random thoughts as i procrastinate starting cram day #14

My brain actually felt bruised yesterday. Kind of like a hangover, but less vestibular (no nausea, dizziness) and more just achy. Given that I've been studying for the last two weeks about 12-14 hours a day and the last few days had been spent doing hundreds of complicated problems, it is very likely that my brain is bruised.

...but for all that I've been learning (and frankly, for all you non-medical students out there, it really really is A LOT), I have no idea what my brain is doing when I am studying. I can tell you which part of your kidney secretes potassium into your urine and what drugs can block or stimulate that process. I can tell you the difference between the amyloid in the brain of an Alzheimer's patient and that in the muscle of a woman with multiple myeloma or the heart of an old man who simply died of old age. I can tell you where vitamine B12 is absorbed, what things act on it and how you can differentiate vitamin B12 deficiency from folate deficiency from thiamine deficiency. can tell you the difference between Langerhans cells in your skin and the Langhans cells in the lungs of a TB patient. I can tell you what your lungs would look like depending on whether your pneumonia was caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphlococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Mycoplasma pneuomoniae, Myobacterium tuberculosus, and bunch of other bugs. And if you have one of those infections, I can tell you what demographic you likely belong to. I can tell you what cancer you are likely to get, in what organ, what it would look like under the microscope, and how likely it would be that you would still be alive in 5 years. I can tell you what part of your brain or spinal cord is damaged depending on whether or not you've lost sensation to vibration or light touch. I can tell you which nerve in your armpit was cut by what part of your hand feels numb. I could describe the architecture of every cell in your body, every vital nerve, artery and vein. And that is probably 0.00001% of what I have learned in the last two weeks/years.

But I can't tell you how. Something about new neurons making connections in my brain. Neurons are made of proteins, so I guess I've been making and putting together lots of those. And only glucose can be used as fuel, so I guess my liver, which releases the glucose I have stored in my body, is working overtime. But then, how much more is my brain really working? If I watched a movie for 2 hours straight right now, I could tell you about most of the scenes in it the next day. And tomorrow, I will remember writing most of this blog. All those new neurons. Just like that.

Then why does studying make me feel like I've been boiling my brain?