1st wk of school

This past week was my first week of classes at medical school. It was fun to meet a few new people (although I find myself gravitating back to the people I already met over the summer) and start learning more about our bodies. I am amazed daily at how incredibly complex our bodies are! That's why I'm doing what I'm doing!

Classes are good because they are mostly review (for now, at least). I am really glad I took genetics and cell biology as an undergrad, because if all this material (plus anatomy, which I did NOT take) was new, I'd pretty much be a basket case. I sat next to one guy that found out I was MD/PhD, and when the lecturer made a slightly confusing analogy, the med student said "So MD-PhD, explain that to us MD's in terms we understand." I like the sciencey aspect of the material, but I can already tell that most of these future clinicians are usually thinking "So what?" to most of what the PhD's have to say. Or maybe it's all in my mind. The fact is we could all be a little more integrative in our thought process, but how do you teach that in a classroom setting?

There are a ton of clubs, interest groups, organizations and associations, and most of them support worthwhile causes, but there are just too many to count. Luckily, every day this past week and next week, five or six orgs/clubs each day provide us free lunch and give a little presentation about what they do. I've been pretty well-fed this past week, and even after the organization intro's end next week, there still seem to be plenty of "free lunches" on the horizon. I am planning on doing a few, but it'll be sad not to be able to do 'em all.

Maybe it's just because it's the first week of class, but I think I will really enjoy my time learning here.

Oh and an interesting thing happened. I didn't want to fork over $150 bucks for a stethoscope, so I bought one off of ebay for $30. I got an email from the company a few days later saying that their warehouse got struck by lightning, so they will take a little longer shipping it to me. A day or two after that, PayPal sent me a message saying the company refunded me $5.50 for late service. I'll make sure to leave an update on whether or not the lightning did something to the acoustics of the stethoscope:)

Orientation Week

So this past week was orientation. Having been around the campus and obtaining an email account, an ID, etc. the summer before being told about the campus and IDs and emails was slightly... boring. Plus half of the first day was about financial aid, and so had no application to me.
So I skipped part of orientation so that I could work in the lab some more to do more experiments. It was slightly depressing that our second round of experiments didn't yield as good data as the first, but that's science, right?'
I've been excited to start school this past few weeks, but now that it is actually here, I'm wishing I had a few more weeks of summer. Especially because the data didn't turn out as we'd hoped, and because my brain is not geared up for sitting in class for hours and hours.
One thing that I noticed about being and MD/PhD student was that I mentally was apart from everyone else. For example, 90% of the speakers during orientation week made some comment about how in 4 years we'd be all MDs, or how 4 years from now we'd all be ready to see patients or whatever. They were great talks, though.
We'll see how much my classmates set me apart coming up--I hope that people don't think that I think that I'm all that just because I'm doing research

Last (official) week of rotation 1

So I just finished the last official week of my first lab, but I've enjoyed it so much (and am hoping to help the lab get a paper published) and so I am going to continue to come in to the lab when I can, at least during orientation week for medical school. The PI I'm working with is more than happy to have an extra set of hands around the lab, especially because he likes to be busy--there were times during my rotation that 3 experiments were being carried out simultaneously by the 5 of us (it's a small lab by the way, which I think is good for more focused mentoring).
Speaking of orientation week, I skipped out on the financial aid part of the first day of orientation so that we could get some lab work done. I also am rearranging my schedule so that I can maximize my time in the lab and minimize my time in orientation, which I will be sure to whine about in my next blog. There was some useful information presented today (the first day of orientation), but there was also plenty of less-informative (ok, mind-numbingly boring) stuff as well. Oh well, I guess every apple has its core.
It is good that we are getting started with school, because the closer it got to orientation week, the more new students were around and more social events going on.
I can't wait for the challenge of classes starting next week though...

Week 4, only 1 more :(

Just as I am feeling comfortable with the lab I am in and with the techniques involved in my little research project, I am hit with the realization that I only have one more week left before I start orientation for med school... kinda sad, especially because I really, really am enjoying my lab rotation. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that my PI is very clinically oriented and wants to give me a taste of translational science. In fact, he set up a little meeting with a clinician in the hospital next door to go over data we collected, and to see what we could do more and what journals we might submit a paper to. (By the way, my PI is a "junior" faculty member and so he is kinda new, and I actually like that aspect--it feels like we are all learning together as a lab.)
So that's how it is--4 out of 5 weeks into my first experience in the MD/PhD program, and I am loving it and sad to see the end of this phase...