Orientation Wrap-Up

Well, orientation is over, or should i say, the fun is over. Thursday and Friday signaled the end of my first week of medical school and the end of my honeymoon away from actually studying. However, despite the terminal nature of the days, they were still quite fun.

Thursday was our last day of formal school mandated orientation. The day started with the dreaded code of ethics approval meeting. This meeting was where the entire class would look over what the group leaders wrote and make edits based on what they like. Everyone was dreading how long it would take for all of the edits, but surprisingly enough it went over really well. Only two points went to edits, and only one of them was changed. We even got through picking a quote in relatively little time. After that, Dr. Duff gave the Blood Borne Pathogens lecture. It is required of all people working in a medical area so that you know how to be cautious so as not to contract blood borne diseases. Usually it's really boring, but Dr. Duff chose to not answer any of the questions he put up and forced all of the students to guess what was the answer. I learned a little about how to prevent transmission, and I think it's interesting that in surgery, unlike in sex, we are all encouraged to double glove it up with the latex. After this lecture was finished, we got the Medical School 101 lecture. Basically, 5 second year students went up front and gave a presentation on studying, staying balanced, what textbooks everyone used and didn't use, and what resources are available. It was very informative and it changed what texts I bought for my first week. After this talk, Dr. Vidauretta (Dr. V) gave a lecture on our career development. It terminated in her giving us all a Myers-Briggs test. I've consistently been an ESTJ, so it'll be neat to see what it turns out to be. We then had lunch with the first year faculty. I got to sit next to Dr. Williams, a forensic anthropologist. I was so tempted to ask her if her life was anything like the TV show "Bones", but I was able to restrain myself. She teaches both of my major first year classes, Anatomy and Histology. We talked about everything from families to working out to class mechanics. She told me that she'll be keeping tabs on me particularly which, I hope, is a good thing. Lunch just made it clear to me that all of our faculty are out there to help us out, and it's great to have that support network, especially since they're also our teachers. The day ended with 4 talks on ways in which we will be able to stay relaxed and stress-free in medical school. Dr. V, our school counselor, talked about 1-on-1 counseling that she provides. Dr. Harman talked about our Student Advocacy group that helps push for student needs through faculty advisors. Dr. Ritz, our Neuroscience professor from Spring semester, started a Mindfulness program which I'm taking. Basically, it involves weekly hour-long sessions of relaxation and meditation, helping us take our mind off of school for at least a few hours. I'm excited to have that scheduled mental break in my life. The last lecture was from Dr. Larry Rooks; he is the dad of my friend Amy Rooks from high school and he works for my mother. He talked about the Staying Whole In Medicine (SWIM) program where there will be faculty leader inviting us to come hang out and just relax to help prevent mental breaks. The talk was absolutely hilarious. It was easily the best talk of all orientation. At the end, he whipped out his banjo and we had a sing-along with a song he wrote about medical school. It was great. At that point, the day was over and I got to pick up my scrubs and lab coat.

After orientation, I went back to my apartment and tried on my scrubs, felt awesome, and then went out for the nights events. The first event was an around the world dinner where we went to 6 different apartments around town where each had food representing a different nation. America was basically pizza and beer which I thought was hilarious. I met a lot of cool people as we walked around, and once we finished at the last house, we all went out to the last event. It was held at 101 Cantina where med students were given an unlimited bar tab on wells and beer til close. It was amazing. I got to mingle a lot, and my friends Martin and Leslie took me around and introduced me to all of the people that they knew that I didn't. By about 1:30am, I started to head out, but Leslie and Martin felt I was too drunk to drive, so I got a ride home from a girl that was in my sister's high school graduating class. In medical school, a DUI results in an instant expulsion from the class (which I definitely do not want). At that point, I went to bed since I had to get up early to pick up my car.

The next morning, I woke up, called Dele (the person that gave me the ride home) and she took me to get my car. Alas, I had a ticket for illegal parking, but I appealed it to them. Hopefully, they won't be too strict on it since the only alternative was drunk driving. After I got my car, I went home, the days events were a Community Service project at 11am and a BBQ at 1pm. After getting back home, I felt terrible, so I basically passed out and slept through the service project. However, I got up in time to head over to Kanapaha Park for the field day. It was pretty fun, but it rained most of the day. That kind of spoiled most of the outdoor fun. We all parted at about 4, and I went to my house to give my parents my laundry (Heh). I chilled with my dad for a bit, and then I headed back out to run some errands. I picked up some groceries and some school supplies, and then I went to my apartment to put my notebooks together for Monday. The medinfo website where all of our stuff is posted was full of printouts that we needed to read. I felt a little overwhelmed and started printing them out and putting them in my notebook. After printing about 100 pages, I took a break from stressing and went over to see my friends Jeremy and Joe. We watched some Battlestar Galactica and had a pretty good time. By 1am I was in bed, and ready for the weekend.

