UCDSOM Class 2008

Class2008
Originally uploaded by hibiscusfire.

So I start a blog, begin medical school, and you never hear from me again...

Actually, my computer "broke". I'd like to say it did so by itself, but since I don't lie well, I'll just stop there...the point is, I was without my computer for a very frustrating three days.

First week of med school was just like any one of you would think it was. Intense, exciting, overwhelming, exhilirating, stressful, frustrating, etc. Classes are generally 8-4, give or take an hour, and include anatomy, embryology, biochemistry and "doctoring". By far, the most engaging class is - of course - anatomy. Though it is very intimidating to stare at hundreds of pages of one of my anatomy atlases and realize that by the end of these ten weeks, I'll know almost every nerve, vein, bone, artery, organ and muscle (function, innervation, attachment) named, I'm finding anatomy not just thrilling but definitely digestible. We have one or two lectures a day and we spend two to three hours in lab four days a week, dissecting our cadaver regionally. In our first week and a half, we learned the thorax and tomorrow we will begin studying the abdomen. Each section is accompanied by lectures in embryology that address the development of the organs we are studying (and reinforce the anatomy we have already learned), as well as lectures in radiology of that particular region.

People have asked me how I feel about working on a human cadaver. I have to say that I feel fortunate in being able to feel gratitude and respect for the donor who gave her body to us so selflessly, while at the same time not feel overwhelmed by the reality of working with the remains of another human being. UCDSOM has a very successful donor program and I think part of that comes from them putting a lot of emphasis on the importance of having future doctors begin their training through gross anatomy. During our first day of class, we talked about that significance of what we were about to do. Our donors had given up their bodies and their privacy so that we could not only intimately learn every anatomical feature, but also so that we would begin to understand the responsibility that was being handed to us. On our second day, we made our first cuts, dissected the pectoral muscles, mammary glands, lateral and medial pectoral nerves, and located the serratus anterior and intercostal muscles, as well as their vessels and nerves. That evening, many of us attended a memorial ceremony held in honor of our donors and attended by more than 150 donor family members, many who cried throughout the evening. It was hard not to try to wonder which family our cadaver "belong" to. In lab, there are four medical students per cadaver; ours is a 91 year old woman who died of pneumonia. Her face and hands will remain covered for many weeks, as their most human features can be unraveling even months after one has begun anatomy lab.

Our first week ended quickly, and overwhelmed by the amount of work we had to do, many of us were grumpy about the all class retreat that was scheduled for our first weekend. The retreat was a good break, however, and it not only let us get to know each other better, it also grounded us in the reality that we've actually started medical school. Many of the workshops and discussions we had centered around learning how to find balance in our lives while having barely having enough time to eat, study and sleep.

Speaking of balance, I'm off to grab beer with some of my favorite classmates: Tina (backpacking Tina from CHORI), Heidi (former nationals ultimate frizbee champion and all around kickass gal), and Clotide (a very cool oregonian with a volkswagon bus). These women have definitely helped me find balance and sanity in these first few days. I feel I already know them amazingly well (though I have met two of them less than three weeks ago), and I'm looking forward to our first year together.