Wednesday - I Gotta Feeling

The past few days have been much more jam-packed than the first day!

Yesterday served more as an Orientation - we learned all about the Honor Council, UJC, etc... There are tons and tons of student groups that spoke - seems that the Medical School here has some super-involved people. A definite "highlight" was the director of Student Health predicting a "very large" outbreak of Swine Flu to occur once the Undergrads come back for the Fall Semester. How comforting. The good news? Medical Students will be at the top of the list to get the swine flu vaccine (but I would hope I would be in the category anyway as an EMS provider?).

Today we had our first "patient contact" and had to dress accordingly - professional attire. This week from Wednesday to Friday we have an introduction to Medical School called "Cells to Society" which focuses on Diabetes. Today we were told all about Diabetes from the molecular level and its systemic effects all the way to the growing concerns over a global pandemic of the disorder. It really does appear to be a major problem going into the future.

A patient came in front of the entire medical school class and was interviewed by an internist as a demonstration of how to properly engage the patient and what to ask/look for in an interview. Very interesting, since the questions he asked and his overall repore he built with the patient really was unlike anything I have experienced as an emergency medical provider. We split up into small groups for the afternoon (9 people with 3 mentors including a clinician, a cell biologist, and a chaplain) and we interviewed another patient ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed this last part especially, as the patient really opened up to us and shared some valuable insight into her condition.

On a separate note, the social life really is in full swing. Each night the social chairs of the student government for the medical school have an event planned. It's definitely been a challenge attending these events, getting relatively few hours of sleep, and then repeating it all over again at 8 AM the next morning.

We start "real" basic science classes next Monday - should be quite the adventure. Did I mention I helped move 23 cadavers into the Anatomy Lab yesterday afternoon? Definitely pretty creepy moving around bodies like that... guess I'll have to get used to it. Brings back memories of fetal pig dissection in the 9th grade - somehow I think this might be just a bit different. They were also sharpening the hack saws for our start next week - yikes!

Well I've written enough for now - I'll check back soon!