Missionary Orthopod in the Making

I was reading BK’s diary ( I just started) and I feel so sorry for her. Some of the readers on student doctor really attacked her. Meh, can’t say it hasn’t happened to me, but they really went after her. I guess most people don’t like the fact that she is going into medicine for the opportunities, not the “helping people” part. Although I truly do want to help people, I don’t think that that is an absolute requirement for becoming a physician. If B.K removes a tumor from a 30 year old mother of three, isn’t she helping them? She may not have a wonderful relationship with her patients, but she will certainly help them. Now this is not the doctor that I plan to be, and I truly feel that the more passionate you are, the better doctor you can be, but I don’t think that must be a requirement.

This week was really, really, really, really, really crazy. I almost killed myself on Monday and Tuesday to study for my Genetics test that was supposed to be on Wednesday, but the teacher went of town, and the person that was supposed to administer the test forgot. So we got extra time to study and the test will probably be next week. The next obstacle that came up was our Organic Chemistry Lab project. For 5 weeks prior to this, the class (broken into groups) had been working on synthesizing different products. Our group had to synthesize Benzocaine, which is normally used as a topical anesthetic. It seemed like it was going to be a really cool project, but Benzocaine proved to be the most difficult product to form. While most groups were done synthesizing their project by the 3 week, all of the Benzocaine groups were still in lab. Needless to say, only one group out of 6 formed Benzocaine, and they only got 5% yield. This was really frustrating, especially because this lab project was with 500 POINTS!!! So yeah, it was basically our whole grade and we hadn’t really started on it till Wednesday afternoon. I got home on Wednesday afternoon, and didn’t finish the project till 8 a.m. Thursday morning (yeah, I got like 2 hours of sleep somewhere in there). The presentation went fine, but of course there is always more stuff to do. The presentations started a 1 p.m. and didn’t end till 4:15. Then I had an OBMA officers meeting, which lasted until 5:30. Then I caught some lunch with my girlfriend in the café (hadn’t been in there in a long time, cause I’m off campus), then I had to go to a meeting at 6 p.m. with Dean of Student Affairs. Really the meeting was meant to address some issues that administration had with fraternities and sororities, but they invited the heads of all the clubs on campus. Anyway, that lasted until 7:30, and then I realized I had a Physics test and a U.S. History book review due the next day. I was so tired from my lack of sleep that I went to bed around 9 p.m., hoping to wake up at 3 a.m. to study for my Physics. I woke up, but I didn’t make to my desk until about 4:30 a.m. I got a good amount of studying done, but I didn’t have a chance to write my book review, so I decided to skip Genetics, U.S. History, and Organic to write it. Well, after 3 hours of furious writing, I finished my book review…whew….., but 2 minutes later I realized I had my Physics test in like 3 minutes. So I rushed upstairs to the math department to take my test. I really felt I studied, but Dr. Patel (our Physics teacher) decided to be retarded when he made the test. He had so many questions on there that we had never seen that I’m sure I got like a 70% on that test, but I was too busy to care, it was 11:30 a.m. and I had to rush to the History department to turn in my book review to my teacher before his office hours ended at 12 noon. And what do you know, he’s not there during his office hours ( I hate that), and he doesn’t accept papers under his door. So, in defeat after wasting 3 hours and missing 3 important classes I walked back to the Biology Auditorium where the OBMA meeting would be held. Overall, it had been a hectic and BAD day, and I was feeling really disparaged. Before I walked out from the History department, I kneeled down, and just asked God to bring me peace, because if anyone else talked to me at the moment, I would have went off. Thank god for serenity, because before I got to the biology department, I was smiling again. We had a good meeting, it was a handing over ceremony from the old officers to the new officers. Oh yeah, I didn’t tell yall, but I’m no longer the public relations officer for OBMA, I’m now Vice President. So yeah, after the meeting, I came home, chilled for a while, fixed something on my car, had worship to usher in the Sabbath, and decided to type this. So yeah, that has been my week, pretty mundane right? LOL.

In my last post, Christine left a comment guiding me to a site for black people, lol, called www.blackpeople.us. It has a really cool forum that is specifically for black premeds and medical students. For all the minorities that read my diaries, I really encourage you to go there and join up. No, don’t drop SDN, but it complements SDN’s forums quite well. There are many topics that have been raised by US, like why WE seem to struggle so much in medical school. They mentioned how blacks as a whole don’t support each other like Jews or Indians do. They also mentioned how it was interesting that immigrant black people that came to America seemed to perform equally with non-minorities, which is also quite true. My dad is from Jamaica and my mom is from a small island off Grenada called Caracoo (sp). As I grew up, it was always clear to me that I had to get an education. It was always clear to me that first came elementary school, then high school, then college, then your career. It was always shown to me that education was my key to success, and playing around in school and getting bad grades because I didn’t feel like working for it was a waste of everyone’s time. Many of the blacks I know that have no immediate ancestry to immigrants tend to have this lackadaisical attitude towards school, which truly befuddles me (yeah baby, I’m using big words today,LOL). It’s a culture thing, and its something that is seriously going to have to be addressed. Anyway, they have pretty cool topics and everybody is open and honest there, which is the first thing needed to address the problems that black premeds and medical students have. I applaud Brandon for starting that site, although I think that the domain name is kinda funny, lol.

I was reading Richard’s diary, and he encouraged me to list all of the science related courses I’ve taken, and my advice/suggestions/wish I had knowns for each one. This post is too long, so I’ll post it in the next one. I just wanted to give you’ll the heads up.

Its 12:23 a.m., and I really should be in bed by now. I’ll hit you all up later, probably in a couple of days, after my Organic test. That’s when I’ll give a post that is purely for premeds anxious about upcoming classes. I’ll do post my study habits and give advice overall for how to make it through Freshman year and Sophomore year. Until next time, PEACE!!!