I'm a terrible patient

I've had the flu and a cold for the past 7 days. I hate it. I'm crabby and taking it out on everyone around me. Why we didn't think of feeding me DayQuil until yesterday is beyond me. It bothers me that when I meet patients in observerships who are crabby because they are unwell, I am patient and kind, but with myself, I am impatient and unkind.

And you've been warned - stay away from me when I'm ill!

Do what you love and the rest will follow

'Do what you love and the rest will follow' is advice that I have passed on to anyone wishing to apply to Medical School. It really doesn't get more simple than that. I love swinging in the park, hanging out with my brother's kids, eating chocolate and drinking coffee, hitting the gym and cooking. I loved my jobs, the volunteering I did before I got here and the degree I was studying. That shone through on my essays and in my interview. If I had done everything by the book and volunteered in an emergency room or done a degree in biomedical sciences, I'm not sure I would have been admitted. That's the selfish side of doing what you love.

The practical side is that it makes everything you do easier. When we're little and have to go somewhere we don't want to, we dawdle. I'm sure it drove our parents nuts. It takes forever to get a kid that doesn't want to go somewhere out the door. Putting on shoes, finding coats and remembering to go pee can take an hour. I wonder if it's fair to assume that when I'm taking forever to get to my early morning meetings with faculty and administration if it's just that I don't want to go there. The days that we have early morning clinical methods however, I'm out the door like a shot.

I'll try to pay attention next year during clerkship to find out what gets my feet moving in the morning and what will make it easier to leave the house. That might finally let me know which specialty is calling my name!

Here is a set of links to advice from the women at 'Mothers in Medicine'. They are what these women would have wanted to know upon their acceptance to med school. Things like don't lose yourself, don't do it for the money, you will miss and love the classmates you currently want to throttle, the happiest med students are in their mid twenties, all the crap will be worth it, take a calcium supplement, don't let yourself get too fat, write in the school paper, it will all work out, you're never alone.

Game Face

My GI exam is coming up. I have a lot of studying left to do. I still love this block and I'm still not going to be a gastro enterologist.

I took a mental health day today and it was fantastic. Most of the day was watching "How I met your mother". Not exactly ideal study conditions, but wonderful for making me smile and lose track of my stresses. And there was chocolate. Far too much chocolate. Tasty tasty chocolate.

But I digress.

There are many students in my class who are focusing on studies alone, leaving all the organization and advocacy to other people. That's fine, I respect that. I just wish they wouldn't rub my nose in it.

I know that I am just as smart and able to succeed in school as well as advocate for my fellow students.

I am currently giving myself a pep talk. One that will allow me to get to work and learn everything I could ever want to know about the pancreas and liver (and more). I'm putting on my game face and being the strong woman I know I can be.