Missionary Orthopod in the Making

“What am I willing to sacrifice to get this?” This is a question that I’m sure every medical student has asked them self during their matriculation. As you know, people have sacrificed their life for what they thought was important, and medicine is no different.

I can see it happening even now; many medical students have decided to sacrifice their health in order to secure better grades and a better residency spot. It starts with coffee, then caffeine pills, then Adderall, and finally alcohol and drugs. Was the sacrifice worth it? Sure it allowed you stay up many hours past your classmates, and therefore study more, which allowed you to do better than everyone else; but was it worth it?

Unfortunately, the sacrifices aren’t just limited to health but your family also. When my mom finished medical school, she was the only person in her class (that came in married) that hadn’t gotten divorced. There is so much competition in medical school that it is easy to rationalize that, for now, medial school comes before your wife, your kids, your family…they should understand right….I mean, you ARE doing it for them. But at the end of the day, who was this sacrifice really for?

Yesterday, I started thinking (hypothetically): So I sacrificed my social life and friends in college to get a 4.0 and a 44 on my MCAT, ok, now what? So I made it into a top US News medical school with a great reputation, high average Step 1 scores and big name faculty, ok, now what? I sacrificed my marriage and time with my kids in medical school so that I could graduate #1 in my class, get AOA status, and secure a great competitive neurosurgery residency, ok, now what? I spent the next 7 years of my neurosurgery residency making sure that I was the very best resident, practically living at the hospital to impress my attendings and secure great recommendations for my upcoming application to a fellowship in skull base neurosurgery; ok, now what? I secured the skull base fellowship and finished, of course #1 out of all the fellows, securing a great faculty position at Harvard’s Mass General Hospital………….ok, now what? After all this I am the big cheese in the eye’s of man and I’m getting paid (finally) around $600, 000 a year, but my wife is gone, my kids don’t know me, I’ve taken up smoking and drinking to forget my problems, and my relationship with Christ is basically nonexistent. At the age of 34 (when I’ve finally completed all this) I’ll sit down and ask myself, was it worth it?

Unfortunately, while you are working through medical school, its hard to realize that this great rat race can cause you to give up what matters most in the end. Seriously; of course God required sacrifices from the Israelites, but to Him, the sacrifices weren’t the object of importance:

But Samuel replied:
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams. (2 Sam. 15:22)

Of course medical school requires some sacrifices, which is why those that shunned the college party life usually have less trouble making it in. But to what extent should we sacrifice to get what we want? This isn’t a question that anyone can answer for you, but I implore every student that has been accepted to medical school to take serious thought to this, because it can affect what truly matters in life.

What happened to the surgeon title in my blog name? Well I’ve been pondering it a lot, and this is all related to a different mindset that I’m taking as I matriculate through medical school. Lately I’ve been asking myself:

“What if God doesn’t want me to be a surgeon?”

Personally, I still really like surgery, but if I ignore God’s leading to another area who knows what could happen. If He wants me to be a family practice doc, I want to be open and willing enough to do that; not set in my own ways.

We got all of our grades back, and besides anatomy, I scored better on the other test than I’ve ever scored! So yeah, you have to roll with the punches in medical school, because it can definitely be a roller coaster of emotions and experiences.

Today marked the end of the hardest test week that I’ve had while I’ve been in medical school. I don’t know how the school did it (seeing as how this quarter was shorter due to the Thanksgiving break), but they managed to pack more information into this quarter than we’ve had before. When I say that I had a rough week, I really really really really really mean that I had a rough week. I was deliberating as to whether I should fully disclose what kind of week I had, because some of my classmates read my blog (hey Vicki 🙂 ), but I’d rather be honest than save face, plus I’ll probably look back on this years from now and laugh.

So yeah, last Friday, actually marked the beginning of our test week. On Friday, we had a cardiac auscultation exam where we donned computerized stethoscopes, and as the teacher played different combinations of heart murmurs and heart sounds, we had to diagram what we were hearing., and diagnose what condition the patient had. It sounds simple enough, but when you have a mid-systolic murmur mixed with an ejection sound, and a diastolic murmur with an S3 sound, things can get a little hairy. Anyway, the weeks leading up to the auscultation exam were rough because I had no idea how to study for it, while many of my classmates utilized a simulation lab on campus that I knew existed, but that I didn’t know was open for us to utilize. It really kind of hurt me that as much as I try to help my classmates out by e-mailing out my notes and helpful websites, that no one thought to tell me about this simulation lab. Anyway, I’m realizing that medical school is alot different from my college, and that I have to fend for myself. With that said, I left the auscultation test feeling like I had just been castrated while simultaneously getting pistol whipped. I KNEW that I had failed that test, and I started to get really down on myself. I felt that if I couldn’t hear the heart sounds correctly, what kind of doctor would I be.

So I started the weekend, already down from my failure of the auscultation exam. The first test of this week was Anatomy combined with Embryology. The amount of information we had to cover was simply monstrous, and I really studied my but off. I studied anatomy for like 6 hours on Sunday, and then I woke up around 3 a.m. Monday morning, and I continued to study for Anatomy. When I sat down to take the test, I just couldn’t believe what they had done. Basically the first 2 pages of the exam contained VERY SPECIFIC questions on the larynx (last term’s information), and I had basically studied my butt off for the abdomen, which was what they taught us this term. Anyway, I left the test not feeling too good about it, but I was pretty sure I at least passed. The next day’s test was Immunology, which had the potential to be more massive than the Anatomy test, so I started studying big time for the test after the Anatomy test was done. Around 9 p.m. that night, we were able to log on to our school account and view our grades for Anatomy. I was anxious to see how I did; I really wanted a B, but I would settle for a C. I logged on and I saw……62%-FAIL (the word “fail” was actually in red, while tests you pass are in green 🙂 ). I couldn’t believe it….when I took my Evidence Based Medicine test, I was sure that I had failed, but the Lord worked some kind of miracle, and allowed me to pass. I thought (from the EBM test experience) that the Lord was telling me to trust Him…to trust that He will take care of me, even when I feel like I’ve failed. So, with that in mind, I just couldn’t understand why God would let me fail this test. Especially anatomy, which I tend to do VERY WELL in normally. It bothered me all night while I was studying for the Immunology test, but I tried my best to shake it off. I woke up the next morning (the morning of the test) still thinking about the Anatomy test; this was my first failure of anything since I started medical school. I tried to forget about it, but the combination of the failed auscultation exam, the stress from the anatomy failure and the stress of studying for the immunology test took its toll, and I honestly couldn’t control the tears. I felt like a failure, I felt like God had left me, and I just couldn’t understand what I had done to deserve these sequences of bad events. After much consolation from my wife and my mom, I sobered up and continued to study for my Immunology test. I learned alot from their advice and from the book of Job, all of which can be described in this song:

My life has been filled with many blessings, with few to almost no disappointments, which is why it was so hard for me to accept this one. But I had to learn, and I think everyone should learn, that Jesus does not shield you from trials; in fact, sometimes He puts you in the trial himself. Anyone can love and praise a God in good times, but the true test of the relationship is what you do when things aren’t going so good. As the song said, I’ve learned that whatever happens, it is “right and good”.

