It's real

It really just hit me last night: I am going to be a doctor! Yeah yeah, of course I have known (or suspected) this for some time now, but sitting in lectures with 161 other people, listening to the same somewhat dry molecular biology I had learned in college and then worked with in the lab for 6 years, is not all that exciting. And it does not seem all that different from what I've been going for the past 10 years.

Also, med school is like middle school in some ways. Middle school with drinking games. There are clicks (I seem to be associated with one of the Asian clicks), gossip, silly stuff like "that girl hit on every guy at the bar last night" or "she had to be carried home from the club last night" (incidentally, those two occurrences involved the same person). I do somewhat envy the people who live off campus, in real apartments (like ones that have a living room or at least enough space to have more than 1 person over at a time), a little more removed from this fraternity-like social environment. But then in some ways, it's fun to live with someone who's doing the exact same things that I am doing. And she is fun! We get along really well. Which is a huge relief, especially after my living situation last year.

So last night, we had to prepare for small group conferences that we're going to have every week from now on. They are all based on specific cases, related to what we are learning in our lectures, but more like real life situations. Basically, we had to gather some background on four specific diseases that were in the cases, think about how we would advice the patients, etc. I swear it was not my idea to finish the mimosas I had left over from brunch this weekend! Nonetheless, it made for a really fun evening of studying/getting tipsy with my roommate.

And that's when it hit me. I was finally learning about medicine! About how the finicky details of eukaryotic protein synthesis relate to people who have a particular mutation in a particular gene that encodes for a protein that is involved in ion transport. Cystic fibrosis. I got so into it. While my study partner was breezing through the cases, I was going into excruciating detail reading about the various classes of mutations, how they affect the protein, what kinds of different symptoms they produce, and so on. As a side-note, we didn't have to know basically any of those details for today's discussions. In any case, she waited for me to finish - cooked both of us dinner in the meantime - and we did our required quiz at the end of the prep together. We agreed that I should probably be an oncologist, and her maybe a surgeon or an ER doc.

It finally feels real. Also, we have an exam in 3 days. That's when it's going to get really REAL! And then next week, when we have to do our first patient interview with actors (who are apparently very very good). All while wearing our white coats and stethoscopes!! :D