Day 6: Second Year Medical Student (MS2)



For those interested in IUSOM, all the two-years' worth of knowledge you'll learn in med school will be taught in this one building!

The day started out comical--the type that's made for TV.  As I enter the Vays Nuys Medical Science building,  I saw two young men sitting on one bench as I sat on another bench further away waiting for my MS2 ambassador.  Ten minutes before class started I decided to call him since I hadn't seen him. He doesn't pick up his phone.  Then he calls me  back and behold,  my MS2 ambassador was one of the guys sitting in the chair.  Also  the guy sitting with him is DePauw alum Mike Stump (more on him later).

In Introduction to Clinical Medicine 2 (my first class as a "MS2 student") or ICM, we learned about ischemia and the use of EKGs  in order to detect this and other cardio-related conditions. What I like about IUSOM is that they curtail classes so that they have an " organ system theme". For instance last week in MS1, the "organ system theme" was neurobiology. In MS2, they continued this by having all the classes (Pharmacology, Introduction to Clinicals, Pathology) related to cardiology.
Also in this class were two DePauw alumni: Adrienne Cobb (class 2009) and Jennifer McPeak-Bailey(class 2009). Wow has time gone by! In three years I'll be where they are now (hopefully). Both girls and Mike were cool enough to answer some of my questions on medical school and their pre-med experience at DePauw. Their answers to my questions ( each alumnus received some same and some different questions) will be in this blog under the post title "DePauw Alumni Love". So keep following!

After ICM and pathology, Jennifer McPeak Bailey walked with Kyle and I to lunch and we talked about DePauw and about some of the organizations on campus such as DePauw Christian Fellowships and Intervarsity and she also listed some of the student organizations that were also on IUSM’s campus.The lunch cost $0.00, however the true cost of the meal was intangible.

Let me explain. At IUSOM (and probably other med schools) you have two options for food: 1) buy it yourself. Pro is that you know what you’re going to eat and the possibility to eat and socialize with friends is there. The con of this option is that you spending money  which, for  a student already in thousands of dollars in debt, can easily add up ($5 a day for lunch is roughly $25 a week, multiply that by fourteen weeks and you’ve spent $350, enough money for a new laptop). 2) The second option is to go to lunch lectures. Lunch lectures are when a department (i.e. Emergency, pediatrics, MD/MBA association, etc.) sponsors a lecturer to speak during lunchtime and provide food as a courtesy for whoever shows up. As you probably guessed, this a popular option  but outside the savings in money there are pros for this option. For instance, lunch lectures allow you to learn about different areas of medicine while you eat (if only all college classes were like this). Also, some of these lecturers are also a part of important boards like boards for a particular residency program. So, for those who are good at social networking, lunch lectures are a social networker’s heaven for interacting with faculty. However the con of this option is that for one hour you are exposed to some grotesque imagery. For instance, I now know what a penis  and vagina looks like with syphilis sores  (yah me).  And in case you’re wondering, these lunch lectures do not end at medical school but continue on into residency.  After a while you get desensitized to it,  but it’s not as if lectures are rated G, PG, or R so you never know what you're getting yourself into before you go to one.

To be honest, some of the lectures are not that bad. For instance, I recorded a section( approx. 1min and 19 sec) of another lunch lecture I attended by radiologist Dr. Ricard Gunderman 's  lunch lecture on the The 21st century Doctor. It’s really good I think you MD wannabees should listen to it.

So the ending message is that you never know what your free lunch really costs, it may actually cost you your lunch (lol. I know, corny joke).  Another con to this option is that you don’t get to choose what you eat and they may run out of food, but I figured that these may be minor to the previous con.

After lunch I got to participate in (what I believe) is the BEST LAB IN THE WORLD!!! Pathology lab. This lab’s theme was autopsy. In groups of four, we had to use the medical history of the (now dead) patient along with her X-ray scans, organs retrived from the patient, and microscopic observations to figure out the patient's cause of death.  Kyle and I worked on the gross anatomy of the patient which was SO COOL. I got to touch a human heart and lungs as well as intestines etc. I did not want to leave the lab! There were some fourth year medical students (MS4s) who were “TAs” for the class and were very helpful.  One of them was a friend of mine I met three years ago during a summer internship. He plans to be a cardiothoracic surgeon and is currently applying for residencies. More on residencies later. The next class, we(really the MS2s since I'm technically not a MS2[yet]) are going to presentations of the findings. Maybe I’ll be able to present with them!!!

LAB PICS!!!


The first picture is of one of the group members looking at the patient's tissue samples to detect any tissue adnormalities

 

The professor demonstrating how to "read" an X-ray scan. The guy to the right is Mike Stump(at least the back of him).

 

This picture is me getting hold of the patient's lungs. Too cool!



 

This picture is of the complete (or at least) the majority of the organs from the patient. I was dissapointed they didn't include her brain.



This last picture is of my IUSOM "ambassador" (yellow shirt), a group member (in black) and the MS4 TA(in blue) I was tellin you about.  

 I did not intentionally set these pictures up like this, but this crazy blog won't let me shrink the pictures or at least place them side to side without it causing problems.  Anyway enjoy!

So far, I love MS2 more than MS1. Maybe I can asks admissions to allow me to skip a year. However something is telling me that that conversation will probably not go well. We’ll see if I’m still in love with MS2 tomorrow!

Quote of the Day:  “If they want to buy all faculty Rosetta-Stones that would be great”—response from St. Vincent Family Practice physician after hearing about a lunch lecture that dealt with culture clash between patients and doctors.