First day of medical school

My so-called life is over and it happened like a sudden onset myocardial infaction. One day you're mooning boaters while riding a pontoon then sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows thinking about the going away party drama and the next day you're sitting in a 250+ person lecture hall learning about the brachial plexus. Needless to say, I started medical school this week at the University of Minnesota. I don't mean to say that in a bad way, but basically the life that I'm used to - vacations, sunsets, soccer, parties - is over. The average age of my peers has jumped five years and 50% are married - talk about social pressures. BTW I came across this article in the Star Tribune today: http://www.startribune.com/218/story/609110.html )

I learned today that you should always eat a good lunch because at 1:25pm you head up to Jackson Hall to the Gross Anatomy labs. I wouldn't want to be that girl who lost her lunch and slowly slipped into a gumbo state. She was promptly dragged out by the TA and her body buddy. There are two guys and two girls per cadaver - collectivley called "Body buddies" due to the intimacy of which you get to know one another. There have are endless stories of doctor couples who were body buddies as a MS1. A cadaver is typically an elderly person who donated their body to medical education. They are like the beautiful and elegant Bodyworlds (http://www.smm.org/bodyworlds/) people without color. (If you haven't seen the exhibit at the Minnesota Science Museum - go see it before it leaves Sept. 5th.) The cadaver next to ours has her fingernails painted neon pink. This subtle aspect reminds me that these people, despite their plastic bag covered faces and colorless attributes, were living and breathing citizens in the recent past.

This is my first "surgery." I volunteer the scalpel to my body buddies - fellow MIAC grads - but they insist that I start. I immediately realize that in surgery, there is a disadvantage to being left-handed. Why? I'd like to study the differences and challenges that lefties face in this world that right-handed people never realize. Anyway, I switch positions with one of my buddies and then I slowly cut along the sternum - a cut that can't go wrong. We dig into the abundant amount of adipose tissue using the "reverse scissors" and tweezers pulling method, exposing the axilla, a.k.a. armpit. This is cool.

After four or so hours hunched over formaldehyde preserved cadaver, I reeked. I reeked so bad that even after a shower, I could smell the formaldehyde under my nails as I bit into my apple at dinner. Sour apple, I'd say.

The best part of medical school is my peers (and faculty but I haven't become too acquainted with them yet). My peers and I played pick up soccer near the Mississippi River on Wednesday and then 20 of us went to see the Minnesota Twins choke against the Blue Jays. It was bonding in the nosebleed section. We talked cadaver and "Some TAs Like Sex And Pizza" - one of the dozen mnemonics I'll learn this week. Did you know mnemonsyne was a Greek goddess of memory? Anyway, I can't wait to go back to anatomy class tomorrow morning. I've learned 50 of the 2,500 anatomy words so far - whoohoo!

Also, cool blogs I found:
http://www.theunderwaredrawer.blogspot.com and http://www.califmedicineman.blogspot.com who discovered the "Ultimate Mnemonic - Frank Sinatra Takes Four Fifths Seagram’s Seven Each Night To Ease Tension," which stands for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth thoracic vertebrae - brilliant! I feel stupider already!