i went to class today. it was weird.
it was not class like the first year of medical school, with 3 or 4 zillion powerpoint slides in rapid succession delivered by an overzealous phD obsessed with something like chromosome structure or fungus.
it was not class like last year, either, where often some aging attending arrived 15 minutes late just to pimp us and then interrupt halfway through, because nothing we could say would satisfy.
it definitely wasn’t class like i had in undergrad, which i have retroactively idealized in my mind as a fabulously engaging learning experience, even though i know full well that “culinary history of russia” was neither engaging nor fabulous, and was packed with surprisingly stupid football players. and orgo was no picnic either. ok, so it wasn’t all so great, but i miss it, because collectively it was the best academic experience i’ve had.
today’s class was not like any of the above. i suppose it was ok. the material is interesting to me, and i like going back to quantitative thinking, as the closest thing to math i’ve done in the last year is calculating pediatric drug doses and balancing my checkbook. i have a sort of fear that the math/logic part of my brain has been smushed to accomodate things like antihypertensive drugs and the management of status epilepticus, but i guess we’ll see.
complaints:
1) there were way too many science geeks overflowing the small conference room
2) the instructor was teaching with these PDF files instead of powerpoint. they were projected on a screen, and he was referring to them as if we could all see them, but they really weren’t projected large enough for anyone to read but those sitting right next to it. technology at its worst. i wish people would just go back to writing on the board.
3) he took several cracks at medical students/the medical school, saying that unlike Medical Pharmacology and other med school classes, in his class we weren’t going to get “spoon-fed” and be expected to “regurgitate” on exams.
well, fine, medical school wasn’t the deepest learning and most complex thinking i’ve ever had to do. but his comments made me defensive. it’s not like all that “spoon-feeding” and “regurgitating” is so easy, anyway. the volume of material is sufficient to cause painful, nauseating GERD [gastroesophageal reflux disease] when one tries to swallow it, and he probably has never had the experience himself.
i think some phDs have grudges against the MDs, and probably vice versa. i bet they each think that the other half has it easy. they’re both wrong. and if they wanted easy, they should have gone to business school. or even better, married rich.
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in other news, i ended my gym hiatus today (2 weeks, due to the superFlu, mad bitch invasion, and general laziness). it was a little bit painful, i’ll admit. other accomplishments include emptying my email inbox (so cleansing), buying first aid for the usmle step i, cooking some mushroom pasta (thank you, cook’s illustrated!), and washing some towels.
and now i have written much, much more than anyone ever wanted to read. sorry, and good night.
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