX theatre – it’s that good.

Christmas break has been great so far, and I’ve gotten to see a lot of people I don’t normally get to see. I’m not even counting down the days until school starts, it’s really not worth it – gotta just enjoy the moment.

Hope everyone has a great break – Merry Christmas!

Related posts:

1. Roller Coaster of a Day Okay not really much of a roller coaster, but definitely...
2. And so Medical School Begins… Day 1 So yesterday I am wearing the T-shirt I got in...
3. Medical School Week 2 Reflection Courses I realized I probably never actually explained how medical...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

For this first ASCM exam, we were evaluated on taking patient history and vital signs. The basic outline of the exam was that you would work with either a standardized or real patient – take their history for up to 35 minutes, and then have the final 10 minutes for the vital signs. While this was going on, a physician would quietly evaluate us.

My scheduled exam time was 8:00 am. By 8:15 am I was the last student still sitting in the waiting room, waiting for my physician to come get me, worried that I was forgotten about or something.

Finally my physician comes out and says, “oh there you are, we didn’t know we had to come get you – we were waiting for you inside the room!” I chuckle in reply “Haha I was waiting for you too!”

So I walk into the room and the patient is already sitting at a chair – the physician asks me to take a seat across from the patient and begin the exam. I quickly grab some hand sanitizer and rub my hands together as I introduce myself to the patient. She has chest pain, and so I spend a few minutes asking her more about it. I then go on and ask her about her family history, past medical history, medications, allergies, habits, and social history.

I realize that this is going really quickly and she doesn’t have much information for me – it makes me start questioning whether I actually missed a question or something. Once or twice, I pause for a few seconds, trying to think if I asked everything. I’m pretty sure I did, but I’m a bit paranoid because it seemed to have gone by way too fast. I’m not too surprised though because my brother said his lasted only like 15 minutes, but of course, when you’re in the moment, it’s easy to over think stuff.

After having summarized her situation twice (lol, paranoid much?), I move on to the vital signs part of the exam. Heart rate: 64 beats/min. Respiratory rate: 16 breaths/min.

Just before I start the blood pressure measurements, oops, I remember: “Oh yeah, the heart rate was regular” lol. (this means the heart rate had a regular rhythm).

I put the blood pressure cuffs on the patient, no problem. I start by measuring her systolic blood pressure by palpation (i.e. palpating the radial artery in the wrist and determining the pressure in the cuff that it returns). I try it once, and realize as I release the pressure in the cuff that I’ve lost her pulse. No problem I guess, I apologize to the patient and tell her I need to do it again.

This time, as I pump up the cuff, I realize the cord is knotted. I try a few times and it’s still knots even after I unknot it.

“Sorry, this doesn’t usually happen” (honestly, it doesn’t, so it’s a bit frustrating that it happens during an exam).

“Don’t worry, it’s just a technical difficulty” says my doctor evaluator. I’m really happy at this point that I have a super nice evaluator.

I finally seem to have gotten the cord straight, and I go ahead and obtain her systolic blood pressure by palpation: 95 mmHg.

I then go on to use my stethoscope as well, placing it over the brachial artery in her arm, and listening for her systolic and diastolic blood pressures. This time everything goes well, no problems: 104/65 mmHg. Don’t know if that’s right, but there you go!

I thank the patient for her time, and the physician and I leave the room for a few more words. She asks me about my general observations of the patient, and I tell her that the patient looked comfortable and rested, but that she appeared a bit hesitant, maybe because she was seeing me from the first time or maybe from her concerns about her chest pain. I also note that she wasn’t in distress and she looked about her stated age, maybe slightly less.

The physician examiner tells me she doesn’t know if she’s supposed to give me my feedback right now, but she smiles at me and says, “but don’t worry, you did great!”

Which made me feel great because I figure if she’s going to say that, there’s no way she is going to fail me – that would be just way too cruel.

I wish I could take a nap, but I’m heading to the anatomy lab this afternoon (followed by a business meeting tonight), so I need to do some last minute studying of head and neck!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Related posts:

1. Roller Coaster of a Day Okay not really much of a roller coaster, but definitely...
2. I Think I Failed but Maybe it was Exactly What I Needed The morning of Monday, November 9th, I gave up for...
3. Wow, has it really been a month… …since I last wrote here? It honestly hasn’t felt like...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This morning I did my last anatomy dissection ever. We looked at the posterior part of the forearm and dorsal part of the hand (i.e. the back of the arm from the forearm to the fingers). Being able to see all of the muscles and their tendons, and essentially knowing how the arm and hand works mechanically was pretty cool.

