Day7: Second Year Medical Student (Ms2)

I  LOVE Pharmacology!!!!!  It is the COOLEST CLASS in the world. Why can’t DePauw chemistry teachers teach this class?!

In a way they do. For those pre-med students who either wonder how Chem 260 and Chem 240 are relevant to medicine or the students struggling in those classes: HOLD ON. It will all be worth it in the end. Pharmacology incorporates K- equilibriums, the Michaelis-Menten  equation and all that other stuff taught by our professors (yeah DePauw Chem. Professors!). Adrienne Cobb even told me that Prof. Sharon Crary’s Chem 440 class, Biophysical Chemistry, goes over these concepts again (and again, and again) so another reason for you pre-meds to go biochem (I’m done advertising for the Chemistry-Biochemistry department now J).

Why I love this class is that I finally see the medical application to all the material taught in these Chem classes and for this MD wannabe, it’s great because medicine is what I am passionate about. It was also a relief for me that not only did I learn the material in the classes, I UNDERSTAND it all and was able to follow what the professor was saying with no problems. It comforts me personally to know that all the hard work and stress I  put into mastering these Chemistry topics was not in vain even though the Chemistry Professors create tough exams (if you don’t believe me take a Chem course with any one of them, I dare you).

The only downside is that this class is TWO HOURS  long and there is another hour long class on top of it before lunch. It’s a bit overwhelming. Oh well, as we learn in biology, organisms learn to adapt so I guess that’s one thing I know I’ll have to adapt to long lectures.

After lunch, Kyle along with Mike Stump, and two other students walked (well Mike rode his bike) from the IUSOM campus to the Roudebush VA Medical Center. FYI: this was a 0.6 mile walk out in the cold and snow. Medical school is  definitely not for the weak.  In a conference room we met pulmonologist Dr. David Miller , their overseer. Interestingly, this doctor went to DePauw as an undergrad before transferring to Purdue to finish his degree. He was really cool and we were even talked about Marvins.

 The first tasks for these MS2s was to give their oral report on the complete medical report of patients they had met the previous class. Mike Stump went first and WOW he was a BEAST. Cool, confident, sounded like he knew what he was talking about, I did not hear a student but someone how actually sounded like a doctor. I wish I could have recorded him but since patient information was being discussed I didn’t think it would be appropriate (darn medical ethics!). DePauw, I’m just saying, you would have been proud of him. He wasn’t the only one who I was impressed with, actually all of the MS2 students gave very impressive medical reports and they all sounded like real doctors to me, I’m just DPU bias J. Afterwards we went on rounds to visit some patients.  After the rounds, class was over and I’m now here writing you my experience. 

Tomorrow is my last day (sob) hopefully it ends as well as it has started out.

Medical Vocab:

ischemia--adnormal blood flow

Myocardial infarction--interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die aka heart attack

Not all ischemias cause myocardial infarctions, but most myocardial infarctions are caused by ischemias.

Get it?

I would have wrote "all" for the second half of the statement, but in medicine the word "all" and "never"are not in a good Physician's dictionary,lol.