So I took the Immunology test, and I felt really good abouy it. Then I took my Anatomy practical on Wednesday, and I knew I didn’t get a 100%, but I was pretty sure I did very well. Then I studied amazingly long and hard for yesterday’s exams (Biochem & Physiology), which I believe turned out pretty well. Yesterday also I was pleasantly surprised. The cardiac auscultation exam that I took last Friday that I was sure I had failed, actually turned out to be a PASS when I checked my grades yesterday. I honestly couldn’t believe it; I rechecked and refreshed my screen multiple times, but the grade didn’t change. By the time I took my last test (Physical Diagnosis) today, I was tired, but my spirits were not down at all. And I am actually happy that I failed a test in medical school. I realized the reason why I failed the test (I studied the lecture notes but not the powerpoints), and now that I’ve had a failure, I’m not as scared of it anymore, and I’m confident that it won’t happen again.

—————————–

Our school recently set it up so that we could see our grades and the complete stats for each test for the class. After they allowed this, I realized that on every test we have taken, someone has scored a 100% or a 95%. I got discouraged at first, but then I was told by my 2nd year mentor that 20 people are repeating their first year from the 2nd year class, so we have 20+ people in our class that have seen all this information before. I can’t really compete with them and stay sane, so I’ll just try my best.

Tomorrow morning I fly home to Maryland to enjoy my 2 1/2 weeks of freedom. I honestly and sincerely plan to do nothing. I know folks may look at me doing nothing, and want to give me something to do or invite me to do something, but if I say yes, then I would be going against my plan to do nothing. So I’ll just try my best to veer towards complete nothingness for this Christmas break.

P.S.- The Lord really works in funny ways. Even though I had my first failure of medical school, I think I did better on the remaining tests of the week than I’ve ever done. We’ll see how it goes when we get all of our grades next week.

“Like drinking from a firehose”….that statement is definitely an understatement of what medical school feels like right now. A firehose is doable; what I’m drinking right now doesn’t quite have an adjective yet. Tests are in one week and I feel like I’m sinking…dying from behind…not ready…

So my second test week is over and how did I do……not too bad. I must admit though that this test week seriously tested my faith in God. The week didn’t start out well at all. First we had anatomy/embryology, which I had really really studied, but the embryology questions that the teacher decided to give us were really not what I was expecting, and my grade represented that. The second test I had was Evidence Based Medicine………..this test truly lubed me up and went to town. To me it was harder than the MCAT or any other test I’ve ever taken and it shouldn’t have been that hard. Even my classmates that already had the Master’s of Public Health (MPH) were exclaiming how crazy the test was (and crazy for them really meant that it marginally easy compared to it being completely easy like normal J ). After that test was when I truly started to get depressed. I just couldn’t understand how God could let me think I was prepared for this test. If it wasn’t for the serious encouragement of some class mate friends, I would have let this depression affect the rest of the tests for the week. But they snapped me out of it, and what I realized was that I hadn’t yet learned how to have faith and praise God when things are bad. It was really easy to do it when things were good, but when a serious trial came, I realized that I was lacking in that department. But it was a good lesson learned, and despite the way I felt after that EBM test, I didn’t fail it, which is a huge miracle. The tests for the rest of the week went well.

What I’m also learning in medical school, and I think that every medical student/future medical student should learn this also, is that I ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT compare myself to my classmates. Most pre-medical students are used to being at the top of their class, but when you put the smartest people from all the universities into one class, someone has to be ranked 1 and someone has to be ranked 150. Besides EBM, I did pretty well on my tests, scoring above the class average, but my bloody class rank doesn’t seem to represent that. I was fretting about that for a while, but my wife slapped some sense into me. Besides the point that pre-clinical grades don’t really matter for residency (unless you are going for Derm), I’m doing the best that I can, and I should…am happy with my efforts.

 Besides the pseudo-academic problems, everything else has been alright. We had a Surgery Interest group meetig, and I thought that it would really be a “Gathering of the Gunners”, but there actually weren’t as many people there as I thought there would be, and generally, everyone seemed pretty nice. The residency director for the surgery program at LLU spoke to us, and he was the most down to earth, calm, amicable surgeon I’ve met (besides my surgery mentor who I shadowed back in undergrad).  He was a surgical oncologist and he went through the basics of what it takes to get into their surgery residency, and how you can balance family life and surgery. In terms of what it takes, he told us that they won’t accept a board score lower than a 200, but of course they would prefer much higher. They are this way because research has shown that how you do on step 1 is a direct indicator for how you will do on your surgery boards and ABSITE test. I’ve never really been a good standardized test taker, but I hear that Step 1 is different from the MCAT and the SAT, so hopefully I can do better.

As much as I have loved using the iFlash program for a study tool, I realized that I was relying too much on the program, and that I wasn’t spending enough quality time with the lecture notes that they gave us. I think this is the reason why I didn’t do so well on my anatomy/embryology and EBM tests. I’m still not going to class, but I’ve been reading the text books a lot more and annotating my notes a lot more too. If there is information that requires rote memorization, then I’ll use the iFlash cards to help me out. I think that that is the interesting part of medical school; you really have to be flexible and willing to change your studying style if its not working exactly right for you. My previous studying method was actually working pretty well, but I want to stop getting Bs on tests and actually get As, which takes a little more attention to detail. The crazy thing is that the difference between a B and an A on our tests is like 3 points, so I’m really not going to fret it too much if it doesn’t work out. I just want to know the information well, so I won’t be relearning stuff come Step 1 time, like I had to do for the MCAT. Anyway, that’s my life for now. You can check out my schedule for the week below:

WEDNESDAY – 14	THURSDAY – 15		FRIDAY – 16
Immunologic techniques [CS&F: Gridley]	Biology of B lymphocyte [CS&F: J. Lewis]		Biology of T lymphocyte [CS&F: J. Lewis]
Exam of lungs 2 [PDX: Shankel]	Religion		Anterior abdominal wall [Anatomy: Escobar]
Respiration under stress [Physio: Teel]	Non-respiratory functions of the lung [Physio: Teel]		Exam of lungs 4 [PDX: Shankel]
Chapel	Exam of lungs 3 [PDX: Shankel]		Pulmonary Function Testing [PDX: Shankel]
N	C		H
Anatomy Lab: Infratemporal & temporal fossae	Physio Lab: Respiratory24 students (Groups 13-15) Simulation Center, Risley Hall	EBM-IS Small Group Session(groups 1-12) assigned locations

Sorry for my long hiatus, but I’ll try to catch you up.