It was cool until I cut myself with the scalpel being a bit reckless, but it was just a small cut at the tip of my finger. I’ll be okay, but can’t say it was fun.

After the anatomy lab, I went to pick up my Histology test from the office. I give the woman there my name, and as she hands me my test, she glances at my mark and goes: “Oh God…”

Errr – thanks? Haha. So yeah the morning was a bit meh you could say.

In the afternoon I went to Toronto Western Hospital to meet a doctor and researcher whose work I’m interested in. We chatted for a bit, and I’m optimistic about the possibility of doing some research with him next year. Hopefully that works out.

Tomorrow I have my end of semester clinical skills exam. We will spend 35 minutes taking a patient’s history, and then another 10 minutes measuring heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure – all while be observed and evaluated by a physician. I’m told no one ever fails this exam, so I’m feeling pretty good about it except that I am first up at 8 am…

Alright, enough procrastinating. I need to study head and neck anatomy because I promised a friend that we’d review that stuff in the lab tomorrow (for our upcoming anatomy exam next Thursday) and I am pretty much a moron on anything anatomy-related at this point (as usual).

Wish me luck!

Related posts:

1. So I had my clinical skills exam today… As I mentioned previously, one of the courses I take...
2. I Think I Failed but Maybe it was Exactly What I Needed The morning of Monday, November 9th, I gave up for...
3. And so Medical School Begins… Day 1 So yesterday I am wearing the T-shirt I got in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Liu, Joshua Paul

You achieved the following scores on the STF exams:

Blood & Gross Anatomy average: 84.3%, Your mark: 74.7
Histology average: 85.0%, Your mark: 67.5
Embryology average: 76.49%, Your mark: 70

Boy, that Histology mark looks ugly. I will be super sad if I’m asked to do remediation for that. I’m not sure what happened – I wasn’t completely prepared, but I thought that part of the exam went okay. Guess you never really know…

Anyways, I wanted to sort of clarify my whole rant in my last post. Yes, admittedly, it was a rant.

Let’s be clear – my brother, Jerome, was in medical school here at UofT last year. So yes, I knew exactly what I was getting myself into – I knew that first year would be full of rote memorization, and that I was probably going to go insane. That being said, I didn’t really think about it. It’s one of those things where you’re like, “naw, I’ll just let future Josh deal with that problem”.

I do understand most of this knowledge is important and necessary for the development of my medical career – it’s just frustrating when it seems like the rewards that you reap from enduring the frustrating parts seem so far away. Constant memorization does not interest me, and my personality type is one where I get bored/frustrated when I can’t pursue something I’m deeply interested in and passionate about.

It also does worry me that I’m finding it hard to have the motivation to do anything but “just pass”. What does it all mean, and why am I doing it? It’s a good question, and I’m sure the answer will be complicated. I think it’s partly because of my dislike for memorization, that I naturally figure out the least I need to study to just pass.

So in short, yes, I get that I need to know this information – yes, I do need to just suck it up and get over it.

That being said, I do think developing critical thinking skills is one of those things that our education system constantly claims to do but doesn’t. They test them, but almost never help develop them, and if they do, it’s usually in pretty minute ways. What I mean by this is that exam questions often require critical thinking skills, but no one spends the time to help students (that are lacking them) develop those skills.

You don’t develop critical thinking skills by simply listening or learning the mechanics for tackling a common problem. You develop critical thinking skills by asking questions and trying to answer them. You develop critical thinking skills by discussing concepts with peers, challenging their ideas and having yours challenged, and together learning different ways to approach problems. That is, you learn how to think about the knowledge you’re taught.

All the time in school they say understanding is more important than memorization. I don’t think they take it far enough. More important than both understanding and memorization is knowing how to think about that knowledge.

I’m sure I’ve used this example before in another post, I want to bring it up again to clarify what I mean by this and why it’s so important.

