How to Survive Your Anatomy Course in Medical School

     Whenever I thought about medical school, one of the first things that popped into my mind was Gross Anatomy. I personally thought that it was the one class that set medical school apart from undergrad because it was so hands on and I actually felt like I was training to be a doctor. Now, many of you might've taken anatomy courses during undergrad, but this post is for those that are just about to delve into the cadaver lab life. So, I wanted to share my tips on how I made it through this course and how to make it a bit more enjoyable.

The Experience

     If you have never been in a cadaver lab before, the first time can be a little unsettling. The room is typically on the cooler side, right when you walk in you're greeted by the stench of formaldehyde, and oh...there are dead people everywhere. I remember my first time I was a little nervous, but I kept telling myself that I had to get comfortable with this because this would be a huge part of my education. So, as with many things that scare me, I just jumped right in. As my peer educator was explaining various structures, I made an effort to touch things and to follow along, so that this could feel like something completely normal. By the end of the lab session, I had pretty much gotten over my initial hesitation and was ready to take on future anatomy sessions.

     Preparation

     Although anatomy is an amazing class, it definitely takes plenty of preparation to make it through. If your lab sessions are anything like ours, you'll most likely be spending 2-3 hours (possibly more) hands-deep in a cadaver and let me tell you, that everyone will know that was the case when you walk past them. Eventually, you get used to the smell and you don't even notice it, but there were a couple things that I did to make it better.

1. Plan your showers around lab sessions.

     I know this seems a bit crazy, but trust me, the formaldehyde smell sticks to you. I would always aim to shower when I got back from lab and would plan my hair washing days for the days I would have to dissect. I also suggest putting your hair up so that it's as far away from the cadaver as possible. 

2. Get good lab wear

     You're not going to want to wear the clothes you wear to dissect again afterward, so getting a pair of scrubs (or old clothes) dedicated for lab is a must. You can find them on amazon for a pretty good price and in fun colors, so you don't have to give up being stylish to be a killing the medical school game. After dissecting for a while, the formaldehyde will start to seep through your gloves and then you'll be eating dinner with the stench of formaldehyde all over them. What I found worked pretty well was to wear two pairs of gloves and when possible, to change them out midway through the dissection. Also, the sleeves on my lab coat were pretty long, so I ended up rolling them up and just bought a longer pair of gloves (like these) for protection. Inevitably, there are going to be some dissection mishaps (Our lab professor accidentally got some tissue in my hair one time...), but in general, the only real casualty I suffered was walking out of lab smelling like a cadaver.

3. Know your limits

       

       Anatomy lab is a whole new beast for many of us and as such you should know that the fumes can do crazy things to your body, especially when you're sleep deprived. You'll notice that quite often you'll get hungry. No, you're not a cannibal. The fumes just tend to make you hungry. But, something to watch out for is that they might also make you light-headed. I remember one day during a particularly long dissection, this started to happen to me. I took a step back, told my dissection partner that I needed a second, and I stepped out to get some air. This happened well into the semester and was probably one of my last few dissections. But, regardless of how used to the fumes you may be, don't think you need to stay in these situations to prove anything. You're not benefiting anyone if you pass out in the middle of your lab session. So, I always say take care of yourself first. The professors will understand.

How to Study

    For anatomy, I think it's really important to not only know where things are but also to understand the relationship it has with surrounding structures.  What really worked for me, as a visual learner, was to draw things out whenever possible.  This worked wonders for tracing blood vessels from their origin to their target organ and also to help you get a clearer picture of how things are related. But, I would have to say that something else that really helped was to go into lab and touch things. Usually, before an exam, I would go in and point things out from memory. Being able to see how things were situated in the body allowed me to solidify my mental picture and also helped me recognize things come test time. Another suggestion is to buy yourself an atlas and study the pictures in there. The pictures in the atlas are going to be the pretty versions (Which, unfortunately, won't be what you'll see on test day),  but they'll allow you to form a good base to build off of. But as with any other subject, the key factor is going to be repetition. The more you review the material, the easier it'll be for you to remember. And the more time you spend with your cadaver, the easier it'll be to recognize the structures. When you're in lab, also try to check out a variety of bodies. Every body is going to be unique, so it'll help you to better understand where things can vary and how to recognize a structure when it isn't exactly where it should be.

