Caught up

* I rarely blog about my career, but I’ll make an exception this time.

From enthusiastic freshmen who are excited to enter the hospital, we are reduced to juniors who are simply struggling to survive. Our bright eyes that scream curiosity are now laden with panda-like blackness, without the cuteness.

We loiter around the campus, with our stethoscopes around our necks and ginormous notes in our hands. We sport heavy backpacks that perhaps contain our lives- laptops, tablets, books, notes, and even food for day-long lectures. 

We sit in lectures, but less than 50 percent truly listen. Some have rather nocturnal cycles, while some are cramming medical reports to be passed hours or minutes later. Medical students like us struggle to survive, struggle to make our reports on time, struggle to fit facts in our heads, struggle to pass exams, and struggle to find time to sleep.

We have been seeing patients for the past two years, diagnosing them, talking with them, and thanking them. And yet, we have been so absorbed with the technicalities of our lives where the next exam judges our survival. This tiring process has somehow diluted why we’re here and why are we answering these exams in the first place.

The essence of medicine is not in the books, or topping exams. It’s in the special relationships that we form with people. We have been looking at words for so long that we have failed to take a really good look at our patients’ faces.

My recent and unusual case presentation forced me to stop seeing words and concentrate on a patient. It was only then, for the very first time, that I felt the surreal essence of this profession. 

We study not for the sake of studying. We study not to pass, nor to top. We study to heal, not our minds or our insecurities, but the people in front of us. 

We are so caught up in the moment of academe.

We must get caught by the moment of medicine. 

*I sincerely hope that if med students get to read this, they’ll smile with their panda eyes. Let’s have our moments with our classmates, professors, and patients. Time flies so fast, that even the mundane classroom life will be missed and cherished. May I become an awesome MD like my tumblr idol, Dr. Cranquis! :)

How to date a Med student:

1. Don’t expect to see them. Ever.

2. Accept the fact they will have many affairs. With their books.

3. Learn to hide your “ew, gross” reactions when they tell you all the stuff you never wanted to know about your bodily functions.

4. Support them when they come home after each test, upset because they failed—and gently remind them after they get their well above passing grade how unnecessary the “I’m going to fail out of medical school and never become an MD” dramatics are.

5. Each week they will have a new illness. Some will be extremely rare, others will be more mundane. Doesn’t matter. They will be certain they have it (no second opinions necessary.) Med school can, and will, turn even the sanest into a hypochondriac. Date them for long enough, and you’ll become one too.

6. There will be weeks you’ll forget you even have a boyfriend—friends will ask how he is and you’ll say, “What? Who? Oh….right. He’s well…I think.”

7. They’ll make you hyper-aware that germs are everywhere and on everything. Even though you used to walk into your home with your shoes on, and sit on your bed in the same clothes you just wore while riding the subway, or sat on a public bench in, you’ll become far too disgusted to ever do it again. Believe me, it’s going to get bad…you’ll watch yourself transform into the anal retentive person you swore you’d never become. And when you witness others perform these same acts that, before you began dating your med student, you spent your entire life doing too, you’ll wince and wonder, “Ew! How can they do that? Don’t they know how many germs and bacteria they’re spreading??!”

8. Romantic date = Chinese take-out in front of the TV on their 10 minute study break.

9. A vacation together consists of a trip down the street to Walgreens for new highlighters and printer paper.

10. Their study habits will make you feel like a complete slacker. For them, hitting the books 8-to-10 hours a day is not uncommon, nor difficult. You’ll wonder how you ever managed to pass school on your meager one hour of studying per night.

11. They’re expected to know everything. Everything! The name of the 8 billion-lettered, German sounding cell that lives in the depths of your inner ear, the technical term for the “no one’s ever heard of this disease” disease that exists only on one foot of the Southern tip of the African continent. But ask them if your knee is swollen, or what you should do to tame your mucous-filled cough, or why the heck your head feels like someone’s been drilling through it for oil for two weeks straight, and they won’t have a clue.

12. “My brain’s filled with so much information, I can’t be expected to remember THAT!” will be the standard excuse for forgetting anniversaries, birthdays, and, if you get this far, probably the birth of your first-born.

13. You’ll need friends with unending patience who pretend never to get sick of listening to your endless venting and complaints. Or, you’ll need to pay a therapist who will pretend never to get sick of listening to your endless venting and complaints.