Have you ever been stuck on a problem, so you go to a peer, tutor, or professor for help? They figure out the answer and explain it to you – and you understand how they got the answer perfectly. But, you still can’t do the next question on your own – why is that?

It’s clearly not a problem with understanding – you obviously understand the material well enough to understand solutions presented to you. The problem is that you don’t know how to think about the material yet – that is, you are struggling with the ability to think critically about the material on your own. This is what happens when you feel like you’ve studied the material and understand the answers to all the homework, and yet still seem to mess up on the exam.

I firmly believe that we need to invest the time and resources to help students learn how to think about the material they are being taught. It’s not enough that they “understand” the material, because understanding does not necessarily lead to critical thinking. We need to make that jump possible.

Related posts:

1. So This is What It’s Like to be “Below Average” Looks like I started a trend with the very last...
2. First post and first impressions Hello World! Since this is my first ever post, I...
3. So I think I know why my marks have dropped… So I’m happy to say that I passed my Brain...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I took my third exam this past Monday – Histology, Embryology, and Ethics. The embryology answer key came out a few days ago, and unsurprisingly, I scored below average again. The class average was 75 and I got a 67 – yeah I guess the exam questions were pretty “challenging”. I say that in quotes because the type of challenge wasn’t something I particularly appreciated. It was challenging because some of the questions required knowledge of pretty minute details. If you know me well, you’ll know that I love concepts and hate rote memorization of random facts. That being said, maybe I will end up doing above average overall across all three sections, though I highly doubt it.

Does this bother me? A little bit, but not really. It only bothers me in the sense that some people might only correlate my intelligence or capability as a future physician with my grades.

It’s weird that we think this though, and when I say this, I mean the pure correlation between marks and intelligence. I remember growing up, whoever got the highest marks in class was considered the “smartest” or whatever. Forget for a second that we haven’t even defined what intelligence is, or if you believe in multiple intelligences, what type of intelligence school tests – even if we neglect these important discussions, it’s pretty clear that it takes more than “intelligence” to do well in school. I know people who I think are much smarter than I who I’m sure I got way better grades than in school.

Yes intelligence affects your marks, but so does work ethic, test-taking skills, and ability to perform under pressure (there are probably more, but these are the four that to my mind the fastest). Among all four, my work ethic is my weakest aspect. Unless I am very interested in something, I can’t find the drive to put in the work ethic to learn it. And if you are weak in one of these areas, it’s going to hurt your marks big time. For me in particular, the problems with having a poor work ethic when studying things I don’t want to becomes amplified in medical school because so much of it is based on effort. Knowledge requires time to learn, and in medical school (at least here at UofT), knowledge is constantly being thrown at you. I can’t reason my way out of knowing the concentration of sperm cells in semen (my very first exam question required this knowledge, and of course, I never expected I would actually need to memorize that number – yes you could argue that anything taught is “fair game”, but you can easily write an unreasonable exam using all knowledge taught).

What saddens me is that it’s almost as if things still haven’t changed yet. One of the things that discouraged me about my undergraduate education was that there was so much emphasis on knowledge and next to nothing on developing thought processes, which as you know, I think is far more important in the grand scheme of things. We assume those thought processes will develop on their own, despite the fact that they are much more difficult to develop than simply accumulating knowledge, which simply requires reading a textbook (yes learning material from a textbook requires the ability to understand, but wait, that comes from thought process!).

I’m not saying knowledge isn’t important, because it is important. But knowledge becomes meaningless when we don’t know how to think about that knowledge, how to manipulate it to come to a solution to solve problems – and not just a solution, but to be able to develop the best solution. I feel like we grow up learning how to identify the best answer on a multiple choice test, but are never told that maybe the best answer isn’t listed on there.

Then again, you could just tell me to forget all this, suck it up, and memorize the damn textbook. I’ve got my last anatomy exam in less than two weeks, and there are loads to know (the head is pretty complicated as you can imagine…). But hey, I think I enjoy whining more.

Best of luck to everyone with their fall exams!

Related posts:

1. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...
2. I Think I Failed but Maybe it was Exactly What I Needed The morning of Monday, November 9th, I gave up for...
3. End of the 1st Semester of Medical School I sit here typing this relaxed and in a pretty...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.