On Call with OB-GYN

From my title, you can see that I’ve partially lost my love for the field of OB-GYN. I really did take the initiative; I signed up for the OB-GYN interest group at my school. At one of the meetings, I signed up to be on call with an OBGYN doc at one of the Kaiser hospitals near by. I was so excited…elated really. I ironed by white coat and my scrubs, brought a notebook, and drove to the hospital with another male classmate of mine interested in OBGYN. The hospital was actually pretty amazing in that they deliver like 420 babies every month. But of course, the day we got there, it happened to be the slowest day in months. They had like 4 women on the board that were induced, but that probably wouldn’t give birth until 14 hours later. We were told to go home and eat, and come back in a couple of hours when the patients were closer to delivery. And of course, one patient delivered (unexpectantly) while we were gone.

So we came back and waited from 1 p.m.; just hoping that one of the patients would hurry up and pop a baby out. That’s all we wanted to see; we wanted to experience that joy of new life. Witnessing this event would have surely solidified my desire to deliver babies for the rest of my life. So 5 hours later, we are still in the hospital, waiting for another patient to give birth while we are there. The nurses are laughing at us, exclaiming that we bring them good luck because no babies are born when we are there. I’m determined though to see a delivery, as well as my classmate. Suddenly, the attending we were shadowing shoots up and runs out the door to deliver a baby. We race after him, anxious to experience the entrance of a new life into the world. As soon as we enter the room, the patient yells, “I don’t want any residents in the room (pointing at us)”. The male attending sadly tells us that we will have to exit the room. We leave, with our heads lowered, but we are sure that there is still hope. So 5 hours later (almost midnight), the female resident on call that night shoots up because her patient is about to deliver. We follow her, anxious for one last chance to see a delivery before we have to go home. By now, even the nurses are rooting for us, because we stayed so long, anxious to see a delivery, to experience the beginning of life. We enter the room with the female OB resident, and the stand around, waiting for it to happen. 30 seconds later, the mother realizes we are in the room (I guess since we are the only guys in there besides her husband) and she asks us to leave. SO AFTER BEING ON CALL FOR 12 HOURS, WE WERE REJECTED TWICE AND WERE SUCCESSFUL IN WITNESSING ZERO DELIVERIES.

I’m sure that this could have just been one bad experience. and I’m sure people will write saying how I should keep at it. But in the 12 hours I was there, I witnessed what might possibly be my life as an OB….REJECTION. I couldn’t imagine going through 4 years of medical school and 4 years of residency just to be told by my patient (whom I went through all this to treat) that she doesn’t feel comfortable with me in the room. For now pregnant woman, vaginas, and babies are out for me.

Asian Stereotype

During my horrible on call time, I met a Korean nurse who I hope doesn’t typify the average Asian parent. Since we had no deliveries to observe, the nurse noticed that we were medical students and started talking to us about her daughter. She told us how her daughter scored a perfect 2400 on the SATs (which I believe is pretty impressive). We were really generally happy for her daughter, and I asked her if she knew what her daughter wanted to major in. She told me that actually her daughter is looking into B.S./M.D. programs in California. She began to ask us what we thought of those programs. We both told her that they are good programs, but we also exclaimed how much we grew in college and enjoyed the experience. We told her about the long lasting friendships formed, and the opportunity to figure out what you really love in college. I told her how her daughter may find out that she really likes art in college, and she may change her major and end up being a world famous artist. Who knows…but the possibility for her to find herself is always there. The mother responded that her husband wanted her daughter to do the B.S./M.D. program because he didn’t want her to have the chance to change her mind as to whether she wanted to be a doctor or not. They figured that if she did the combined program, that she would definitely be a doctor (what they wanted) and not something else (possibly what she could want). The mom admitted that the husband was a little too strict and that she wouldn’t mind giving her daughter time to decide (she said this after we described the rigors of medical school). I don’t remember the rest of the convo, but I felt so bad for the daughter. I know not all Asians are forced by their patients to go to medical school, but this girl definitely was. If I didn’t really want this, I definitely wouldn’t want to go through all this crap to get an M.D. Its just not worth it.

Test Week is Coming Up

This upcoming week is my last week before my 2nd test block. The days really kind of blend together when you study a lot. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t study 24/7 at all. I have time to waste on SDN, to play intramural basketball, and to watch the whole 1st season of West Wing (don’t try this at home). Anyway, the test week is coming and I feel a lot less anxious this time around. They squeezed way more information into this test block, but its definitely do able. I probably won’t post again until after the test week is done.

Ministry in the Projects

I am truly enjoying working with the kids every Saturday. Its amazing to see them come in so eager to read the bible and memorize the texts. I applaud the community programs that try to rehabilitate teens on drugs, pregnant teens, those in prison, etc. But I truly like it better when you catch them before they head down that wrong path. I can see the transformation in these kids, and I know it can only be God.

Everything Else

In order to really look like a smart medical student, I bought these two books:

That’s right folks…you are looking at a combined 5, 670 pages of pure knowledge. Any real medical student will pick up one of these babies during their leisure time just to pass the time. Personally I find it much more stimulating than reading the encylopedia like I do every Sunday :). Seriously though, these books have way more information than I would really care to know. I think their real purpose is to “pose” on your library shelf so when patients walk in, they’ll think you are somewhat intelligent.

