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Somehow I thought this would be different. I don't know what I expected, just something different. It's school; there's no mystique. Medical students (at least for the first two years) sit in an auditorium and listen to lectures. We also go to lab. It's just like being an undergraduate, except we dissect dead people not dead rats.
I'm not disappointed; I like school. I've made lots of new friends: Histo Man, Renaissance Man, Anatomy Goddess, Liana, Mark, Emily, Dave, Scott, Beth. We have fun. I'm learning a lot of great, new stuff. I have wonderful professors. This is comfortable.
The idea of seeing patients is not comfortable. But I think "they" expect us to see patients, someday. I've just gotten an inkling of that. This week we began a course called, "Fundamentals of Clinical Care." My classmates and I played doctor and patient. I got to play the doctor. I asked hthe patient questions for ten minutes and didn't think to ask if she had a fever! Pretty basic stuff.
The Fundamentals of Clinical Care course has two purposes 1) make us adept at and comfortable with taking a history from a patient and 2) give us some basic diagnostic skills. A few primary care physicians from Allentown come to Philadelphia once a week to teach us. Allentown! I wonder why they can't find doctors in Philadelphia to teach us? It's a nice break from the real stuff though. Or maybe Clinical Care is the real stuff. Though seeing patients does not seem like something that is ever really going to happen.
Anatomy is still very cool. We dissected the heart and lungs last week. This week, we opened the abdomen for the first time. The abdominal organs looked just like they were supposed to, like a textbook. Though my lab partners and I thought the spleen was a kidney. And the spleen was right where it should be. But this is normal for us to be confused. Sometimes we can't find a trace of very large muscles or big, long nerve complexes, like the sympathetic trunk.
And then there's histology. Nothing is ever what it seems. Someday maybe I'll know the difference between smooth muscle, nerves and dense, irregular connective tissue. But I don't think so. I'm not alone; most of my classmates seem equally baffled. I wonder where pathologists come from?
I just reread this journal entry. It sounds like I should study. Or maybe
sleep. I don't do enough of that either.
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