As far as my car goes, Allstate has agreed to pay everything and I am just waiting for the parts to get into the shop. Once they get the parts, I can bring the car in and pick up my rental car. Hopefully that whole ordeal will go a lot easier now that Allstate is on-board. My camera was in Gainesville Wednesday night, but USPS hasn't delivered it yet. I don't know why, but it should be here for the first day of school on Monday. I also ordered my textbooks which, thanks to Amazon Prime, will be getting to my apartment Monday afternoon, woot! My sister came down from her clerkship in Pensacola this weekend to see family and give me some books. I'm really excited to see her. This weekend should be filled with thrills but my main hope is that I can get some nice and easy fun with a little bit of R&R.

Day 3 of Orientation

The third day of orientation has arrived and past, and by now I can say that I think I've hit my groove. I've managed to wake up on time every morning. Aside from falling asleep early last night and missing some night time recreation, I haven't been late to any events, and I can say with confidence that I've made a few friends in my class.

The events for the day were far from thrilling. The first part of the day was dedicated to "Diversity" and all that implies. The first presentation was by the two assistant deans for minority affairs and while they were informed about the subject, I couldn't help but feel that I was being preached at. I always come out of listening to diversity presentations feeling bad about being a white male, lol. Following the deans was a presentation by two 2nd year students about diversity in our class and in prospective patient populations. It was actually one of the best diversity presentations I've seen in a while. It started with us filling out a survey about experiences, mainly about discrimination. We then passed our surveys around ten times so we each had some random survey. Then we were asked to raise our hand if the survey in front of us had answered yes to each of the questions. It was shocking just how many students had been discriminated against. Most of our class is pretty fit and almost all of them said they were discriminated against for their appearance at some time. The presenters went on to talk about how to observe and embrace diversity in our professional lives when dealing with patients. It was really entertaining because they played clips from Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs, showing the major problems that each group encountered whether it was dramatic or humorous. Diversity, while it may not seem that important is actually a major influence in almost every part of our lives and I really enjoyed learning how.

After the diversity presentations came the most enjoyable part of the day. One of our associate deans brought in a patient of hers to talk about experiences in the medical field and how they can change your life. This girl, Kelly, and her mom started by showing us a lot of pictures through Kelly's life from when she was a little kid to now, showing us a lot of photos from treatments she went on. Kelly's mom then told her story. In about 2-3rd grade, Kelly was taking part in a language study at P.K. Young when she was given an MRI to look at language development. A Graduate Student saw the scan and that night went to talk with Kelly's dad at their home. Kelly's mom, an oncology nurse, was at work. The graduate student told them that they had found something on the scan and that they had to call this neurosurgeon, handing them a card with a name and number on it. Scared and confused, Kelly's parents worked their way through the bureaucracy and got an appointment with the neurosurgeon. At that time, they were told that Kelly had a brain tumor between her medulla and her pons. The neurosurgeon went on to say that Kelly should most likely have radiation therapy to treat the tumor since surgery was too risky. As she grew up over the next few years, Kelly had radiation therapy to treat her tumor. Eventually she was put on some steroidal medications to deal with some of the side effects. As she underwent these treatments, she ballooned up, gaining 70 pounds in 3 weeks. Due to the radiation and steroids, her bones and muscles became too week to handle her body weight and she was forced to move to a wheelchair. After several years, she developed scoliosis and hip flexor weakness due to a lack of physical therapy while in the chair. She was forced to undergo over 10 more surgeries to put in rods to straighten her back and help alleviate pain. During this time, her family was selected by the make a wish foundation to go to Washington D.C. where they had a blast. Eventually, they came home and still nothing seemed better to Kelly's mom. After all of the treatments they went through, they were still concerned. They began seeing our associate dean for pediatrics and after a while, Dr. Novak (our dean), became suspicious of the results she was getting from Kelly's neurological exam. They took her original scans before the UF Tumor Board and were told that it wasn't a tumor. Kelly never had a tumor. This was confirmed by specialists in St. Louis. After this revelation, all of the departments working on Kelly's case went silent. They were treating a girl with a tumor and now that she no longer had a tumor, they felt no need to be involved in her care. Eventually, Kelly was diagnosed with Alexander's Disease, a very rare genetic disorder involving the degradation of myelin on her nerves. All of the treatments Kelly had been through from radiation and steroids to all of the treatments to curb the side effects were all for nothing. At that point, her family knew what they were dealing with and were able to plan out how to handle her medical care from that point on. After they finished this heart-wrenching story, we, med students, were allowed to ask some questions. One person asked Kelly how she felt about this whole experience. She responded, "I just wish the doctors would say, 'I don't know' or 'I'm not sure, let me look something up' rather than 'you have this, I'm sure'. When everyday is filled with tears and heartbreak, you just become happy for what you have and what you got. If I went and was angry about this or was sad in the corner, who's that helping? No one. So I go out and volunteer wherever I can and do as much as I can, while I can." Her story was so sad, but she seemed so resilient and happy. Just hearing her in all of this was a moving experience. It showed me many of the screw ups that will pop up in medicine, but at the same time, it showed me a truly resilient girl and her family that, through all of the mistakes and all of the pain and sadness, prevailed with a great attitude. I really enjoyed her talk. At the end, Dr. Novak presented Kelly with a College of Medicine pin and a Certificate which was very nice.