On a final note. One thing that I have been constantly trying to keep in the fore front of my mind is what I’m doing all of this for. Is it for me, or for Christ? Is Christ leading my decisions, or am I making them and telling Him to get with the program? Its so easy to get self-confident in this field that I think its important for all of us to perform a humility dipstick test, to see how we measure up. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us to “Seek ye first the kingdom and heaven, and all of these things will be added unto you”. So if the service and honor of God are our main goals, everything else will fall into place. Seemingly complicated decisions (usually based off of worldly desires and selfishness) will suddenly become quite simple. I encourage everyone to actively seek God’s guidance your daily decisions. Consult him with all of your worries. He won’t let you down.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this already, but I was really getting depressed about studying constantly but not doing anything “good” for anyone else. I was praying for the Lord to give me an outlet like what I had at Oakwood, and he answered my prayer almost immediately. Surrounding the Loma Linda area is a city called San Bernadino, and from what I heard, it has the highest crime rates in all of Southern California (or maybe the whole state).  Anyway, with that being said, the kids in this city really need  mentoring and a real change in role models. A representative at my school was saying only 2 kids out of a class that start kindergarten in San Bernadino will graduate from college.

An opportunity opened up where every Sabbath morning I (along with other medical students) have the opportunity to have Sabbath school with the kids. We teach them bible songs, scripture, bible stories through skits, morals, etc. It feels so good to final give back again, and now I have something to look forward to every weekend. The boys are really receptive too; I can tell that they rarely have positive/uplifting encounters with older guys. I really encourage every medical student to do something outside of themselves where they are giving of themselves without any thought of material returns. For me it helps me to retain perspective about my future goals as I study.

Other than that, medical school has been rolling as normal. We are on the Cardiovascular section of our curriculum so everything we are learning is geared in that direction. It is pretty challenging, but is cool that we are finally learning more clinical information. After studying more information about the EKG than I thought existed, I was watching the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy and stuff actually made sense. Other stuff on the show was now more clearly false :), but I guess its a drama so you can only expect so much.

I’ve been attending a lot of interest groups that the school has like the OBGYN interest group, Mission interest group, etc.  The specialty of OBGYN still seems really really interesting. I know that whatever I do has to have some surgery in it, but I’ll still try to stay open minded. Even though we haven’t had our first Surgery interest group meeting, alot of people seem to be gunning for office in it. I can’t lie and say that I didn’t send in my bio, but I’m not as pressed as others. I’m already the web coordinator for our class, but I just thought it would be nice if I could be involved with an interest group I’m interested in. We had a Mission interest group meeting and I’m pretty sure that my wife and I will be going on an overseas mission during this upcoming summer. I don’t think I’ll be doing research but we’ll see. Anyway, I’m babbling for now, so I’ll write when more interesting stuff comes up.

Ok, maybe its a Californian thing, and I just find it weird because I’m from Maryland. But I was walking around a mall in the Riverside, CA area and I see countless teenage boys dressed like this:

What is going on with our society when the boys feel like they need to wear stretch pants? I’m not old, I’m 22, and I find this absolutely repulsive. When I was a teenager (ages ago 🙂 ) we would pride ourselves in wearing slightly baggy jeans. The girls wore the stretch pants, and we were the normal fitting jeans. Is its a gay thing? I don’t know, but things like this make me more certain that I will never raise my kids in this state. Pretty soon the guys are going to start wearing halter tops.

It’s OOOOOVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don’t believe in God before you start medical school, you quickly become a believer (of something higher than yourself) when you study and take these tests. We were given these lectures notes 4 weeks ago:

And believe it or not, we have covered all of the information! When you start medical school, you will truly be surprised at how much you can cram into your brain. You will also be surprised at how incredibly smart your classmates are. In college, the class average for a test will usually be around 68%, and you being the smart pre-med that you are :), will usually be scoring in the 90s. Well, check out the stats from our tests this week:

Medical Biochemistry

Points Possible: 40
Class Mean: 31.03 (raw)
Class Standard Deviation: 4.70 (raw)

Medical Physiology

Points Possible: 48
Class Mean: 38.15 (raw)
Class Standard Deviation: 5.23 (raw)

Patient Diagnosis

Points Possible: 26
Class Mean: 20.98 (raw)
Class Standard Deviation: 2.16 (raw)

Cell Structure and Function (Histo)

Points Possible: 63
Class Mean: 50.06 (raw)
Class Standard Deviation: 6.16 (raw)

Evidence Based Medicine

Points Possible: 52
Class Mean: 43.96 (raw)
Class Standard Deviation: 4.88 (raw)

Gross Anatomy

Class Mean: 37.2 (raw)
Class Standard Deviation: 4.5 (raw)
Points Possible: 45

As you can see, the class averages are much higher than you would see in a normal undergrad class. And that is the hard truth when you come to medical school; the class HAS to split between those at the top of the class and those at the bottom. It can be a sobering realization when you are at the bottom of your medical school class and you aren’t scoring below 75% on your tests (meaning you aren’t doing too bad at all). Medical school has taught me to be 110% thankful to SIMPLY PASS my tests. That was our prayer (my wife and I) as we studied this week; “Lord, just help us to pass”. And you know the great thing about the Lord is that not only will He answer your prayer, but He’ll throw in a little more to sweeten the deal. He answered our prayer, and we did pass all of our tests this week; He blessed us even more by allowing us to score above the class average on almost all of our tests. I know it may not always happen this way, but I’ll take it as long as the Lord gives it. The sad reality of seeing the data above, with the standard deviation is that some people did not pass (passing is set at about 68% or 69%). And I know that they studied hard too; that is why it would be so discouraging to realize that your game plan for studying wasn’t what worked best for you. But the best thing about LLU is that every class is worth the same and its all based on points, so even though you might fail a 28 point test this time, you can rock the 52 point upcoming tests, and be right on track.

So how did I study for all of these tests? We’ll I’ve learned that what works best for me is not going to class. I miss the socializing, but I get that when we meet for labs and small groups. As I read through all the mess they want us to learn, I type questions and answers using a note card software. At first I was using CueCard, but now I’m using a Mac version, iFlash, which costs about $15, but is DEFINITELY worth it. When you type up 257 questions for one class, you are bound to see some of those questions pop up on the test, and I definitely did. I’m not saying that my method is the best, but if someone else finds it helpful, then I’ve done my good deed for the day.

It feels odd typing this blog entry and not feel guilty because I should be studying. I actually have nothing to study…no, BRS books to read…no Netter’s Atlas to browse through. It is truly liberating, and although it starts back up on Monday, everyone is cherishing this free time. My wife went out to spend our money (that’s how she celebrates I guess), and I would do the same but my toys are too expensive :). Anyway, I’m working on more meaningful posts, so stay tuned!

