Idealistically Realist

the north coast of Java island, taken during my last week trip to Central Java

"Do you know what's the secret of being a popular doctor?" my father asked, just recently.

"What is it?" I shrugged.

"Give your patient the most potent medicine. Once they know the drugs work well, they'll know that you're doing your job."

Patients : People or Cases?

This month has been overwhelming by school schedules, reading catch-up, and extracurricular activities I have. Last 3 weeks I joined gym and tried to spend 3 times a week having workout session. On one side it has made me feel good about my body, I feel much more healthier and less tiresome, I have better mood, and it is a good way to relieve some stress too (yes, the gym guys are good looking! :p). On the other side, I go home after workout feeling tired and can't stand reading handouts for more than one hour. So I try to do a major catch up on weekends, but then I always use weekends as my excuse to hang out and have fun, so basically I am doing a very slow progress here. I have postponed my plan to take a diving course this month until all the exams are over and it turns out to be the smartest decision I've made so far.

Being so tiresome and sleepy in class make me want to post some tricks (some work, some not) I use to do when I can't stand to sleep during a long class, either it is a morning one or an afternoon one. Still on process on making that post, though. But tonight when I was reading surgery handouts, some case images of oral cancer have disturbed me.

Enjoying medical school to its max

"No matter what you do, this medical training will be a long process. So all we can do is enjoy each second of it." - Robert, a senior of mine and one of the smartest student in my faculty

Three years ago, when I learned about biochemistry, physiology, and biomedicine in med school, I keep on thinking that all I want is finish medical school as fast as possible and get myself to be a real doctor as soon as possible.

Yesterday, I read a very interesting post in Medscape website,which pretty much made me realize on how I actually enjoying this whole process of medical training. This post "Journey or Destination?" had me remember my first three years in medical school, which sometimes I keep on thinking about the goal, good test results, and how it will affect my life as a doctor in the future.

Now I am entering my fourth year, my next semester will be the last semester before clinical rounds, and it will be my last semester having lectures with the whole students in my badge. Rolling my mind back when I had lab classes and medical skill trainings, I start realizing that I am going to miss those whole process.

I remember my first year, still get used to call my lecturers "Doc" instead of "Ma'am" or "Sir", adapting myself in the euphoria of being accepted in med school, caught bad nightmares after doing my first dissection in anatomy class, getting overwhelmed by hundred of Latin words in anatomy and the complexity of human body structure, pretending to be a real doctor by practicing history taking and physical examinations to fake patients...

My second year, studying the difficult schemes of biochemistry, had interesting experiments in human physiology class, seen and tried ECG machine for the first time, paid full attention of roaches, worms, and ticks under the microscope in parasitology class, made the TB sputum preparations in fear of might getting infected, created my very first research proposal and spent nights finishing it, did my first catheterization and NG tube application (which is actually much harder to do it how it seem)...

My third year, did my first phlebotomy (and get my blood sucked by my friends too -- in several attempts), did my first urine, blood, and serum analysis in clinical pathology class, seen the actual tumors and human diseases with my own eyes in pathology anatomy class, finished my research project (about breast cancer) after months of the long process, did my first 5 hour clerkships in neurology, emergency dept, paediatrics, and internal medicine ward, and more exhausting nights of pre-exam nights...

In just three years, I have learned, seen, watched, heard, experienced, felt, dissected, smelled, and done lots of things that I haven't done or even imagined before. I have felt wowed, overwhelmed, jawdropped, amused, excited, upset, desperate, and all of those colorful emotions related with my training. We have been carefully prepared, so we would be the doctors who can face the real patients out there, once we are graduated. This whole medical training program, along with the lecturers, fellow med students, and generous seniors have created an unforgettable experience of a lifetime.

The process of training will be continued even for years after I completed med school, either by formal or informal lessons. As for today, I decided to put more attention on here and now, while keep aiming at my goal.