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Just a guy in med school

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Bri MT:

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justaloser:
Mid-week update:

Getting used to the shock of anatomy. I'm adjusting; the tracker's helped, and pre-reading was also immensely helpful for a tutor. Should've done this earlier because I read ahead in VCE and that helped. Am relatively fine with the brachial plexus now.

EDIT: Just did PACA which is like an anatomy Kahoot tutorial. It's mad fun, tutors are super supportive & everyone's asking question like rapid-fire. Most importantly I've learnt a ton from this because everyone makes their own mistakes rather than choosing to ask the questions in front of everyone (no awkward silences). It's such a big contrast to Tuesday's specimens tute because I feel like in PACA everyone's making mistakes & answering questions where else in specimens it's more about who gets pimped by the tutors lol. Maybe that's just my own observation. Anyway, gonna study joints and bone landmarks now and write up my Anki cards. Feeling confident about muscles & brachial plexus now.

Sleep schedule's also back to normal, sleep at 12am, wake up at 9am. Getting lots of work in morning done now and less procrastination (probably because of the load of content). Only issue is that my diet's very ... questionable atm.

There's more I'll write about on Sunday. Take care

justaloser:
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.

justaloser:
Short and sweet post this week because I'm a little bit tired.

Continued anatomy this week -- we moved "inferiorly" and studied the forearm & arm (elbow joint, muscles, innervation etc). Surprisingly there was a lot of revision of the shoulder joint and there'll be a revision week next week to catch up, so that's nice. Other highlights were physiology of the muscles and how muscle contraction occurs -- really intuitive (I love our physiology lecture, he deserves another post) and easy to apply to weightlifting/exercise. Also did clinical content -- we learnt how to perform inspections, examinations and tests on peoples' shoulder areas -- which was a mess because it's so hard to learn examinations via Zoom. I practised exams on my dad and realised I needed to know why these tests are being performed (also remembering how to do them is already hard, the only ones I truly remember are the painful arc and bicep flexion test)

In terms of studying I've found my groove I think -- reading the clinical sections of the textbook, then using conditions to "consolidate" content seems to be the best for me (eg. damage to the median (anterior interosseous) nerve paralyses the flexor digitorum profundus & flexor pollicis longus and prevents flexion of the DIP and thumb joint. this is how I remember that FDP and FPL respectively flex the finger joints and the thumb joint). Drawing and annotating diagrams/images has also really helped, but I need a computer stylus so I can do it digitally too (I've been doing it on "scrap" paper and on my textbook). Also, what I've been doing is thinking about movements & anatomy in regards to lifting -- eg. in a shoulder press, your shoulder joint abducts and scapula elevates (correct me if I'm wrong). Researching the etymology of muscles has also allowed me to better remember names and purposes -- so the flexor digitorum superficialis is the "superficial flexor of the digits" (try putting your fingers in a claw) and extensor pollicis longus is "long extensor of the thumb" etc.. Honestly I don't think terminology could be any better, it's quite intuitive (if I said that in front of Year 12 me he'd think I'm mad).
All of this has helped a lot, and musculature, tendons are what I'm comfortable with (vasculature, not so much). The names are the least of my worries now, it's just about remembering the clinical applications I think.

Having the Sunday study sesh has also helped to consolidate content and has been a nice time to just catch up and chat which is honestly something that's been a rarity in iso. We ask each other questions and clarify confusing parts of the course which is a godsend and really leverages that "teaching is the best way to learn" idea. Also I think I'm kind of annoying because I keep talking about Moore & Dalley's blue boxes lol. Moore & Dalley's Clinically Oriented Anatomy can honestly have my children.

I've stopped using Anki pretty much (only making cards now). Maybe I should bring it back in to augment my current studying, but right now I prefer more visual methods like annotating diagrams, drawing diagrams etc. (whenever I see a hand I try to annotate which joints are which so I can better imagine it since I'm a visual learner).

Also had my first meeting with my mentor for med and we had a nice chat. She's also into writing and is also submitting something for the Auricle, plus she's into medicine for the same reason - the human element and interacting with people. We discussed about clubs which made me really think about the first years who didn't join clubs and might be a bit lost socially -- I know I was lucky and got into a club via an old HS friend.

Apart from that my group finally finished our UCCC presentation. I got the vibe all of us were getting burnt out by it but we're friends now. Submitting it and collaborating on the project was a good feeling and it definitely taught me something about teamwork, referencing and . Most importantly it's been the catalyst for me using Notion, which has really improved my note-taking and organisation - having all my to-dos in the same place as my timetable and notes is great. Only issue is that typing will never beat pen and paper.

That's it. Take care, have a good week.

justaloser:
Every single time I saw "this'll be short and sweet" I end up taking 30 minutes to write it. Wew

Also if I might add. This week was asynchronous so most of the activities we had to do independently. Frankly I didn't like this method -- there was less opportunity to ask questions (which is also good)  -- and it was easier to delay/procrastinate (eg. I'll do the activity tonight..). As much as I despise Zoom, I prefer the normal Zoom tutes (and being scared about the tutors pimping me eek)

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