For those of you that are still in college….do you remember when finals week would come up and you would really start studying..probably about 5 good hours a day for the hard classes like Biochem? Well that is what medical school is like, except you are studying like that everyday, and sometimes you wish you could study more. The “drinking from a fire house” analogy that is often used to describe medical school is certainly appropriate, but surprisingly, you find that you can chug down more fluid that you thought possible. My first test is next week Monday, and we’ll be tested on Anatomy and Evidence Based Medicine. I feel that I’m prepared, but you really can always study more…just one more clinical correlate, just one more cohort trial example, just one more whatever. Thank the Lord for this upcoming Sabbath; I have 24 hours of no studying…guilt free too.

So how have I been studying? The greatest thing that happened me (besides marriage) was someone on SDN telling me about this CueCard software. As I’m reading a book or the lecture notices, when I see something that I would normally highlight, instead I turn it into a question and write the answer for it in this software. Then I can go back and the program will actually shuffle the cards so I can truly study. You can even print the cards out and use them like normal note cards. Personally I really think that this method is working for me, as well as not attending class. I may attend class this next quarter simply for the reason that I miss my classmates, and I feel like I’m being too much of a loner, but at least for this test, it is really more beneficial to just stay home.

In my last entry I posted the list of specialties that best fit my personality according the that UVirginia survey. I was really quite surprised about OB-GYN. Its a speciality that I never even thought about because of the plethora of vagina that you had to deal with, but when I really thought about it: 1) I love surgery 2) I really love people 3) I like kids. OB-GYN really has a great combination of all three; I’m not saying that I’m selling out on general surgery, but I”m going to definitely keep my options open when I do my OBGYN rotation.

Am I scared about my first test week in medical school? Slightly, but I know that other people have made it through, and regardless of MCAT, GPA, or genetics, they all can’t be 2000% smarter than me, so it has to be possible to pass these tests. That is one thing that I am thinking quite differently about. In undergrad, passing was failing for me. I had to get a 90% or higher to have done well on a test. In medical school, I AM JUST PRAYING TO PASS :). Maybe once I get more confident about the course I’ll try to strive for better, but for this first section, a pass is all I want to see. One thing about test week and the days preceeding it is that you really just want to studying non-stop, but I’ve truly realized that that is low yield. I go as long as I can (which is usually about 5 hours) and then I stop, and I go to bed by 10 p.m., wake up at 5 a.m., having devotion and go at it again. I’m truly embracing that I just can’t know everything.

I truly appreciate that I at LLU. Its a wonderful school and you can definitely tell that most of the people here are Christian. Of course we have a few obvious gunners, but at least Christian gunners try to act slightly better. I’m pretty tired right now, so I’m going to turn in, but I’ll post again after next week is over to tell you how it went.

So a took one of those medical aptitude tests at http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/specialties/ and this are the top 10 specialties that matched my personality:

1 general surgery
2 obstetrics/gynecology
3 gastroenterology
4 colon & rectal surgery
5 nuclear med
6 pathology
7 otolaryngology
8 orthopaedic surgery
9 thoracic surgery
10 occupational med

If I can actually pass 1st and 2nd year, I would love to go into Gen. Surg. I think I’ll be more positive once my test week is over.

    If I was in college, I wouldn’t even know there was a test coming up until like 3 days before the test. Its not that my college teachers didn’t annouce the test, but I just didn’t take note of it until about 3 days before. Well, I’m in medical school now and I’ve been thinking about our first test block since our first day of classes. The first 2 weeks of school have been pretty ok to be honest. I had always heard of medical students describing medical school work as drinking from a firehouse, but I hadn’t felt like that yet. I mean, it was alot of information, but I was studying like 4 hours a day, and I felt ok. Well, I think I understand now. We have two weeks until our first test week, and I’ve studied more information in these past 2 weeks than I would have studied in a whole semester in college. And they plan to give us more lectures right up to the Thursday before test week.

I’m really not freaking out, but after sitting through 2 hours of boring Histology lecture and some other classes today I realized that I’ve been going about this studying thing all wrong. You see, my normal routine is that I wake up at 5 a.m. and have devotion with my wife til around 6 a.m. Then I preview the lecture material and groom myself between 6 a.m. and 7:55 a.m.  I get to class by 8 a.m. and I sit through lecture until 12 when we have a lunch break. If I don’t have lab in the afternoon, then I go home, and and study until around 8 or 9 p.m. (not straight studying because I take alot of breaks). Then I try to excerise between 9 and 9:50 p.m., and then I got sleep by 10 p.m. The problem is arising during lecture and my afternoon studying. You see, I realized pretty early in college that I don’ t learn by sitting in lecture, especially when the teacher quizzes you from the stuff that comes from the book. I’ve been going to lecture simply because everyone else is, but I sit through lecture, and besides the occasional, “This would be a good test question”, phrase that the teachers may mention, I don’t get much from it. I end up having to read through all the lecture notes and reference with BRS books along with the other reference books anyway. I also learned in college that my mind is much more sharp in the morning than in the afternoon; but I’m usually studying all afternoon. So as you can see I wasn’t being real with myself. So with two weeks left, I am changing my whole game plan. I AM BOYCOTTING CLASS ATTENDENCE (besides lab and required stuff). I’ll just stay home and study what I would have had to study anyway in the afternoon. Then I’ll listen to the lectures for the day (they are audio tapped); then I’ll exercise and and study more if I need to. Medical school is all about figuring out what works for you, and I think that I’ve finally realized what works for me. We’ll see whether this was a stupid mistake once our first test block is over. Our test week is proceeding as follows:

Sept. 17 / 8:30-11:30 a.m.: Gross Anatomy and Evidence Based Medicine

Sept. 18 / 8:30-11:30 a.m: Cell Structure and Function (basically Histo)

Sept. 19 / 8:30-11:30 a.m: Patient Diagnosis and Physiology

Sept. 20 / 8:30-11:30 a.m: Biochemistry

Sept. 20/ 1-5 p.m.: Gross Anatomy and Cell Structure & Function PRACTICUMS.

Even though I have so much to study, I’ve realized that you have to take breaks or else you will kill yourself. So I’ll take Sunday off to enjoy the LA beach scene, but on Monday I’ll be back at it. Don’t expect too much from me until our first test week is over. After the test I’ll know whether I can still blog under the medical student category lol, :). If not then I’ll make a living collecting cans or shoe shining.

So I start school tomorrow and it is truly an exciting/scary prospect. Its wierd, because I’ve worked and prayed for this for so long, and now its here. My time on the wards was a good experience, and if anything, it allowed me to bond with my fellow classmates. I got to present a patient in the cadiac PICU, which was really cool and exciting, but besides that, it was basically more monotonous rounding.