     Otherwise, Just have fun! Anytime, that I was seriously stressing about the volume of material I had to learn, I reminded myself that I was one of a select group that got this opportunity. Many people will never get the chance to hold an actual heart in their hand, and that to me was incredible. So, approach it with positivity, and I promise you'll make it through. Good luck!

-Genesis

The End Of M1 Year

As always, I feel that I'm constantly apologizing for being absent on the blog, but hey, I'm a medical student. I'm not perfect and I'm trying to balance everything on my plate as best as I can. So despite not being the most consistent, I certainly love to check in every now and then. Like now:)

Let me just say that the first year of medical school feels like a blur. Fall semester seemed to trudge along, but then it picked up in full-force spring semester, and in the blink of an eye, I was in the midst of finals. It's actually a tad frightening because it makes me realize that before I know it, I'll be graduating and going into the world to actually take care of patients, which at this point in my training, seems crazy. But yet, somehow it'll happen. 

Looking back on M1 year, I can say it wasn't exactly what I had expected. When I imagined medical school, I envisioned being constantly miserable, overwhelmed, and possibly having regret over making this decision. I'll admit there were some trying moments, but for the most part my experience was positive. I do believe it has a lot to do with my approach to school. You see, our curriculum is pass/fail. So, at the end of the day I always told myself that as long as I passed, I was okay. I would always set my standards as high as I could, but if it didn't go as planned, I wouldn't beat myself up over it. We all have our off days and medical school isn't easy. So, if you don't get an amazing score every time, it's okay. I'm incredibly thankful to say that I passed all of my exams this past year. Sometimes I did incredibly well and some exams got the best of me. Regardless of the outcome, every exam was a step closer in my journey. Another tally I could etch onto my sheet of accomplishments. And having successfully come out on the other side of the year, I know that I have it in me to keep going. 

Now that I have the chance to look back, I'm pretty content with the year. Of course, there are some situations I wish I could've approached differently, but I think overall I did a decent job balancing what I could, especially second semester. I always tried to make time for myself, squeezed in time for my friends and family when I got the chance, and I made it a priority to keep myself healthy. I'm not going to say doing all of the above was easy, because it wasn't. There were many times that I would rather have spent with my friends at our Sunday dinners or at home enjoying time with my family. But, I know that the profession that I have chosen will come with a lot of sacrifices, yet will yield many rewards. So, I held on to that notion and kept pushing through. And somehow, it has worked out. 

Getting to the end of the year felt amazing and you better believe we celebrated accordingly. Our class rented a boat for us to cruise around Lake Michigan, and let's just say that mixing an open bar and medical students can lead to very interesting times. But spending time with my classmates and some of my closest friends celebrating the end of the struggle was a great way to close out the year and get ourselves set for our last summer break.

Looking forward, I know that M2 year is going to have it's own challenges (ahem, Step 1), but I'm excited to see what the next phase of my medical training will bring. From what the upperclassmen have told me, it'l be way more clinically focused. We will be learning all of the skills that will be put into use during our clinical rotations come M3 year and we will also be tested on how to perform a physical exam, diagnose patients, write prescriptions...you get the idea. It'll be scary because doing things for the first time can be nerve wracking, but exciting because this is exactly what I signed up for. Hopefully, by the time I finish step I will feel more like a doctor-in-training and not just a student, but I still have plenty of time before that time comes around. 

So, if you like following me on this crazy journey, stay tuned. It's about to get way more exciting. 

Starting M1 Year

      Hello! As you can already imagine, this past week has been a crazy one for me. The earlier part of last week, I spent moving into my new apartment and then was directly thrown into orientation less than 24 hours after. Orientation events ran Monday through Friday and by the weekend I was super glad to catch a break. It's been a great start to my M1 year (it's crazy to think that I am able to say that), so I'll share a little about what went on.

