Becoming A Doctor: Day One

I'm official ;) I have an ID card and everything. My name was on all the lists. No one looked at me like I had 10 heads and said "What's your name again? I don't see you listed here." They're really gonna let ME take a stab at being a doctor! Lame and corny as it sounds, I found myself feeling so honored all day, just to be there. Hearing professors and Deans (all doctors themselves) give speeches about how special we are and how accomplished we are and how proud they are to have us, and then realizing that I was included in that group... it was pretty crazy. Hearing them refer to us as "student-doctors" and discuss how we should go about assimilating the role of "doctor", what patients will expect of us when we walk into a room... all very surreal. Amazing, actually. And for as hot as it was, as sweaty as I got in my "professional attire", as long as I waited in line for my student ID, as badly as my poor feet hurt, as SOAKED as I got running three city blocks in my heels (with incredibly sore feet) when it started DUMPING rain on me (and my school bag and my new laptop bag) as soon as I left the building to head for the parking garage... as bad as all those things kinda sucked, it was a GREAT day!

I got to meet TONS of fabulous people, many of whom I can definitely see myself becoming close friends with. I found out that there are about 8 or 10 other married students in my class (which made me feel a LITTLE less like a dork being an "old married person" in a room full of 160 20-somethings), they fed us an AMAZING lunch, we got fitted for our white coats... many good things happened today! And the sohpomore class student council has social events planned for us all around Baltimore every night until next Friday (except this Sunday). That made us feel quite loved :) And tomorrow we're out at noon (which more closely approximates a normal class day at my fantastic medical school)! Although I do have to go in very early tomorrow and camp out outside the parking office to compete for one of 200 BioPark parking permits available for students. I have three parking options: Lexington garage rooftop for $33/month (Perfect!FULL). Lexington Garage for $5/day ($100/month, and first-come first-served, and a decent walk to my class building... PWNED). BioPark garage for $100/semester, guaranteed space, with a shuttle over to my class building (sounds like a plan!). So yeah, for that deal I'll get up early and go fight for a permit! We actually have a few "real" lectures tomorrow for ICM (Introduction to Clinical Medicine). ICM is a year-long course that consists of lectures and patient visits and such, sprinkled throughout the basic curriculum (so it's not a class that meets regularly). All 160 of us have the same schedule every day - there are no different courses to register for or various sections of courses, we're all together all the time. And we only have one course at a time, which means only one exam at a time and only one set of material to learn at a time (and I'm ALL FOR THAT). It's really one of the best systems I've seen in my travels to various medical schools - I don't know why everyone doesn't do it this way! I think there's a lot of pressure on schools to make it extra difficult (like the material itself doesn't take care of that!), like medical school is a rite of passage that should be as miserable as possible (this same sentiment seems to be pervasive in residency programs as well). I'm really glad that the powers that be at my school seem to have gotten over that, and it apparently occurred to someone, somewhere along the line, that we might produce better doctors by making the learning process simpler and more efficient. Who knew?!?!

So I think that's it for me today. I've been sorely neglecting the football watching that I should be doing right now. GO RAVENS!!! There are FAR too many Redskins fans amongst my new classmates for them to lose tonight... I can't handle that.