The rest of our day seemed menial. We got lunch and watched a presentation on health disparities throughout the U.S. and especially in the Gainesville Community. They showed us the Shands Mobile Clinic that goes out around town offering health screenings and free care, which seems like such a great opportunity. After that we went to the computer testing center to learn how we will be taking tests. We also got our formal pictures taken and were trained in information security. At the same time, Dr. Cooper, our head of evaluations, had our class take a study survey about stress. From what I'm told, they will be using this and other surveys from time to time to gauge how stressful the experience of med school is on our class and how they can help us deal with that stress.

Tonight they have free bowling planned for us which seems really exciting. I will be hitting the lanes and making some more friends in the near future hopefully. In the realm of good news, my car should be headed to the shop on Friday to be fixed and I should be getting my new camera tomorrow. All in all, things are looking up, and I only expect great things coming soon.

And So It Begins...

Monday morning, bright and early at 7:15am, I found myself seated in a room surrounded by over a hundred new faces. While many of these people seemed vaguely familiar, this time may have been one of the first in a long period when I felt like I knew no one. In a matter of minutes, I had made 2 new friends, then 3, then 5, until my memory was overloaded with all of these new interesting people. Orientation began with the dean and associated faculty saying a few words. Eventually, our first 5 hours turned into a fury of associate deans telling us about the "most important" part of our medical school career, their parts. After an hour long presentation about how to fill out faculty evaluations, we were given a moment to breathe. The afternoon continued with more speeches about professionalism and our medical school community. During lunch, the second years came in and played a video for us that they made. It was very funny and was soaked in parody and memes which kept me cracking up. They then split us up into two groups. The first group went to get CPR training while the second got to talk to second years about interest groups and extra-curricular events. I used this time to get to know a lot more of my classmates. The CPR training was interesting, but it was so hurried and strange that I don't think I learned much more than how to beat up a mannequin . By this time, it was 6pm and everyone was exhausted. However, the day wasn't over yet.

That evening, Dr. Good, the dean of our great college, was hosting a dinner at the UF President's house where we as students would get to meet and talk with the faculty. It was very nice and the food was delicious. I met some more cool people and even ran into my old friend, Emily, that was working with the caterers. However, my exhaustion was getting the better of me. After downing a few Diet Pepsi cans and a piece of Key Lime Pie. I decided to head out, but not home yet. The second year students, in hopes of getting to better know our class had invited us all out to The Swamp Restaurant to have a few drinks and socialize. Went there, did that, and met some even cooler people. I had actually met a lot of the second years already, and it was good to see them again. I finally got home at 10:30pm and was in bed by 11pm, since we had another nice early morning on Tuesday.

Tuesday started off nice at 8am. I chose to sit away from people I had already met, and I found some more interesting people. One cool person next to me knew a bit about Student Government at UF and it was interesting to see his take and perspectives on stuff that I had already experienced. Then our first assignment of the day began, writing our code of ethics. Using our own work and other students input, we broke off into small groups and each wrote our own example of a doctor's code of ethics. We then appointed a group leader to share our draft with the other groups. I chose to volunteer for said position because it would give me a better chance to meet more people. During lunch, all of the group leaders were taken away to a small conference room in the Academic Research Building and asked to put together a single code of ethics. This challenge was more difficult than it should have been. So many people got attached to their wording or their phrases that it took us an hour to just finish each point we wanted to cover. We would have to come back later to finish it. At noon though, we took a recess and went on a tour of the Health Science Center. There were a lot of locations that I wasn't even familiar with having been at the HSC for 5 years. Also, I got to meet some neat people that share my end of the alphabet (V-Z). Most importantly though, our wonderful tour guides, Vikram and Elizabeth, made sure we knew everything and anything we could/should know, from what books you'll use or cover to what books you'll never open. They also talked about their study habits and what other people would do. Listening to them talk was simultaneously intimidating and invigorating. However, they showed a clearly strong resolve to helping any and all students they could which is an awesome resource that I am glad I have now. At the end of the day I had to go back to the conference room and finish the code of ethics, but I decided to take a quick trip to steak and shake for drive-thru. By the time I got back, they had finished it. To repent for my excursion, I drove some of my leader-mates to their cars and parted ways.

I believe that I've made some awesome acquaintences over the past two days, and I'm sure I'll make some more over the next semester. Most importantly though, I believe I've found some really cool people that will end up being some of my best friends.

The rest of the week shows countless activities to come, and I can't wait to check them out, starting up again in 2 hours. Time to rest now.

My Car --- Still not fixed. I haven't had time to bug Allstate about it, but I hope to hear from them soon.

Logistics --- I really want to put up some pictures on here to supplement some of the stuff I am saying. As such, I used some Best Buy gift certificates to purchase a camera that is on it's way to my apartment as we speak, so look out for some sweet pictures to come.