I have never studied before liked I’ve been studying for the past 3 days. We had our final today in Gross Anatomy Lab, and its OVER!!!! For the final we had a written section and a practicum section. For the written section, the hardest part was remembering all the borders of all these bloody triangles that are in the body. You have a posterior triangle, anterior triangle, submental triangle, submandibular triangle, carotid triangle, muscular triangle, etc. Then you just have plain borders…borders of the neck, borders of the root of the neck, borders of the orbit, borders of the different cranial fossa, borders of blah blah blah blah. While I was studying for the test earlier this week, I called my mom just to complain to someone. I was telling her how tired I was of memorizing these “stupid” borders. I knew the structures cold, but borders took a whole lot of memorization. I told her how unimportant the borders seemed to me, and she slapped me back into reality. She told me that surgeons (which is what I want to be) rely quite heavily on knowing the borders of the different triangles, because when they get into a body, and things look horribly wrong, they need to know the borders and what is usually inside the borders so they know what to look for. She admitted that as a pediatrician, the borders and boundaries mean nothing to her, but she basically told me to suck it up, because it will help in the future. I’m glad I talked to her, because I got more motivation to learn those different borders and triangles. I know I got everything right on the written part, except for THE ONE BLOODY TRIANGLE THAT I TOLD MYSELF WOULD NOT BE ON THE FINAL. It was the blasted muscular triangle…uuggghhhh….I knew I should have memorized that one, but I knew all the other triangles so I figured that was good enough. So yeah, the practicum was quite simply a beast. I’m a very visual person, so I knew what everything was, the problem was that we didn’t have enough time. We had like 2 minutes at each station, and at some bodies, there were more than 11 pins in the body! It takes a lot of time to first off to find the pin, identify what its stuck in, orient yourself so you know whether to call it the “left” or “right” whatever and write it down completely, making sure to put “muscle” if it’s a muscle or artery, vein, nerve, etc. There where many times where I was absolutely blazing through the body, not hesitating at all, and I still had about 2 blank spots when she called “switch”. Anyway, we got 3 minutes at the end to fill in whatever we didn’t identify, but so many people had so many blank spots, that those 3 minutes didn’t help too much. I managed to get everything filled in, but due to time, there is no way I could have gone back and checked the ones I was unsure of. Anyway, it is over, and I have officially passed Gross Anatomy for the first time….hopefully I’ll pass it in med school. Finals week for my school starts May 1st, which is in two weeks, but many of my teachers plan on giving me their final next week. This means that my finals week won’t be real hectic, but it also means that next week is going to suck. I guess I’m a little more pressed right now about grades, because this semester will go on my transcript that I’m sending out to the medical schools, so I want to stay at my current GPA. Photography class is shaping up pretty well. My teacher loves my shots, but I still need to take 6 more good ones so my portfolio will be complete by next Friday. World literature is also looking pretty good. I have a paper due on Othello pretty soon, so I need to get on top of that. For the class part of Gross Anatomy, the final will be comprised of 40% old stuff, and 60% of everything we haven’t been tested on yet. One thing about this whole premed major is that you rarely get time to rejoice after a test, because there is always another one looming. Anyway, until finals week is over, I’m going to be pretty busy.
Last week was Alumni Weekend for Oakwood College. This is a very big weekend for my school, and the campus is basically engorged with thousands of alumni. On the Sabbath, I went over to my teacher’s house for potluck, and I got a chance to listen to two old physicians. I learned so much from them. First off I learned of the blatant racism that they dealt with while they were in school, especially medical school. The doctor that graduated from Loma Linda told me about how (and I hear it’s the same today) the white students will get the old tests from the teachers, and will study from them for the test, while the minority students would never hear about it. He recounted one time where he was studying in the library, and one of his white classmates who he had become friends with asked to study with him (he was just about setting the curve in the class, so they couldn’t ignore him). After a good while of studying, the white student got up, and asked him if he wanted to go and study at his friend’s house. When he got there, there was a whole crowd of his white classmates there surrounding a stack, and I mean a large stack of old tests. When they saw him, they started to gather them up to hide them, but it was too late. One of the most interesting facts I learned from that doctor though was that when he was applying to medical school (he’s like 60 something now), the only school in the United States that accepted less black students than Loma Linda was the University of Mississippi. That was so hurtful to learn how racist my church used to be, but I guess there are bad people in every church. He also told me a lot of plusses about Loma Linda, including the mission program, which he took part in. I truly look up to him for all the mission work he has done, and I hope to be like him one day.
