Insane in the Membrane

This week is block 1 test week.  To translate - before every test at MUSC we have a week off from our usual routine to study.  On the surface it seems great. 

ah the old lecture hall

We get a break from the usual bullshit of med school like cultural sensitivity training and following nurses around like lap dogs for 4 hours.  Wait, we're really going into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to do this? When normal people go into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt they're buying fast cars, fake boobs, and big houses. 

Sidenote - the world needs to know that the education process of doctors is 70% bogus.  People, we could have more doctors by just shortening the MD training.  

if you're the president of AAMC
you can thank us later

Half-baked idea: cut out summers, condense the first 2 yrs (18 months total) into twelve months. Think about it - only about 70% of the syllabus is useful.  If I ever get pimped for not knowing the molecular mechanism of microfilament assembly I will shoot myself on the spot.  3rd year is actual time practicing being a doctor so say we leave that alone, but 4th year is mostly interviewing and sitting around, so that can be condensed into 0.5 yrs.  We add that up and you get an MD in 2.5 yrs.  

But as you dig deeper, test week is pretty f-ing crazy.  For several reasons:

1) It's incredibly unstructured, which doesn't work for 90% of students.  That's why we had to be students - for the structure.  If you left us alone we'd just go home and write blog posts complaining about the system or watch endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy.  For the 10% of students that are disciplined, it's equally terrible because you spend way too much time obsessing over every little fact you don't know yet.  That can't possibly be good for a subset of the population that is already ADD and/or on fluoxetine. 

2) It's the ultimate peer pressure experiment.  The library is literally a scary place to be.  There's about 80 stressed out young people wired on coffee thinking about nothing but vitamin B3 deficiency, receptor tyrosine kinase signaling, and neural tube formation.  I can't deny that everyone has been friendly on day one of test week, but at the same time… it's feels a little bit crazy, I'd rather hole up in a room by myself and listen to my neon green beats. Sidenote - if you were wondering, yes, they do sound better than the other colors.

the library during test week

You either have a whole week to obsess about the test inside your head and wonder if you’re insane, or you have the whole week to complain and bitch about it with your friends, confirming the insanity.  

It's like throwing a 17 year old Kobe Bean Bryant into the LA spotlight and the NBA.  Yeah it worked for him.. but it’s not like it was the ideal path.  Similarly, yeah med schools churn out doctors, but most doctors I talked to before med school have told me to reconsider my career choice, so it’s not perfect.  Anyways, I should get back to anatomy flash cards. 

See you on the other side,

from ken