January 10, 2007

• You might be in Med School if…

  You see neurons in soap suds in your shower.

  You feel like vomiting and automatically lay in the rescue position

  When drinking, you and your friends think that the increase in your AST/ALT tomorrow is going to be hilarious!

  You still do drugs, but at least you know what they do to you. And never fail to inform those you’re doing them with.

  You blame neurotransmitters for anything going wrong in your life

  You
  can have a conversation about the abscess you drained today while
  eating cream of broccoli soup without any problem at all. Or for that
  matter, over any kind of meal.

  You have named a dead person…and talked to them about your stresses while finding their lumbar plexus

  You know that specialties are pre-defined by personality type.

  The drama in your life now is worse than it ever was in high school.

  When
  you go out with non-medical students, you’re abnormally quiet, because
  you don’t know what to talk about besides med school.

  You can
  name the four people in your class who are the question-asker, the
  arguer, the bigshot doctor’s son/daughter and the stoner/alkie/druggie
  who’s never IN class.

  You know countless dirty mnemonics for parts of the body, but couldn’t tell anyone what the front-page headline today is.

  Your life consists of three parts: studying, drinking, and sleeping.

  You refer to the semesters you took organic chemistry as “The Good Old Days.”

  You consistently tell people that they just don’t understand how bad it really is.

  You know that, in theory, you have a family and friends, but you can’t place the last time you saw them.

  You don’t bother dating because the divorce rate is 70% for physicians.

  You constantly find yourself saying things like “I just have to get to spring break” or “I just have to get through Step 1.”

  You understand the complexities of the USMLE as well as internships, residencies, and fellowships.

  You
  question every day if you should drop out and open a coffee shop, then
  realize that as soon as you were two semesters into med school, you
  were too far in debt to be anything but a doctor.

  You’re not really sure which professional organizations you’re actually a member of, but you never joined the AMA.

  People assume you know something when you tell them you’re in med school, but you know that you haven’t learned anything.

  You’ve dissected a penis and can explain the way Viagra works.

  People constantly ask what med school is like, and all you can think of to say is “It really sucks.”

  You’ve
  never had problems before, but 6 months into med school you’re on birth
  control, an anti-depressant, an anti-anxiety medication and sleep
  medication.

  You can name 3 specialties you’re interested in,
  then immediately rule two of them out because they don’t pay well
  enough to pay off your debt.

  Half your class is Asian of some sort. And you can name at least three people whose parents pushed them into med school.

  A “study group” is you, your syllabus, and your red bull.

  You
  assess beverages for amount of caffeine before buying only those with
  more caffeine than coffee. Then you explain to the cashier how caffeine
  works for you.

  You’ve done physical exams on your roommate, boyfriend, girlfriend, and any close friends.

  You think “AWESOME!” if someone keels over in front of you.

  You’re still excited to see “real patients.”

  You’re
  pretty sure you used to be a normal social person, but now you can
  completely stop conversations by talking about the time that guy pissed
  and bled all over you during a code.

  You speak only in acronyms and abbrevations; HIV, CMV, USMLE, Dx, Px.

  You meet someone and have to put off a date for months because you’re crazy busy.

  Advisors tell you that you have to balance your life with med school, and then are baffled when you ask them how to do it.

  You’ve been told by at least 2 mentors that you really don’t want to go into medicine.

  You’ve thought something like “what’s another $10,000 in loans?”

  You’re really frightened by the thought of some of your classmates becoming doctors.

  You go a week without sleeping with no problem at all.

  Grey’s
  Anatomy, House, Scrubs, Dr. 90210, Nip/Tuck and ER are your favorite
  shows, but you point out all the wrong things in them all the time.

  You
  have diagnosed yourself or others with at least 5 rare diseases (PML,
  Kaposi’s sarcoma, Measles, Rheumatic Heart Disease, etc.)

  People
  talking to you for longer than 10 minutes start to get a glazed-over
  look while you wax poetic about kidney function. And you don’t even
  notice.

  You keep trying to “catch” the kidney, because Bates says you can. Nevermind that every doctor you know says you can’t.

  The word “holiday” indicates the weekend after exams to you.

  You
  have a non-medical student in your life who either elbows you when you
  say inappropriate things or says “forgive him/her, s/he’s a med
  student.”

  You have mastered the art of only remembering things for a few hours (specifically, the 12 hours up to and including the exam)

  You remember mnemonics from anatomy, but don’t actually remember what they stand for

  You have at some point had a yelling, screaming, throwing things, breaking down and crying incident in the last month.

  Your parents ask what you want for Christmas and you say “to be done with this semester.”

  Your
  sibling calls you crying or upset, but in the middle of their
  hysterics, asks you if you’re studying or if you can take time to talk,
  all concerned that they’re bothering you.

  You’ve thought
  something along the lines of “Couldn’t my cousin/grandfather/brother
  have waited to get married/die/come visit until exams were over?”

  You’ve
  read, heard, or wrote a poem, performed or choreographed a dance, or
  drawn pictures of anatomy, anatomy lab or med school in general.

  ou lose something like your license or cell phone a week before exams and don’t even realize it’s gone til afterwards.

  You have ever heard anyone say “I’m going to fail” before the exam who then told you they got over a 90 on the exam.

  You see or hear about some disease or medically-related thing and instantly think “am I supposed to know that?”

  There are still drugs, body parts, slides, cell types, or diseases you don’t know the morning of your exam.

  You
  know that there is such a thing as studying too much and that after a
  certain peak, your grade starts going down with increased studying.

  You
  accept that in your line of work, your clients are GOING to try to
  punch you. (face it folks, if they haven’t swung at you yet, they will.)

  You know that even with residency hour restrictions, you’re still making less than the secretary.

  You still think that patients actually will fit right into symptom parameters set by textbooks.

  You’ve ever heard the phrase “You must be smart, you’re in med school!” and wanted to vehemently disagree.

  You can’t remember the last time you did anything spontaneous.

  You own a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, and of course, the real Bibles: Netter and Bates.

  You find yourself becoming more like house and dr. cox as time goes on.

  You watch medicine on TV shows and think “HA! as IF!”

  You
  amuse yourself by hiding anatomy and trauma pictures about the
  apartment for your non-medical roommate to find at awkward moments. (if
  you haven’t done this…its priceless.)

  You’ve eaten breakfast while paging through your Rohen.

  You know what I mean by Rohen.

  You chuckle whenever you see “fork” labeled in a Netters diagram.

  You know you’re a new student when you still attempt to explain to your family what’s going on in med school.

  You
  know you’re officially a first year when you talk about school to
  friends and family and every sentence is followed by “…is that good?”

  You celebrate a 70 on a test.

  You’ve
  purposely sacrificed two tests in order to get an 80 on the
  third…because there’s absolutely no way to ace 8 subjects at the same
  time.

  You’ve compared your friends to various immune system components, or some other enzyme.

  You notice your friends ask you how schools going, then realize they regret it when you actually answer.

  • 9:07 pm
  • 4 Comments