The other doctor I talked to graduated from Howard, and he is in his 50s now. He had a lot of interesting stories about racism too. But aside from that, one interesting thing he told me was how he didn’t fail out of medical school. He told me that one day he was just overwhelmed completely by the sheer volume of material that he had to memorize. He was really going to give up until he was referred to this faculty. She taught him a little studying method that got her through school, because it helped her to memorize things easier. What you do is that you look over whatever you have to memorize, lets say it’s the branches of the external carotid artery. After you look over it in your book, then you close your book, and try to write exactly what you memorized out on paper. Look at what you wrote, throw it away, and open the book back up, grading yourself mentally using your book. Then, as many times as it takes for you to get it right, you close the book again, write out what you memorized, throw away the paper, open back up the book, and grade yourself again. He says that the method works because it sends the info through your brain more times than normal. By writing it out, checking it, and grading yourself. I tried this method when I was studying the borders for all those bloody triangles, and it worked pretty well. I don’t know whether I would have done better with or without it. The method seems more appropriate for Gross Anatomy, but it could probably be applied elsewhere.
At that potluck I also got a chance to talk to Dr. Newman, whose is a 2nd year general surgery resident at the Washington Hospital Center in D.C. He is also a graduate of Loma Linda, and he expressed basically to me how the teachers and white students for the most part ignore the minority students. It kind of scared me at first, because I kind of feel like the Lord is leading me to Loma Linda, but he also told me of a lot of good things about the school too. One thing being that they prepare you for the standardized tests big time. He told me that even though he got a 25 on his MCAT, he BLEW the Step II boards out the water, which allowed him to Match at his #1 spot at the Washington Hospital Center. After all the bad things I heard about Loma Linda, it was nice to hear some good things. Anyway, he is the doctor that I’ll be shadowing this summer, while I’m doing research at Hopkins, so it should be really cool. He told me that I should see a lot this summer because more people seem to get shot during the summer, and just generally get hurt. I’m excited, and hopefully this summer’s shadowing will be as fulfilling as my time at Cincinnati.
Two days ago, I got my packet in the mail from Hopkins, basically outlining the schedule for the summer, and all the different things “required” for the research program. Since Oakwood is paying me, I don’t have to comply too much, but I’ll try to do as much as I can. I’m honestly just doing this for the money, so when it comes time to pick my lab, I’m looking for a laid back lab, and not a lab that wants to win a Nobel prize or anything. I know this sounds bad, but it’s the truth.
Today, I was told something really weird. The chair of the Biology department wants me and my friend (both of us just finished taking Gross Anatomy) to basically show a class of 14 massage students from some school the cadavers and I guess explain stuff to them. To me it seems like scut work, but we’ve been promised $10 so I’ve been appeased a good amount. I actually just realized that we will have to show them the whole body, not just the part that was covered this semester, so I’ll have to look at my atlas to remember everything on the arms, back, thorax, and abdomen (which we covered last semester). Anyway, it seems like I’m getting thrown into the lab instructor mode already with this little activity our biology chair put us on. The current lab coordinator is going to meet with the juniors who took the class I guess to tell us what we need to know to keep the lab going strong. And after finals week, our Gross Anatomy class teacher is going to take us out to dinner to go over some things (I love Ph.Ds, they seem to love to talk things over while having food). Looking back, its absolutely amazing all we have learned, and I’m sure that I will be way ahead of my class come med school time if I continue to review the stuff, which shouldn’t been too hard since I’ll be a lab instructor.
Brittany is gearing up for the MCAT this Sunday. She truly seems more confident than when she took the August MCAT so I believe that she will do better. If you all remember, please pray for her on Sunday, that she blows the thing out the water.
Oh, Brittany and I found our wedding bands at Kay Jewelers…yeah, I know you didn’t care, but I’m running out of things to write. Anyway, other than all that, my life is pretty much uneventful.
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