Blogging is GREAT for procrastination!
Tuesday I had 4 hours of Physical Diagnosis, Genetics, Biochem, and Cell Bio in the morning, then had a lunch break for an hour and half - made a card for a classmate's birthday and ate some soup - then headed to the M&V building for 4 hours of MPH class. After a year off from school, 8 hours of class was awful. I almost fell asleep twice and was super restless and fidgety. Immediately after class, I ran to catch the T to Malden for Sharewood, Tufts' student-run free health clinic. Stayed there for 5 hours. My day ended up starting at 8:15 and ending at 11:45, with only a 1 1/2 hour break. Pretty tiring. Then I decided to study and skype, and went to bed at 1am.
Lets backtrack for a second, because I am being too negative. Sharewood was AWESOME!!! Because of patient privacy, I can't say too much, but I got to speak with, interview, educate, support, and help diagnose patients with second years, other types of students, residents, and physicians. I worked with (more like shadowed) the Sexual Health Team (super amazing group of people - and mostly MD/MPH students!) which just added a woman's health room for pelvic and anal exams.
At Sharewood, medical students and other Tufts volunteers basically do all of the administration, check-in, interviews, blood tests, injections, and educational aspects of the clinic, and the residents / physicians write scripts, do more personal exams, and make sure we don't mess up. Everyone was really nice and worked together as a team. The doctors taught the residents who taught the second years who taught the new people (like clueless me), and everyone was willing to own up to mistakes and explain what they would do differently next time. Mistakes happened and were fixed, and the patients seemed to be happy to get free health care and contribute to our learning.
I loved it. But I may not go back for a few weeks because everyone in my class wants to try it out, and there were way too many people and we got in the way. Also, MPH classes are EVERY Tuesday, so if I want to do Sharewood, my Tuesdays are always going to be 8am to 11pm with little to no studying. Not good... But I loved the clinic, loved the patients, love the idea, and don't get to shadow doctors this year because of the MPH program, so would like to have some patient interaction, and this seems to be the right place to find that!
Today was okay. I was super tired from the long day yesterday so I slept through my second two classes. My friend who always comes over to study and eats my food cooked me lunch, so that was awesome. Also, my classmates gave me their notes for the classes I missed (yay teamwork!) and helped me figure out what I need to know, and I spent the rest of the day studying in the library with friends / at my house. I also cooked and cleaned a bit.
Its funny because its day 3 and I am so behind. I have 5 more classes to go through and outline, and each takes 1-2 hours. And if I don't do it today, then I will have 3 more classes to add to the list tomorrow... I feel so behind, but thats normal according to one of the second years I shadowed at Sharewood who is super super sweet and helpful. I just need to do my best. I will probably do two more classes worth of work, then go to bed by 1030.
So, I am changing the study plan. Already. No more reading / highlighting before class (pointless and time consuming). Take notes in the handouts during class then make outlines after class. That will cut out about half of the work I am doing. I am concerned that taking notes in the handouts won't work as well, but this week is a good week to try out different strategies, so here goes.
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