Mid-week update, I reckon I'll post biweekly so each post is longer. Also doing this while waiting for a friend to get on to study. Happy R U OK day by the way, it's at least good that there's an event that puts the spotlight on mental health.
Content this week has been manageable. No anatomy lectures, just online, asynchronous activities that were a slog to get through but oh-so-satisfying to finish. A fair amount of physiology & pharmacology -- I love pharmacology by the way. It makes physiology feel rewarding to learn. We studied NSAIDs, SAIDs -- basically anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce pain like paracetamol. Had a good time today drawing a nice mindmap that incorporated drugs, inflammation in with how pain gets transmitted -- from the stimulus itself via the nerves to the cortex where it actually gets perceived. Maybe I should have put Pharmacy as my other-non-med option instead of Physiotherapy lol.
With the help of my mentor I've been able to improve my studying. She suggested taking down the
3 key ideas as dotpoints for each lecture, which complements my Cornell notes well. It makes the content easier to digest instead of noting every individual detail. I've been reverting back to logging notes physically, then summarising them as "factoids" (or 3 dotpoints) on Notion, which makes it so much easier to go back through (and nicer to look at!). That being said I've been noticing I haven't reviewed past weeks' content and I haven't been using Guyton & Hall enough to revise Physiology. That's midsem break stuff I guess.
Been clocking in average 3/4 hours everyday -- it's good compared to last semester. But my friend in a similar course has been clocking in 6 hours' daily study and I've been thinking that what I'm doing isn't enough. A friend of a friend apparently treats her study like a full-time job, clocking in 8-10h and although a friend and I discussed how that could be inefficient I think that's God-tier for medicine. (I feel like Patrick Bateman talking about study like this)
Mental health has been questionable. I've flip-flopped between feeling incredibly unstable and restless and feeling on top of my studies and confident about my progress with the content. Trying to hold out until my psych appointment next week -- looking very forward to it.
R U OK day hasn't really helped either -- I read an article by a guy opining that the day is more of a novelty than a real catalyst for change. I agree somewhat. One conversation can be what it takes to start further dialogue but a lot of the time you don't want to expose yourself like that especially to people you don't know especially well. I love my friends in med but I can't bring myself to be honest so it's yet another year of "Yeah I'm alright, wbu?". That's my hot take as someone who's been dealing with depression for the past 4 years or even more.
Anyway, enough pity-partying from your local dropkick medical student (that's my new title I suppose). Looking forward to tonight's study and to tomorrow's ICL tute (our tutor shows us interesting cases he's found in clinical practice which I think are the highlight of the day).
That's it. Take care and make sure you're staying mentally healthy.
And if you're ever experiencing any mental difficulties, just know it's OK and treat it like a regular sickness and talk to someone about it. As a friend said, if you had an acute fever, you'd probably see the doctor right?