Loving the Jewish Holidays

I haven't set foot in anatomy lab for 3 whole days, which is a new record. I also slept until almost 9:30 this morning (gasp!). These luxuries are thanks to the fact that Stony Brook shuts down in observance of Rosh Hashanah. This extra time has let me [start to] catch up in my studies and begin preparing for midterms, which are only 2 weeks away.

Here's a quick (maybe) synopsis of the goings-on since my last post:

We had a fantastic guest lecture last week delivered by a gynecologic oncologist - in other words, someone who does exactly what I hope to someday! It was so much fun to hear her describe the surgeries that she does, and when she started using terminology that I've been learning, it was sort of a lightbulb-going-on-over-my-head moment, as in, "Hey wait! I know that! I'm learning some of the EXACT things that I will need someday when I practice medicine for real!"

I've been ruminating quite a bit lately about how different medical school is compared to college in that everything I'm learning is directly related to, and vital for, what I will be doing later. Even after I declared my French major, I didn't look at what I learned in my classes in terms of its application to my future studies - there were no thoughts of, "Hmm, I'll definitely use this verb tense or cite this piece of literature in my senior thesis!" Here, however, it's a different story. There's a lot of pressure that comes the knowledge that this actual information may be important for my career, but it's also a great source of motivation when there seems to be no end in sight to the amount of information to cover.

Back to the guest lecturer, though. I had actually met this doctor years ago when I was doing an internship at Stony Brook with one of her colleagues (who no longer practices here, unfortunately), so I introduced myself to her afterwards and told her of my interest in gyn onc. In inquired as to how I might get involved in the department's research, and she told me whom to contact. Yay!

Some classmates and I spent almost 8 hours in lab on Saturday "pinning" several bodies. One aspect of our exmas will involve identifying different organs/nerves/blood vessels that are marked in the bodies using pins, so we decided it would be good review to pin everything we have studied so far - about 175 structures - and then test ourselves. It was very helpful and fun, especially with our break for pizza. Long hours in lab never fail to make me hungry.

Finally, I had a personal training session at my new gym on Sunday, and the girl worked me so hard I've been hobbling around for a few days with extremely tight muscles. At least I have some new moves to do at the gym once I recover!

Looks like I've been verbose once again. There's just one more thought that I want to share, as well as to document it so I will remember it in the future. I was talking to the medical school's learning specialist (who offered some really great tips as to how I can study even more efficiently), and she told me that, although everyone will tell you something different regarding how much grades, board scores, and where you do your residency matter, it's important never to forget that it's a privilege to even have the opportunity to study medicine.