Yesterday was my first day back, and it went essentially as expected. Lots of rambling from our ICM (Introduction to Clinical Medicine) instructor, who only gets a captive audience a few days out of the school year and so therefore uses every moment afforded her to tell stories, run far past her time limit, and use all weapons in her arsenal to make us squirm as violently and often as possible. She ran 30 MINUTES OVER yesterday, while the first year class waited outside the lecture hall for 30 MINUTES for us to finish so that we could get together for our big sib/little sib meet and greet. And the subject matter did NOT warrant a ninety minute address, let me assure you... the bullet points of our first-day-back-itinerary were as follows:
- The Gyn Exam
- The Speculum Exam
- The Pelvic Exam
- Taking a pap smear
- Identifying various types of sores, growths, varicosities and discharge associated with various and sundry vaginal infections (complete with detailed photo tour, of course)
- The male genital exam
- The prostate exam
- The digital rectal exam
- Various horrifying photos of gangrenous and otherwise infected male genitalia
You get the picture. Not the kind of material you're hoping the lecturer will spend an extra 30 MINUTES on. So after all that mess, we finally got to meet our "littles" (as second-years we are paired up with one or two first-years to serve in a "mentoring" role - answer burning questions, give sage advice, lend out textbooks, etc). Mine seems to be a very sweet girl, and I'm sure we'll get along fine. We also had a social event yesterday evening to spend some more time with our littles (at a karaoke bar, of course), but I only saw her there briefly. I wandered around meeting some other first-years and answering THE burning questions: How hard is it? How do you study? How do you survive? Of course, as you well know, I have no idea how to answer these questions, but I did my best! Their class seems pretty fun-loving and laid back like our class (previous classes have not been so friendly... at least that's the word on the street), so I think (hope) we'll all get along pretty well and have a relatively good relationship.
So why am I staying home today, you ask...? (as if I ever need a real "reason" in order to convince myself to sit it out for a day...) Basically I got very little sleep and woke up feeling like hell, then realized I overslept my first lecture, and then noticed that it was pouring rain. Long story short... it's a no for me. We just have ICM lectures again today anyway (translation: material that I will never be tested on specifically), and of course I can watch them online later. So I said, "forget it." And so here I am, chatting it up with YOU! Win-win for everyone, if you ask me. I promise I'll go to school tomorrow - that'll be my first day of "real" lectures, and my future patients deserve at least that much dedication ;]
No comments:
Post a Comment