Good first week back.
The first half of this week was pretty overwhelming. It was definitely a huge struggle getting used to the initial punch of anatomy (of muscles, bones, movements of upper limb) and 4 consecutive hours of tutes was quite a slog. Nevertheless I've learnt some key information which I've absorbed quickly, not just pertaining to anatomical terminology but also to clinical skills. I can confidently do a systemic & musculoskeletal systems review after having practised a few times which is nice. There were some lectures on physiology (how alpha neurons cause muscle contraction -- I'm fairly confident in how it works), epidemiology/population health (only introductory lectures though so not enough to really talk about) and HEP (self-care program that people make fun of, I think it's neat, maybe that's because I'm weird though). Anatomy has overshadowed all of those.
I had a 4 hour Zoom sesh with friends from the cohort where we quizzed each other/ran through tute work/gave explanations on areas we were missing today as well, which was fantastic. The time flew by.
Since we covered so much however, I'm not sure if I can retain all of it and I'm feeling a bit uneasy with how much detail I need to remember. I'm not sure whether I should commit to detail or clinical application of anatomy.
Although I've hit around 2 hours' average study a day, out-of-class studying has been a bit unstructured; I haven't stuck to my 25 minute blocks as much but I have been pulling undisturbed concentrated sessions after tutes to formalise my "messy" notes into neat, presentable versions on, as well as doing labelling that I missed out on during tutes. Maybe it's the urgency/load of the content that just pressures me to concentrate. I think as the sem continues, I'll settle into structured study. I haven't been sticking to Anki cards as much as last sem -- mostly this week it's been labelling my anatomy textbook (henceforth M&D's) and less making Anki cards and studying them. Still, I'm retaining content well -- I'm confident about but quite a few details elude me. I'm not entirely confident about clinical applications of anatomy (eg. fractures of humerus, clavicle, dislocations of the shoulder joint) which is concerning because that's a way to apply my knowledge and it's supposedly what they'll test on the exam (M&D's blue boxes, those are fun to read). I've retained some knowledge on Erb's & Klumpke's palsies (sort-of paralyses of the arm due to damage to roots) which I'm happy with. I haven't gotten around to reading about physical exams for muscles (I know how to test for normal functioning of the lats from reading a paragraph of M&D's and that's it) which I'll do after this and maybe tomorrow too, since I have a bit of free time tomorrow. It's pre-reading for Tuesday's tute anyway.
Mental health has not been good; I've realised how really bad my anxiety is this week. Earlier in the week faculty released scores for a midsem formative exam to show us we were doing as fine as last years' cohort but I saw that my score placed me in the bottom 25%. Not good, but then again, I did that exam before I revised my sem's content and the exam opened multiple times during the semester (is that an excuse?). Realising I scored so low also gave me a hard bout of impostor syndrome. Friends also pointed out I had a panic attack (not a panic attack by my standards though) in our study sesh today when I got worried about the level of detail of anatomy we needed to know. I'm aware now that the stuff we're learning now is just a stepping stone to applying it later clinically ... I think?
I should see my uni doc for a referral but he knows I'm a medical student and may brush me off. Who knows. Just want to get it out of the way before I start work.
For context, I think I have some sort of chronic anxiety disorder (I've never been diagnosed but a lot of people over the past 5 years have told me to "stop stressing", "stop being a worrywart", I've had panic attacks at school).
Sleep is all good now.
Outside of uni I haven't been up to much. Snuck in a three hours' of Final Fantasy to stream for mates on Friday and been having meetings with the Cancer Case group -- our work is slowly getting there but we're behind schedule and it's a bit tough being able to cram our research and model into the allocated slide/word count we've been given. It's tough since our model is a little bit here-and-there but we've all agreed that the knowledge we've gained is a lot regardless. Learnt about the psychosocial issues cancer survivors face (like fear of recurrence, distress), how care for (rural) cancer survivors is mostly from friends/family rather than from social workers or healthcare providers. Learnt about importance of fostering independence in cancer survivors -- supposedly it decreases distress but the research says it may be a multidirectional relationship. It's been great learning to read research articles and recognising the methods of study (eg. qualitative vs quantitative) or limitations as well as structure. Plus I've been able to have nice conversations with the other group members - that's always a plus.
Looking cautiously forward to next week -- it's got fewer tutes because our learning that week is "asynchronous" so we have to do it on our own.