Part of my school’s central mission in educating medical students is to keep its students well. We have built-in retreats, access to mental health resources, and a variety of clubs designed specifically to promote wellness. The capstone of the program is this: once a year, the entire school comes together to compete in an almost-two day competition called College Cup. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re divided into four “colleges,” Hogwarts-style, primarily for the purpose of small group learning and logistics. But during College Cup, people don their colors, swag out with Thunderstix and tanks and masks (?) and Braveheart-style body paint, and yell themselves hoarse. Continue reading
Month: September 2013
The Cup Of Shame
My dad taught me to play chess when I was seven or eight. We played intermittently from that day until I left for college ten years later.
(There’s a medical school-related part to this, chill out.)
I learned the game easily enough and began developing a strategy. But for four years, I never won. Not once. Not when I first learned the game at eight and didn’t know how to pack my own lunch. Not when I was failing long division at age nine. And not when I was ten and learning how to find the value of x in 2x+2=4. Continue reading
We Know We Don’t Know
We just took our first exam, a two-day test on six weeks of biochemistry, basic anatomy, and a few in-depth cases. On the first day of the exam, Thursday, we spent four hours writing essay answers to questions about metabolic disease, diabetes, cancers, and (weirdly) Tylenol poisoning. Friday’s part was half multiple choice and half short-answer identification of histology and anatomy slides. It was, in a word, hard. I probably failed, but whatever. Continue reading
Antagonist, Inverse Agonist, Same But Different
We have our first exam coming up this week, on six full weeks of material. The two-day test will cover biochemistry, anatomy, histology, pathology, and a bunch of other –ologies I don’t understand either.
Yes, I’m writing this to procrastinate, no, it’s not a good use of my time, and no, grandma, I don’t need a brownies care package. Your last one turned me prediabetic as it is. Thanks though. Continue reading
crashing resident 