First day of medical school

First day of class is DONE. Ok, well, it wasn't yet a real day of class (although I did just spend an hour or so doing genetics problems already). It was more of an introduction, but still very cool and worth writing a few words about. We have a relatively new curriculum with many fancy-sounding features, such as "virtual patient #21 (VP21)" and "pillars of disease". So far, I figured out what the pillars meant. There are four of them: each represents a broader group of diseases. Diabetes, heart disease (atherosclerosis), colon cancer and TB (and no, TB is not an eradicated disease as one of my classmates suggested today). Throughout medical school, these four pillars will reappear in our courses, discussions, and then later on, in our clinical training. I think the whole point is to put real faces on diseases. So on our first day of medical school, we met four people, each of whom suffer (or used to suffer) from one of these diseases.

What's actually super cool is that almost exactly two years ago, before I even began applying to med school, I read this article in the Times, exactly about what I have just experienced today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/nyregion/03medschool.html

So today, I was there, one of the slightly nervous new medical students in the audience. How cool is that??!! I cannot even believe it.

In any case, it was so touching to hear these patients speak about their experiences: good and bad ones alike. They clearly had great relationships with their current physicians (otherwise, I assume, they would not have agreed to do this) and that was really nice to see. They all shared some very personal stories, with 162 complete strangers; all in the name of education. Wow!

Later in the day, we met a few doctors, all with different paths to where they are today. Some had known what they wanted to be since they can remember; others made their minds up later. The common theme was that they all defied some odds. My favorite one was a woman in her 60's maybe, who switched residencies a few times before she realized that she really wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon - not so easy for a woman even 20 years ago - and while fighting to be accepted, working twice as hard as all the men around her, she decided that even though she was single and never had much time for dating, she wanted to have a baby. So she did. While she was a fellow. And single. Wow. Nothing is impossible.

We also spent nearly two hours listening to our own classmates talk about the different events, people or things that have motivated them to arrive at this point in their lives. Most stories were very personal: a sick family member, friend, an experience with death, or with unjust social situations. One girl was a lawyer before she decided to pursue medicine: she was working with refugees, which ultimately motivated her to change careers and now she is here. I hope I will get to talk to her at some point.

Tomorrow will be a day of real classes. Paying attention, taking notes, learning things. Should get some rest before.