It's my fifth year with medicine. One of the two "season finale" years that do last for a whole year, starting this October and supposed to end next October inshaa Allah, meaning that last year's class are not done with their finals yet (and how I'll feel a lot better when they do!). The idea of a 12 months school year itself is intimidating, let alone studying the mighty Internal Medicine for the year, basically made by med students into a mythical monster that has you to torture for months and months. I don't know about what the rest of the world does, but it seems wrong to me to jam Internal Medicine, which is basically the practice of clinical medicine, in just one year out of the whole duration of 6 years of med school, making the fifth year the first time medical students learn clinical examination. Two months of the fourth year where supposedly scheduled for teaching us that, but they were hardly taken seriously by the students and the majority of the staff, two months that we're getting to understand their wasted value at the moment though. Of course, receiving medical education where we are takes the experience to a whole different dimension. Med students here can confidently state that their learning experience is very different from anyone else's in the whole world. That's one thing we can know for sure about this year. Nevertheless, I'm determined to begin this year with high spirits and see for myself how far things would go.
I've started the year with the Chest Medicine round. The beginning of the round is really the most tiresome part of it when you're still wide eyed making your early acquaintance with the basic principles of a new branch and yet expected to know, understand and practice everything as fast as you can (or can't for that matter). You're still organizing your studying material and figuring out what are the most reliable sources. And, above all, you're learning how to perform the needed clinical skills correctly and interpret your findings into a preliminary differential diagnosis. So imagine our panic when we knew that the end of the round exam takes place after 2 weeks of its begining (one week from now, that is).
I am thinking it would be a good thing if one could keep track of what goes on this year, why it would be a good thing I have no idea, it's only that I've taken it upon myself to do so that I'm calling it a good idea.
So, what have I learnt (or haven't learnt) so far?
- An annoying feeling I'm getting since this round has begun is that apart from clinical examination skills I'm not learning any new information at all. We keep attending lectures that's main focus is still pathology. I don't know if I'm right, but I expected more focus on the clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment part.
- This reminds me to mourn physiology, pathology, anatomy, histology... etc basically mourn the first 3 years of med school. It's amazing how most of us have no recollection what so ever of these sweet memories. May be that's why teaching is re-targeting them, but again, I thought it's our responsibility to review these aspects of every topic on our own, be prepared so that teaching this year can have better focus on the clinical aspects.
- Enthusiasm is just as contagious as disappointment. Some teachers are so passionate, so enthusiastically talk and move non-stop for hours to the extent that you suspect hyperactivity of their Thyroid glands. Others are totally convinced that students are lazy, stupid, useless creatures that have to be continuously scorned for whatever they do or don't do right or wrong. They waste endless time preaching without any called-for occasion. As I've said, both are very much contagious. You either want to jump up and start working right now or want to walk out of class so that you won't be put down by their idea of you.
-Doctors actually use the stethoscopes. And they actually hear different sounds that actually have meanings. (who would have guessed)
- I won't even begin to talk about the condition of the patients. It's not that they are ill-treated from the medical staff or the students. It's simply their conditions. The sad miserable mixture of extreme poverty, illness and ignorance. I can't imagine their lives outside the hospital or even inside it, and I can't endure the idea of having anything to do with worsening it one day. If success to us is not a good enough incentive for working hard, try this one.
- We are very lucky that we are in the building that has been on fire some weeks ago. You can still see the ashes and blackened walls in many of the places. This explains the sand piles occupying the ground floor, but definitely doesn't explain why these sand piles are being used as urinals. The entrance of the chest medicine building is where you hold your breath and hope you lose your smell sensation altogether. Well at least we have an entrance, check the main entrance of the Internal Medicine building that's under reconstruction and students and patients climb scaffolds to enter the building. When are they planning on closing the entrance? When an accident takes place of course, but not before that.
- Cats are freely allowed on the chest medicine floor. Huge cats that I saw the nurses greeting in the morning. It's interesting also that the cats at least respect the dress coat, they are all white.
- Aw! And roaches too.
But, as they say, life goes on....
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