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1/2 a year down!...and about 7 1/2 more to go

Happy new year bloggers! What an awesome game yesterday at the Emerald Bowl.

It's hard to believe, but half a year of medical school has already flown by. And it's been busy. I've never had to study such a large volume of material at one time, and occasionally it has been overwhelming. On the other hand, come exam time, the course material actually starts becoming more cohesive and making sense, and that's when all the hours of studying really pay off.

There really isn't a typical day for a medical student, especially not at Keck, where classes are scheduled differently every single week. For the past few months, we have been covering the "Core" curriculum, which is a (very) broad survey of different topics aimed at placing everyone on the same page. Starting in the spring, we will be moving on to a "systems" curriculum, where we will study dermatology, cardio, neuro, and musculoskeletal individually. Hopefully, that will make the material more cohesive than Core.

What I love most about about med school is the clinical experience we have from day one. Even as complete newbies, we get to meet with patients in LAC+USC Hospital and take histories. Unlike residents and nurses--whose schedules are overloaded and overbooked--we have more time to find out about our patients' experiences and lives. Many patients also welcome med students to the bedside because they enjoy playing a part in educating future doctors. Being able to interact with patients helps me keep in mind the reasons why I decided to go into medicine, reasons which are sometimes difficult to keep sight of when med students are so busy.

I have also been looking at starting research again and have been meeting on and off with a faculty member performing research on gut bacteria over at Caltech. Hopefully I'll find time to become more involved with that. More updates to come. Good luck with the spring semester bloggers and GO BEARS!

Alex Lau
posted January 2, 2009 11:31 AM

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