School is School, But Not Exactly

Well, learning to become a doctor over the past couple of weeks has been fun, as you can probably imagine. A lot of people have asked me how I'm enjoying it all. My usual response has been "it's school." Well, the more I go through this rigamarole called med school, the more I realize that while med school is school, there are some very salient differences. Here are a few of them.

1. Self-motivated Mornings

This picture will give you a decent idea of what it looks like outside when I leave for school.




Now, while I've had my fair share of early mornings, med school will stand out as one of the only times in my life that I have willingly chosen to wake up at 5 am in the morning, not because I have something to do, but because I want to get a head start on studying for the day. This fact shocked my own father when I told him. "Who are you an what have you done with my son," he said upon hearing my usual schedule. Waking up early might be one down side to med school, but you gotta change the person you are and the things you like to become the person you want to be.

2. Abnormal = Normal

Med school has taught me in a few short weeks that sanity is for people with free time. Roughly three times a week, I suit up and go into the anatomy lab to cut inside dead bodies like it is no big thing. The other day at Zaxby's, I spent 15 minutes talking to a classmate about the clinical significance of a patient with "milky penile discharge" like it was regular dinner conversation. As we approach our Unit 2 test date next Friday, I have no doubt that people will start losing some marbles, but the beauty of it is that in med school, this is all just normal.




3. High School All Over Again

Whether it's the uniform schedule, the smallness of the class or the constant gossip traffic, med school feels a lot like high school, except replace a bunch of horny teens with a bunch of horny 20-somethings that can drink, smoke, and have an in-depth knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases. It is a formula for disaster and fun. In a few short weeks, I feel that I've gotten to know some of my classmates better than some of my friends that I've known for years, dirty side and all. The best part of it all though is that you suffer with these people, and through your suffering, you can't find time to be fake or affected. You just have to be you, given the above, a slightly weirder version of you, but still you. As we revert to this high school state, we also see our professors revert. Our embryology professor regularly gives in-class quotes of the day and motivational speeches that I thought I lost with young adulthood and acne. However, I would let him read me "The Little Engine That Could" any day of the week...like he did yesterday.

Whether or not my above points have helped you see the schooler and squirrelier side of med school, I can tell you without a doubt that med school is the hardest thing I've ever done and the end result just happened to be some of the best moments of my life.

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