Orientation

     Our orientation week was broken down into four days:Tues-Fri (I had another orientation Monday as well, but that was for something separate) with our last day being the day of our white coat ceremony. 

Day one:

      We just came in to do housekeeping tasks (pick up our white coats, pick up our Step book, fill out forms, get fit tested for respirators, take our white coat pics, etc.). It was a pretty quick day, so we only spent about two hours max on campus. It was the first day that we got to start meeting some of our classmates and also some of the upperclassmen that were helping out, so that was pretty cool. 

Day two:

     We had orientation 9-4 most of it consisted of different presentations about our school (resources, statistics about our class, etc.) but we also received our team based learning groups (TBL). In medical school, we are divided into smaller groups (in our case it's groups of six) in order to promote team learning. In TBL, we'll be doing activities together but one of the main purposes of TBL is to provide us our lab groups. After orientation, the M2's organized a beach day for us to come and hang out with our classmates, so my roommate and I went to that. Then later that night, we all met up at a rooftop bar to do some more mingling. 

Day three:

     We had another 9-4 orientation and this one was more so focused on wellness and the resources that the school has to ensure our wellbeing. They do have a lot of great resources and it's pretty cool that they are trying to emphasize from the beginning that they acknowledge that this is difficult and that they don't want you to ever feel like you have to go about it alone. After the presentations, there was an activities fair for us to go and see what student groups we have on campus so that we could get involved in some extracurriculars. Apparently, everyone signs up for a bunch but realistically can only do a couple due to our demanding schedules. Later, we had a big sib-little sib dinner. We were assigned an M2 student to be our big sib, so this was the time that we got to meet them and ask questions about medical school and what their M1 experience was like. I had met with one of the M2s that I knew from SPP previously to get the low-down on medical school, but it was still a great opportunity to meet my peers and to also get to know other M2s. Afterwards, we had a group outing to an arcade bar in Chicago to get to know one another. By this time, we'd gotten a sense of who was who and what the class dynamic would be like. So far, it seems cliques aren't only limited to high school, but we shall see how things go as the year progresses. Hopefully, some of that changes. 

White Coat Day

     Our white coat ceremony wasn't until the afternoon, so I took the opportunity to sleep in a bit. I was exhausted from the past couple days which consisted of late nights and early mornings, so you can imagine it was taxing. The white coat ceremony was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It felt so amazing to finally be able to take the first step and feel like I was starting my career. I got really emotional and there were several points where I was trying to hold back tears. I don't know, but for me, it was just such an incredible moment because after all the hard work that I had to do, I had finally felt like I had made it. There was a point in the ceremony where they had us turn around and thank our family for supporting us and for me, that was where it was hardest to hold back the tears.  If you guys are hoping to pursue medicine, you'll see when you get to your white coat ceremony how it feels like you've officially made it and how incredible it feels. Later that night, the M2s planned out a trolley tour for us. We went around Chicago touring the different landmarks while enjoying drinks on the trolley. It was a pretty great time and the last stop of the night was a club, so we spent the rest of our night dancing away. I was definitely out pretty late (haha).

Taking pics with my support system<3

First Day Of Medical School

     Our first day of class was Monday and you better believe it felt weird to be sitting in the same auditorium that I had classes in for SPP, but now as an M1. They scheduled a pretty full day for us. We had our intro to medical school session for most of the morning then after lunch, we had our first two lectures. Having an 8-4 school day is always a bit rough (my life during SPP), but it did feel pretty cool to finally get started. Thankfully, our class days include a couple half-days during the week, so it shouldn't be too bad.

     I have my first exam coming up in a couple of weeks, so they are certainly not wasting any time. I will try to keep you guys as updated as I can, but if I do get busy (like last Thursday) know that I will try to get back A.S.A.P. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon!

~Genesis<3