For all those who have had to study anatomy …

…here is a song from a group of medical students at the University of Calgary.

Finals (part deux) & Christmas carols

Finals are here and people are acting stressed. It’s hard to explain to someone how the abject fear of failing a course can keep one focused and studying for over 12 hours a day. The worst part is that it is boring! I could try and sell the time before finals as a wonderful period where all the learning over the semester is consolidated and that finals aren’t really that worrisome. I could do that, but then I would be lying. There are interesting aspects of the material, with out a doubt, but memorizing minutia is asinine. It becomes a balance between what do I need to know to be a good doctor someday and what minute detail do I need to know for the exam.

Then we must also consider the stress of the holiday season. I guarantee that the majority of us will not be thinking of Christmas gifts until our exams are over. Hell, I kind of doubt if some of my classmates will think of their personal hygiene until the exams have passed (that’s how dedicated some are). They make me look like a slacker. I really like my bed and at least 6 hours of beauty sleep. Maybe that will change someday, but not today. To recap – there are currently several hundred stressed type A personalities walking the school with poor hygiene and suffering from lack of sleep. Makes one want to stay away …

There is one good story coming from this stressful time. Each of the 2nd year students has an assigned first year “buddy”. This is to build a bit of a support network for those new to the school and to ease them in, i.e. give them some sense of what to expect. This past Tuesday (Dec 5) the second year class converged on the freshman class while they were in the middle of their immunology lecture and surprised them with small gifts and the larger gift of song. All 200 of us stood at the front of the lecture hall and to the tune of twelve days of Christmas belted out the med version of the traditional Christmas Carole. We must have sounded pretty good because we got a standing ovation from the first year class and even the professor looked like he was enjoying himself.

Finals 2006

Last Friday was our final lecture in the Endocrine block and signaled the start of the study period for finals. I have been thinking about finals for a  long time already, yet am still filled with anxiety at the thought of exams less than a week away. The schedule follows a frantic pace with 9 exams written over a 5 day period. The first exams are this Friday consisting of Anatomy (the dreaded bell ringer) and Histology. On Monday there are four exams, which include; Blood and lymphatics, Metabolism and Endocrine, Pathology and Family Practice. These are followed on Wednesday by GI, MSK and Clinical Skills. Each exam period has 3 hours allotted to it, with the exception of the first exams which only are an hour a piece. The formats of the test can differ but are for the most part multiple choice and seem to be geared so that there is at least 1 question / minute of exam time. The sad part is that this is the easy semester – things actually pick up next term!

My deck on Monday

Last Monday…

…was a snow-day. I haven’t had one of those for years. It’s funny what snow does in this city. where other places in Canada trudge on, the west coast shuts down. Unfortunately there was a little confusion which resulted in about a quarter of the students showing up at school expecting lectures and the others staying away fearing the snow. This was perhaps the best way to identify those who grew up on the West coast from those who didn’t. Amazingly – one of the more dedicated professors did show up to give his lectures in the morning and had a captive audience of about 50 people (there are over 200 in the class). If nothing else the weather gave me little more time to dedicate to studying which has become priority one….and on that note, with finals coming postings will no doubt become intermittent (to say the least!).