Today I came in tired and worn out. We had our HRa screaming in the morning and mine was at 7AM so I had to leave the house super early. I then spent my morning running around Greenville until the program started this morning. I got Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast and got to run into someone that I used to know.
The Waiting Room
We started off the day by watching a documentary called "The Waiting Room". It was a quite interesting documentary that opened my eyes to issues that are faced in lower income areas regarding health care. It touched mostly on patients who come to an emergency room because it is usually the only department required to provide care regardless of insurance, employment, or financial status. I spoke of repeat patients and showed how frustrating these patients can be for doctors. However, it also showed how the doctors always do their best no matter how many times they have been seen or what problems they may have. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that patients would come into the ER just to get their medications refilled. It really made me appreciate how lucky I am to have parents with good insurance and be able to see a doctor on a regular basis.
Medical Student Panel
This was extremely educational for me and also very reassuring. I learned so much from studying tactics to things to prepare for. I took a TON of bullet point notes.
Most students have about 8 hours of studying (with breaks) per day
You should never compare yourself to other (including comparing your studying tactics and times)
Try your hardest to keep a great GPA in college because it is harder to bring up your GPA than to bring down your GPA
DO NOT underestimate the amount of information you will learn in med-school
Find what works well for you, or what you are good at and STAY WITH IT
Meet your professors and figure out how you will learn from them best
When you are in college, use it as an opportunity to figure out your best learning style
Do not dilly-dally, BE EFFICIENT!!!
Medical students don't have to be perfect, but take classes that will make you look perfect
Don't be afraid to ask for help mentally or academically
JOB SHADOW! JOB SHADOW! JOB SHADOW!
Keep a personal life to go to if you get overwhelmed
Prioritize sleep
Stay healthy
Be proactive
You will relearn everything you learned in college
Like I said, I learned a lot. It really helped me calm down and get a grasp about how to continue on with my career. The students also said a few things that stood out:
"There is no formula"
"Just do what you need to do to get to med-school"
"You can only put so many penguins on your iceberg"
"Be happy today"
"Your grades are not equal to your self-worth"
Lunch Break
I spent my lunch break on the phone with an admission counselor at Lander University. I talked to her about what their Nursing options are. I found out that you can take two different tracks: you can get an RN associates degree and then come back for online RN to BSN completion, or you could do a 4-year BSN program that combines both. I also asked about medical school pre-requisites and how many of those pre-requisites are already built into the nursing program. The lady I spoke to was not quite sure about that, so she referred me to someone else. She is supposed to call me back whenever she finds that out. I know that I want to minor in Spanish, but if I have to, I would rather finish out all of the pre-requisites that I need for med-school before taking Spanish classes.
CRNA
After lunch, we had a lecture about a CRNA. I thought that it was quite interesting and something that I really want to shadow. (Unfortunately, I am not quite old enough). I keep hearing everyone say how important it is to shadow and I really want to find some places where I can shadow on the weekends during the school year. He spoke a ton about different scenarios with anesthesia and I truly enjoyed hearing all about his previous experiences and his outlier cases.
Mental Health
After the CRNA lecture, we had a lecture on mental health. A physiatrist came in to speak about his experience as a phycologist and answer our questions regarding mental health and phycology. The speaker was so much fun to listen to. You know that it will be fun when your speaker walks in wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I enjoyed it a lot.
AIDET/Hump-day Hangout
Our final nugget of the day was about AIDET.
A - Acknowledge
I - Introduce
D - Duration
E - Explanation
T - Thank You
It was all about pretty much just common courtesy and compassion when speaking to patients. You want to Acknowledge who they are, introduce yourself to them, tell them the duration of what you will do, explain what you will do, and finally Thank Them for letting you do whatever it was you were doing. We did some scenarios where you played the caregiver and one of the interns played the patient. It was a lot of fun. An example of a scenario would be: Millie is a 17-year-old female who has been running a slight fever and has a very high heart rate. You are a nurse, and your job is to take her temperature and check her heart rate. You would come in and say, "Hello Millie, my name is CJ Doss, and I am a nurse here. I am going to take your temperature and heart rate; it should only take a few minutes." Once you have taken her temperature and heart rate, you would make sure to tell her thank you before leaving the room.
After that, we had our hump-day-hangout. Today's hangout was a desert party. Everyone brought a desert to share, and we had a lot of fun with it. I had way too much sugar and had to take a lot of insulin, but sometimes you just have to live a little.
Quote of the Day (sorry it's kind of long)
"There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. Ther's .1 and .12. and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and G-d, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You have me a forever within my numbered days, and I'm grateful." - John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Final Thoughts
I thought that today's lectures were by far the best so far and I found myself talking to even more people today than I did yesterday. I am started to feel at home here. I still have fear about my whole college application process and just college life, but I believe that when we do one-on-one's I should get a lot of answers that will help me. I truly enjoyed everything today, and I can't wait for day four. I give day three 4 out of 5 stars.
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