So we had our 2nd orientation on Friday where we got our anatomy lab locker keys, our microscopes, our lecture notes for the 1st term, and more general school rules. I figured out a way to record the audio of our lectures directly onto my PDA, and so my plan was to send my phone with my wife so that she could record the lectures for me while I stayed home and read what I thought was important. It seemed like a good deal because they upload the PowerPoint’s onto Blackboard and they give us the lecture notes, so with the lecture audio recordings, the triangle would be complete. Even though its a pretty good idea, I think that I’m going to play it safe and get into a really good regimen. What was suggested was that I wake up early and preview the information in the lecture notes that the teacher would lecture on that day, then I would go to lecture already knowing what concepts that I didn’t understand and see what the teacher stressed or didn’t stress, then I would eat lunch, come home and study for like 4 hours everything that I learned for the day. This way I get the information 3 times, and hopefully it sticks. I’ll still record the lectures in case I fall asleep but hopefully this works. I’ll try it for the 1st quarter, and if it doesn’t work, then I’ll switch to my no lecture attendance regimen. In terms of studying, I’m armed with the following:

[Show as slideshow]

I’ll probably start my day off at 5 a.m., so that in the morning I can wake up, have devotion, eat breakfast, preview for the day’s lecture, and groom myself. Some days I’ll be done class at 12 and some days I won’t be done until 4 p.m., but either way I want to study for at least 4 hours after lecture, review all the information presented for the day and making sure that I understand it. I heard that getting a tutor is a good idea, if anything if it was just to know what to expect on the test, but I’ll wait until I can figure out which class will be crazy to me.

Anyway, that’s my life for now. I’ll post later.

So as you know during the first 2 weeks of school at LLU, the medical students are in the hospital. They split us up randomly in terms of what service each student would be in, and I was put in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). So how has my week been? I guess I could describe it as mostly saddening and boring. Its not that I hate pediatrics or kids; I actually learned that I have a really soft spot in my heart for kids in the hospital. What I do hate is ROUNDS. I HATE ROUNDS. I come in at 8 a.m., and we round almost the whole day. The first problem with rounds is that we are standing the whole time; the second problem with rounds is that at this point in my training, I have absolutely no idea what the 4th years and residents are saying when they present their patients; the 3rd thing that I hate about rounds is that I have to wear a shirt, slacks, and a TIE; the 4th thing I hate about rounds, especially PICU rounds is that we stand outside the door and talk about the care of the patient. We barely go in, or “DO” anything during rounds, but we sure do talk about them. Yesterday after rounds, I was sure that my feet were going to fall off of my ankles. I was sure that rounds were a tool of the devil, as is research; but a purchase I made at the Sports Authority last night changed everything:

Crocs…yes crocs are truly the best thing since sliced bread. Yes I still had a shirt and tie on, but today, my feet…felt so GOOD! We rounded for a good amount of time today, but since my feet weren’t hurting anymore, I actually had time to enjoy certain portions of rounds; even the time when the doctors were speaking in their abbreviation language (Patient is a 35 wkr, CDH s/p repair 3/12. H/o ECMO. Cholestasis, pulm htn, feed intol. Tx for census issues. On NCPAP). Even though I had rounding issues this week, I did have a number of experiences that I’d like to share.

First, throughout all of my experiences this week, I’ve been perplexed by the overwhelming empathy that I’ve felt for the patients. This scared me, because I guess I had a concept that overwhelming empathy and being a great doctor weren’t compatible. I first experienced this empathy when we were rounding and we entered the room of a little girl who had been septic on arrival. She started getting a lot of fluid around her lungs, probably due to an infection in the lungs and the doctors had to insert a chest tube to drain the fluid off so her lungs could re-inflate. When she saw us walking into the room with our white coats she said in a little, tiny, soft voice, “Please don’t stick me”. My heart really started to break when I heard this. Unfortunately, she was equating the white coat with more pain, and when you are in the PICU, pretty much everything is potentially painful.

There was also a little 3 year old girl who started to have a seizure in the PICU. When we walked into the room her mother was lying on the bed with the girl, stroking and holding her daughter as she convulsed. Her father was standing on the side of the bed, pensive, pacing back and forth. The residents and the attending took over, pushing the meds necessary to calm the girl’s seizures, but you could just see the parent’s faces, and you knew that they were agonized over the state of their daughter. Neurosurgery came and took the girl.

There was another case when a boy who was in the adolescent ward started to code and our team was paged. We literally ran down to the next floor to reach this boy, and his sister was standing in the doorway crying. By the time we arrived, a lot of nurses were already there, and the whole scene really looked chaotic. I was observing the doctors try to gain control of the boy’s breathing, but my attention started to be drawn to his little sister, who was sobbing silently outside the door. I’m sure she had cried many times before over the state of her brother, but this was the first time I had seen her, and my heart really went out to her. Since I really couldn’t do anything to help her brother I wanted to go to her and just hug and console her; but I restrained myself because I hadn’t seen any doctors do that all week. At a certain point I just couldn’t wait anymore and I went over to talk to her and just tell her that the doctors are going to try to their best to make her brother better. I asked her her name and patted her back, but that is as far as I could go, for fear of looking un-doctor like.

I wouldn’t consider myself one of those bleeding-heart medical students, but there comes a point when you just have to be human and allow your empathy to show through. From seeing many 4th years and residents, I can see how medical education can make you cynical, mechanical, and unfeeling. But I don’t think that I have to be like that. And honestly, I believe that I can still be empathic, and be a great doctor/surgeon. After these experiences, I’ve set in my mind that I won’t allow this process to make me cynical. Sure there are a lot of problems in the profession, and some patients that really annoy you but I think that if we truly evaluate how Christ walked the earth, and how he treated even the lowest of the low, we would all approach our patients with a patient (though often tried), unbiased love. Lol, ok I’m done wit my dissertation.

