Missionary Orthopod in the Making

I must say that I’m quite honored that people are still visiting my blog, even though I haven’t written a new post in ages. My posting frequency really depends on the kind of semester I’m having in medical school. I haven’t posted much lately because I’m am SO BEHIND I CAN’T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE TO YOU THE EXTENTNESS OF MY BEHINDNESS. But with that said, its nice to still blog now and then.

The post before my last post was my first entry on my new blog site. I’m happy that the doctajay.com domain was even free. I guess I played myself into thinking the name was mildly popular. Anyway, when I wrote my last blog entry I was in the very midst of my last test week. I didn’t think that they could have given us more work than what they gave us before Christmas break, but somehow they did. And I honestly think that that is the trend that medical school is going to take. As much work as you thought you would never be able to handle one semester, they almost double it the second semester. But somehow it all becomes manageable.

So yeah, my last test week was my best test week yet. Even better than my test week before Xmas. Of course with me, there is always one test that was not so good, and this time around it was Histology Lab. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m not even remotely interested in identifying anything via a microscope, but this particular practicum was actually quite challenging. Much more so than I expected; but since I don’t like Histology lab, I didn’t put the correct effort into studying for the practicum (i.e.- please don’t start studying your slides @ 3 a.m. the morning of the test). I’m learning about myself that there really isn’t any class that I take that I can’t understand and do well in. The times when I don’t do well on tests is when I don’t put in the correct study effort. Like with my first (and only so far praise the Lord 🙂 ) failed test in Anatomy, I completely studied from the lecture notes, and I didn’t look at one PowerPoint slide. Well, during this past test week, I completely studied the Anatomy PowerPoints and I barely looked at the lecture notes and I did much better. For the next test cycle, I’m going to definitely try to start studying weeks in advance to make sure that I’m actually familiar with the material. Once again…medical school is certainly doable, but you have to be willing to adapt and change your studying style if the previous one was not working.

Every February, the School of Medicine here at LLU hosts a family day, where your family can come and basically go through a “normal” day of medical school to see what life is like for you. Of course lecture wise, this day isn’t very normal; on our family day, the Dean of the School of Medicine gave us some random lecture that barely applied to what we were currently learning (mind you the Dean has never given us a lecture before). But its ok, cause the parents needed to think that our day was more exciting than the monotony that is our life. My parents got to sit in on the lectures, and go to our patient diagnosis lab where the nurses showed them how to examine a ear and listen to heart and lung sounds. Overall, it was a fun day, and it was nice to finally have my family come from Maryland to visit.

Speaking of monotony, that is basically by now what I can describe medical school as. The initial ‘wow’ and ‘cool’ feelings have been beat out of us, and what we are left with is basically more of the same everyday. Sure stuff is slightly different in that I may wake up 30 minutes later, or that instead of a Embryo lecture today, we had a Behavioral Medicine lecture, but everyday is still basically the same. I wake up, have devotion, start studying, get distracted, started studying for real this time, get distracted, eat, study, exercise (sometimes), play on SDN, etc.

My first year of medical school is almost over…I can almost smell it, and I really couldn’t have waited any longer. I’m learning alot of new stuff, but I’m also learning alot of crap that I dont’ care about and that I don’t think would ever show up on any boards and anything non-PhD related. I, as well as many other medical students around the country, am currently deciding how I’m going to spend the LAST FREE SUMMER BREAK OF MY LIFE. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the medical school process, basically you only get one summer break in medical school and that is the summer between your first and second year. After that you are taking boards (summer after 2nd year) or working in the hospital (the rest of the summers for the rest of your life 🙂 ). Many people decide to either do research, a preceptorship, or mission work. At Loma Linda, many students decide to do overseas mission work. The Adventist Health System has hospitals over over the world including the only non government and non military hospital in Afghanistan. This summer, my wife and I plan to do medical missionary work in Zambia Africa either at the Mwami Hospital in Chipata, Zambia or at the Yuka Hospital in Kalabo, Zambia. If both of the Zambia hospitals fall through, we plan to do mission work at the Bere Health Center in Bere, Tchad. We are really so excited about this opportunity, not only to gain real hands on medical experience but also to reach out to those in need. We are still working out the details (including figuring out how we can get the $5,000 needed to fly there cause we don’t have it), and I will keep you posted on how things go.

Besides that, medical school and life is good. I’ll try to post more often from now on, even if its just a week two sentence update on what is going on with me. Take care!