Well schools has indeed started! Day two actually. At this point in time I have gotten to experience a little of what every class has to offer. I can identify which classes are going to give me the most grief from day one, but each are exciting in their own way and I'm looking forwards. Day one consisted of full lectures, which is far from what Im used to coming from high school and undergrad. Something that I did expect however starting medical school. I would like to give a more comprehensive breakdown of how each semester works but will have to wait until I have a bit more time. At this current moment I am already fighting to stay on top of material. I was blown away at the sheer amount of info we are expected to know for the next day! On top of that, during university if I had a 3 hour lecture I would only have it one time a week. I have a 3 hour class this semester that I have 4 times a week and they even managed to throw in an extra hour of it on the one day a week we don't have a 3h lecture! So you have very little time to digest the material before you get given another 3 hours worth to understand and somehow manage to regurgitate the next day. All this translates to late nights studying.. Some of the stuff will be review and depending on what you took in you undergrad you may have an easier time with certain classes. As for the profs, they are all pretty good with a few exceptions. I must say there is one prof who is one of the best profs I have had in my academic career and I'm already saying that from day 2. The only downside is that he teaches a class that pumps out material at an incredible pace. The difference is that most of the material is actually interesting. Everything we learn has a medical component and it's easy to see how the information will be useful as a doctor.. maybe not always :P All I can say is be ready to learn. The profs pretty much start lecturing as they are walking down the stairs to the front of the class. Every last minutes is used to fill your brains with material.
Today was exciting as we got to do our first human dissection! We study certain body systems throughout the semester and we started working on the back. In the anatomy lab we are supposed to have approximately 20 cadavers for students to work on which gives a ratio of about 6 students to one body. The group of 6 is then split into two groups, where the groups rotate each day who dissects and who watches / studies other groups cadavers. So in the end there are three students who are "Cutting" a cadaver. The problem this semester is that we only have about 14 cadavers. There was an issue getting some of them here due to the storms in the area over the past few weeks (what they figured had happened anyways). So for now the groups are a bit bigger. The rest of the cadavers are supposed to get here within two weeks, then we will be back to normal ratios. That aside, we all got to meet our cadavers today. All I can really say is that I will be working on an elderly female. I thought that starting with the back dissection would be a good way to go about things as you don't really need to see the face until the very end. To all of our surprise the bodies were laying not their back and it was up to us to flip them over.. so safe to say that there wasn't any easing into things:P We got as far as opening up the back to view some of the superficial muscles. Tomorrow we get deeper into things "no pun intended".. It is nice to see that people are very respectful of the cadavers and we all realize that it is a huge advantage to us for being able to get this experience. Many medical schools are going away from this practice as it is very expensive and a lot of work. The fact is however that there is no better way to learn anatomy than on really human bodies.
So everyone is super busy with studying, and each is getting into their own groove. I have found that I like to study outside. For the past two evenings after class I station myself at some picnic tables under a canopy where I sit until I am ready to go home. It is a super nice spot to study because I can hear the ocean waves and feel the breeze. At night I haven't found the bugs all that bad either. I do still need to get into a better routine though. For example, today I will be eating dinner close to 11 o'clock, as It was too inconvenient to eat any other time. I need to decide if I want to get home after class to get food, or study at school after class and go home early, but the truth is that once I start studying I don't want to stop. So we will have to see over the next few days what works best.
As for the near future, this Saturday is our white coat ceremony! Not quite sure the process but Ive been told it will be streamed online. Ive gotten an email asking if anyone wants to sing the American national anthem at the ceremony but no mention of the Canadian:) So I feel pretty loved right now. The evening after the ceremony is also the returning student party, which of course we are all invited too. Its a toga party I believe. Not quite sure I have the sheets to spare for a toga, but Im sure I can make something work!
So stay tuned for more posts in the future. I will say that the posts won't be so frequent, but all the best as from week two week there won't be too much in the way of interesting new experiences. For the next post I want to outline the programs at UMHS, what the semesters are like etc. More on that later! thanks for reading.
Things learned today
-Monkey's do make their way onto campus and they are huge!!
-There are birds that come out at night near school that sound exactly like the Whistle text tone on the iPhone.. Made me look at my phone quite a few times..
-Making dinners for the week is not very helpful when you forget to take them out of the freezer until 1 minute before you want them...
Today was exciting as we got to do our first human dissection! We study certain body systems throughout the semester and we started working on the back. In the anatomy lab we are supposed to have approximately 20 cadavers for students to work on which gives a ratio of about 6 students to one body. The group of 6 is then split into two groups, where the groups rotate each day who dissects and who watches / studies other groups cadavers. So in the end there are three students who are "Cutting" a cadaver. The problem this semester is that we only have about 14 cadavers. There was an issue getting some of them here due to the storms in the area over the past few weeks (what they figured had happened anyways). So for now the groups are a bit bigger. The rest of the cadavers are supposed to get here within two weeks, then we will be back to normal ratios. That aside, we all got to meet our cadavers today. All I can really say is that I will be working on an elderly female. I thought that starting with the back dissection would be a good way to go about things as you don't really need to see the face until the very end. To all of our surprise the bodies were laying not their back and it was up to us to flip them over.. so safe to say that there wasn't any easing into things:P We got as far as opening up the back to view some of the superficial muscles. Tomorrow we get deeper into things "no pun intended".. It is nice to see that people are very respectful of the cadavers and we all realize that it is a huge advantage to us for being able to get this experience. Many medical schools are going away from this practice as it is very expensive and a lot of work. The fact is however that there is no better way to learn anatomy than on really human bodies.
So everyone is super busy with studying, and each is getting into their own groove. I have found that I like to study outside. For the past two evenings after class I station myself at some picnic tables under a canopy where I sit until I am ready to go home. It is a super nice spot to study because I can hear the ocean waves and feel the breeze. At night I haven't found the bugs all that bad either. I do still need to get into a better routine though. For example, today I will be eating dinner close to 11 o'clock, as It was too inconvenient to eat any other time. I need to decide if I want to get home after class to get food, or study at school after class and go home early, but the truth is that once I start studying I don't want to stop. So we will have to see over the next few days what works best.
As for the near future, this Saturday is our white coat ceremony! Not quite sure the process but Ive been told it will be streamed online. Ive gotten an email asking if anyone wants to sing the American national anthem at the ceremony but no mention of the Canadian:) So I feel pretty loved right now. The evening after the ceremony is also the returning student party, which of course we are all invited too. Its a toga party I believe. Not quite sure I have the sheets to spare for a toga, but Im sure I can make something work!
So stay tuned for more posts in the future. I will say that the posts won't be so frequent, but all the best as from week two week there won't be too much in the way of interesting new experiences. For the next post I want to outline the programs at UMHS, what the semesters are like etc. More on that later! thanks for reading.
Things learned today
-Monkey's do make their way onto campus and they are huge!!
-There are birds that come out at night near school that sound exactly like the Whistle text tone on the iPhone.. Made me look at my phone quite a few times..
-Making dinners for the week is not very helpful when you forget to take them out of the freezer until 1 minute before you want them...
Good Vibes!
Cheers,
Mike
Cheers,
Mike