Another issue that I’ve been pondering from my ward experiences is when enough is enough. One thing that you see in the PICU are kids who were just born medical “jacked”. They have numerous chronic conditions which render them immobile and restricted to ventilators, ECMO machines, and hospital beds. One patient that comes to mind is a little girl that I saw that came into the hospital a couple of years ago with a lot of fluid in her brain (hydrocephaly). The neurosurgeons installed a VP Shunt to drain the blood out of her brain. Well, the girl was back in the hospital because there was a problem with the VP shunt. The VP shunt was backed up which was causing fluid to be retained in her brain, which was causing her brainstem to be pushed further out of the base of her skull. This of course is quite bad, but if the neurosurgeons tried to replaced her VP shunt, there is a high risk of infection, so the options are to possibly cause an infection by fixing it, or letting her die from the compression of her brainstem. This was just one of many medical problems that the girl had. And once again, it brought to my mind the question of when is enough just really enough? I realize that most people deserve a chance, but when you see these little babies with dozens of tubes and wires coming out of them, and you know that they will probably live like that for most of their life, it makes you wonder, “Why don’t the parents let their kids go?” Its probably easier said than done, but I’m a believer in a good quality of life rather than just plain ‘ole life. Sometimes I think we try to play God and extend something that is virtually already lost, but if we truly believe the message in 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17, then we will be comforted with the knowledge that we will see our loved ones again. And they won’t have debilitating diseases when we see them again. Of course you have those miracle cases where the patient gets better and lives a normal life, but it seems like that is definitely the exception to the sad rule.

I’ve learned a lot more while being on the wards, but what I’ve definitely learned is that I don’t like sick kids. So Peds is probably out, but I’m quite thankful for the experience. I’ve realized that you don’t have to play into the stereotype of the jock, mean, arrogant surgeon, or the weird psychiatrist, or the “never grew up” pediatrician. You just be you and enjoy what you are doing. Also, after this whole week of not really understanding much of anything that was said by the residents and attendings, I’ve learned that the 1st two years are probably important and that I shouldn’t try to rush through them. I’ve also learned to look things up that I don’t understand, rather than annoying people and asking a lot of questions. And finally, I’ve learned to keep an open mind, because 3rd year will be the year when I will truly know whether I am the material for surgery.

Anyway, next week is our last week on the wards so I’ll post then.

So I had my white coat ceremony yesterday. You can check out a little summary video below:

I truly feel like a medical student now. The event was truly wonderful and exciting. Everyone was taking pictures and I truly felt like I had “made it”.

______________________
So yeah, it was truly wonderful getting our white coat, and if it wasn’t so obnoxious, I would wear it to the grocery store :). But alot more things are going on. I’ve purchased books, review books (like the BRS and High Yield series), anatomy atlases, etc.

The great thing about going to medical school at Loma Linda is that even though our orientation was on Thursday and Friday, we don’t start classes until August 20 something, because the first 2 weeks of school we put us on the wards in the hospital where we are working directly with 3rd and 4th year medical students and interns (1st year residents). On Friday, we all got our ward assignments (we couldn’t choose ourselves) and as I flipped through the booklet I was joking with my wife that they probably gave me Peds even though I knew I was going to get Surgery; and what do you know…they put me in the Pediatrics group! It stung a little because every single girl that I had met and every male friend I had made so far in the class got surgery, and I got pediatrics, lol. But I’m going to try to keep an open mind and really try to enjoy my experience. And the great thing is that LLU has a great Children’s Hospital, and since pediatrics is such a wide field, I could end up with a pediatric surgeon or in pediatric neurology, etc. So if anything happens while I’m on the wards, I’ll make sure to write about it.

Anyway, thats it for me for now, so check out the schedule below and I’ll blog again when something interesting happens

Today is my first day of medical school orientation! I’ll tell you all about it tonight!
——————————————————————————————–

So today was my first day of orientation and the best way I can describe it is INFORMATION OVERLOAD. Not in a scary way, but just every god given department that Loma Linda had, had a part in the program today, so it kind of dragged along. The breakdown for the day was (with short descriptions):

8 a.m.- Welcome and Devotional by Dean of Admissions
The Dean of Admissions started off by giving us a breakdown of what the class make up was, like how many were married, the variety of research projects, the different countries, the awards, etcetera. I think I came too late to hear the devotional, so all I caught was this part.
8:15 a.m.- Dean’s Welcome by the Dean of the Medical School
Dr. Hadley, our Dean of Admissions came up and had a little powerpoint presentation basically telling us more about him, Loma Linda, and what is expected of us especially after we get our white coat. I began to truly feel a sense of responsibility as he described the trust that people instill in you when they hear you are a doctor. I learned that I truly need to maintain that trust and never betray it.
8:40 a.m.-School of Medicine Programs and Policies: Some Things You should Know
The Dean for Student Affairs basically went through all of the rules, policies, and regulations for the school, including mandatory chapel attendance. I don’t really mind it because ALL Adventist schools have mandatory chapels, from Kindergarten to college. This section kind of dragged on simply because he had to give us all of the information; but I guess every school has to go through this, so I can’t be too mad.
9:20 a.m.- LLU Organizations
-AMA/CMA/SBCMS Student Chapter
-American Medical Student Assocation (AMSA)
– Christian Medical/Dental Association (CMDA)
-Healthy Neighborhoods Project
-Junior Medical Auxiliary
-Macpherson Society Summer Research Scholarships
– Medical Strategic Network (METS)
– STATS
This section was actually pretty cool because each group got to describe themselves to us. I actually saw pretty quickly that I wouldn’t be interested in the AMA, AMSA, CMA and other groups like it. Although these groups would be great clubs to put on my residency application, I’m just not interested in playing an integral role in clubs like I was in college. If I joined any group it would probably be the SNMA chapter and the CMDA because they have missions that I actually care about in this phase of my life.
10 a.m.- Deferred Mission Appointee Program
I was so excited to see this on the program because this is the program that I came to LLU for, that allows you to become a medical missionary while your medical school debt is paid off. I DEFINITELY plan to apply to this program and I really hope I can make the grades during the first quarter to be accepted into the program.
10:05 a.m.- Sophomore Class Presentation: First year Sucess Guide
I haven’t had a chance to read the survival guide book that the sophomore class passed out, but from a quick glance through it seemed like it was extremely helpful. It had lots of advice about how to attack each class and each teacher, and how study. I’m glad that the sophomores decided to reach back and help us out.
10:10 a.m.- Break
10:25 a.m.- Blackboard Information Systeems and Informatics Workshop
Basicaly we learned how to access the campus wide wireless network, and how to log into our blackboard accounts.
10:35 a.m.- Class Picture
We went outside and stood in front of the medical schools while the photographer photographed the whole class from the balcony at the top of the medical school. We actually took this picture before the Blackboard Information Systems session because the fire alarm went off and everyone had to evacuate the medical school. Since we were already outside they decided to just go ahead and take the picture.
11:05 a.m. – LLU Services- Student Affiars
More school policy was presented here.
12 noon- Lunch and Information booths
This time was really great; we had some great vegetarian food, and I got to meet more of my classmates. Also all the clubs and organizations on the campus had booths where we got alot of free stuff.
1:20 p.m.- Welch Allyn Equipment
This is where we signed up to get our equipment for our Patient Diagnosis class. We get a opthalmoscope/otoscope (I really don’t know the name of it) and some other stuff. The cool thing is that we get both the Panoptic and the normal heads all for $730 which isn’t too bad at all.
1:30 p.m.- Alumni Welcome
1:35 p.m.- Financial Aid
2:15 p.m.- Registration
3:30 p.m.- Campus Tours
6:00 p.m.- Alumni ASsociation Pinic

As you can see, the day was absolutely packed with information, but they gave us these great little tote bags, and they had a booth section where different clubs and organizations trying to recruit you gave away free stuff, which was great. I was kind of tricked though, because yesterday, a teacher told me that I don’t need to come dressed up today; only for my white coat ceremony tomorrow. Well today, every guy I saw except me had an oxford shirt on and dress pants, so of course DoctaJay had to be the odd ball out. I was embarassed at first, but then I didn’t care cause I hate ties anyway.

Overall, my class is mostly white, but thats normal. There are alot more minorities in the class than normal; at least 13, which is great. Everyone seems really excited about starting school, and I’m right along with them. Tomorrow we have more preliminary sessions and then at 7 p.m. we get our white coats, so I’ll try to post as many pictures and maybe even a video of it tomorrow. Take care!

The Lord has truly truly blessed me these past couple of weeks. I know I’ve been gone for awhile, but I’ll try to give a thorough update on everything that has happened.

I would say that the single biggest and most important thing that could have happened to me, occurred on July 8, 2007….I married my high school sweet heart!!!

To be honest, the whole day went by in a big blur. My groomsmen kept teasing me, saying that I was going to cry when I saw my bride walking down the aisle, lol, but I proved them wrong. It WAS a very touching moment when the doors burst open and I saw her walking down, as beautiful as an angel.

So after the wedding, we “chilled” at a crazy nice hotel in Annapolis for a couple of days and when we came back home for a couple days to finish packing all of our stuff into boxes; because when we planned to leave Maryland for the honeymoon, it was for good. We went on a nice cruise of the Eastern Caribbean for 7 days, and I truly enjoyed it. We hit Haiti, Jamaica (climbed Dunn Rivers Falls), the Cayman Islands, and Cozumel, Mexico. To be honest, we slept more than we enjoyed all that the ship had to offer. I guess after Africa, the wedding, and packing for our move to Loma Linda we were tired. But like I said, the islands we visited were truly beautiful. I have to admit that the Cayman Islands had the prettiest beaches, with water so clear that you could see the fish swimming around your feet. Check it out:

So as I currently write this, we are on the plane from Orlando to California, and it is certainly a long flight, but we are so happy. This summer has brought so many new experiences. Marriage is already pretty exciting, but then we have the move to Cali, and buying everything for our first place (apartment) together. I have already conceded to not really caring how we decorate the apartment, I just care about the office [the man’s domain J ]. Moving to Cali has been relatively expensive for the both of us:

Car shipping from Maryland to Cali: $1,095
Plane tickets from coast to coast: ~$900
UPS shipping for all the rest of our crap: $300
Having wedding money to pay for it all: PRICELESS, well not really, but definitely less painful

Our car is already in Cali from the car shipping company, and our stuff will get shipped from Maryland probably tomorrow. My wife and I are truly excited about starting medical school, but we are also pretty scared. It’s like we’ve wanted this for so long and worked so hard to get here, and now we are like, “Crap, what have we gotten ourselves into?!!” I guess a lot of soon to be minted medical students begin to feel this way, but I hope that these feelings subside and I can get right to work. LLU really eases you into school though because our white coat ceremony is on August 3^rd, and for the 2 weeks following that event, we are in the hospital with the 3^rd and 4^th year medical students, so we don’t’ start classes until August 27. I think that by that time we should both be ready to get on with school.

Another advantage of marrying someone who is also going to medical school is that you can share materials. Instead of spending almost $2,000 each for equipment and books, we are just going to buy 1 of everything, and if we realize that we actually need 2 of something, we’ll just go and get it. It’s a nice perk along with everything else J. Its so nice also to log onto Facebook and see my friends who have already started medical school in the pictures at their white coat ceremony. A lot of them say that its not so bad quite yet, and that the beginning is mostly review, so I hope it doesn’t suck for us either.

Once I get settled into our apartment at LLU, I’ll start blogging in a more helpful way, but until then I hope you are caught up pretty well.

So yeah, I’m getting married on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m really more than excited and I’m so ready to just get this weekend over with so I can officially be a husband :). One of my groomsmen and I went to AfterHours FormalWear to pick up our tuxes, but we were standing in line for like 1 hour because EVERYONE is getting married on Saturday because its 07-07-07. My wedding is on the 8th, but I still had to endure this wedding rush. Anyway, the next couple of weeks will be kind of crazy, so I’ll post again when I get back from the honeymoon sometime after July 23rd. Take care!!!

I found this article during a recent Google search, and it can be found here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1276505

Its about surgical medical missionary work. Check it out!!!

So how do I study? Well my method is probably similar to others, but I LOVE summary sheets. During the first part of my freshman year I used highlight the book and study that, but that just wasn’t high yield for me because I found myself still slightly reading the unimportant unhighlighted portions of the book. What I began to do after that is turning what I highlighted in my book into questions. So for each chapter (because I love to type) I would have like 60 to 100+ questions coming from what I highlighted. This was pretty high yield and made studying slightly fun. As I got to the upper division classes and the course material became more challenging and increased in volume, I realized that typing out questions took TOO MUCH TIME. So yeah, I switched to my current system, which is basically summarizing in a Word document everything in a chapter that I though was important. I like this method, because now that I’m studying for my Biochemistry ACS final, which covers everything I did this semester plus all that crap from last year, I can just look at the chapter summaries I made last semester and study that rather than rereading the whole chapter. I’ve also found for the pathways in Biochemistry that its easier for me when I make a chart of the pathways detailing for the most part what electron acceptors are used, whether ATP is produced or used, and what the enzyme does. I heard that the Biochemistry ACS exam is mostly pathways, but I’m still studying stuff from last semester to be safe. Anyway, I decided to attached some of the summaries and charts I made from last semester and this semester for Biochemistry BELOW. Hopefully this will give premeds an idea of how I study and hopefully you can glean something and incorporate it into your studying style. There are probably typos, so don’t crucify me. :-).

chap16.doc
chart.doc
chart2.doc
chart5.doc