medical school

HAHAHAHAHA! A doctor fixing healthcare!

Yeah :-/

Though I'm still thinking I might try and do a mid-school MPH out there. We'll see.

xp - i bought a bottle of "bubbly" and split it with my roommates already. Now I am taking beers to the bike workshop and will celebrate by fixing a bottom bracket that sounds like the Xhosa

kate78: quiet, you.

hey, way to go

yaaaaaaay congratulations!

you can be the white atul gawande

I guess this means "no" to vet skoo?

quiet, you, too, Laurel. i was just into animals that day.

"into" "animals"

i'd be cool with being jonathan kaplan

SO MANY RESPONSES, I CANNOT CHOOSE.

Go sleep with some cute Israeli nurses.

how come nobody ever tells me to do that

actually i'm just gonna be a dermatologist with a time-share in florida

I hear the skiing is choice.

cio and sky me

nobody got my joke about the Xhosa :-(

Sorry, I don't know about any bike parts made after 1974.

i should have said !Kung instead, huh

IT WAS A JOKE ABOUT PEOPLE THAT SPEAK A LANGUAGE WITH CLICKS, LIKE MY BOTTOM BRACKET

Ahahahah I just assumed it was a manufacturer I didn't know. Clearly this is why a Laurel does not go to medical skoo.

!Kung would have worked. I figured you were talking about some noise album or psych band or some shit

congrats

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

way to go duderoo

oh man i said duderoo i need to stop smoking

congrats, plz don't get co-opted by the system

this is awesome!! congratulations, e!

Congrats, plz drink everything in MN for me.

Congrats, Elk hunting is back on then, plus dissection for tasty meats.

Congrats, I'm attempting to do the same at the age of 32, got to redo my school exams first though.

:D

thanks, dudes!

leigh, are you in the states? like, you're retaking the MCAT?

Nope, I'm in Scotland, I'm going to have to retake my high school exams as they're well out of date and I'm not a graduate then do the UKCAT.

nobody got my joke about the Xhosa :-(

I got it! I roffled!

Congratulations, you'll never regret it.

sweet. does this mean its time to start the JOHN JUSTEN AND FLUFFY BEAR DESTROY A PROMISING MEDICAL CAREER WITH BOOZE thread?

also, tombot, go sleep with some cute israeli nurses

fuckin awes brah!!!!

good job bro

Fantastic news!!!

WOO HOOOOOO!!! :-D

I'm gonna sue you so bad one day...

:D

don't forget about me when you can legally prescribe drugs.

I sat the UKCAT yesterday and did reasonably well so I'm over the first hurdle - just need to get top grades in 5 Highers while working full time, write a stellar personal statement on the ucas form, demonstrate top notch work experience and interview well then I'll be in with a ghost of a chance of making Med School.

i just looked through my copy of netter's. *_*

t-minus one day, ppl.

itt gbx liveblogs med school

omg i am in a lecture

waht are you learning today?

ingratiate yourself to the professor by making an icebreaking dick joke.

Can't wait to hear about how it's going.

if evan can break ice with his dick he's wasting his time in med school.

Ah gotcha - well I guess the divide might be between diagnostic type things (pathology, radiology), dealing with unconscious people (surgery, anaesthesiology), physician, GP, etc. I wouldn’t know myself! But you’ll experience everything so you’ll have a pretty clear idea. I’m not a medical doc myself btw.

If you want to chat direct does ilx have a pm facility?

Congrats on getting in. I did a non-science major many many years ago and then went to med school. I was behind on some of the basic stuff but caught up pretty quickly. So take it from a stranger on the interwebs, don't bother with the extra studying but know it will be rough in the first couple of months. It will be rough for everyone anyway.

It may be odd to think about this now but it's worth considering if the nearby school will offer you the same professional opportunities after you get your degree as you could get from USyd. I don't know the Australian system but medicine can be pretty snobby about credentials.

Cosign what mattk said about talking to docs about their work situation. The work life of an anesthesiologist is very different than as GP. There are different practice locations as well. University hospital, suburban clinic, small town GP, etc. If you want to be an anesthesiologist, you'll have to work somewhere where there is a reasonably active surgery center.

Good luck

congrats HP!

I think a some of your questions are going to be australia-specific, but if this helps:
- regarding pre-studying, I would not bother unless your school requires it or you think you are relatively weak in that area. I hadn’t taken an anatomy or physiology course for several years when I started medical school (in 2015), and I did just fine. but this is the kind of thing where, if you are the sort of person who convinces themselves they need to pre-study, you will pre-study. my advice would be to enjoy this bit of freedom while you have it, because to answer your other question, the next few years are probably going to be very challenging
- re: thinking about specialty, only really important in the sense that, if you’re sure about a particular specialty, you can get get connected with a mentor early on. at least in the US. otherwise the whole point of med school is to get exposure to all the different stuff
- re: kids during med school, another thing I wouldn’t recommend unless your school gives you leave or something. can always play it by ear obv

welcome to the cult. after you take your secret blood oath we’ll teach you the spells

One consideration is whether the anatomy is taught by cadaver dissection or some half-assed approach like prosected, plastinated specimens or VR garbage. It's good to know the actual body if you're going to heal it.

completely agree with this, but I am old school. I also read the textbooks in school which sadly almost no one does

Well I didn't get the school close to home (got bumped down to Perth the very last day before offers went out 😥) but I do have two offer and we are moving to Sydney! Time to pack up house, buy a stethoscope, get some blood tests, and learn some science!

can’t be the worst thing to move to sydney! congrats man, welcome to the club! kiss the rest of your youth goodbye!!

Haha thanks Kevin, it's an exciting time! Wife just finished her law degree so it really is the start of a new season! We're very excited 😊

I'll be studying with my English-lit/theory PhD friend at Usyd so we'll both have each other for envy-fuel. It's going to be a great time

congratulations! med school is a great cure for insomnia. i got so tired during the clinical rotations that i could fall asleep anywhere

Some otm posts above now all making sense. Insomnia = impossible. Foundation 1st block + non-science-background = omg I’m so behind. MSK 2nd block = okay it’s all coming together I think I can do this. Cadavers = essential + one of the most fun parts of school.

1st year USyd has a clinical day once a week (unique for Aussie med schools) and that’s been a real joy. Talking to patients giving me the fulfilment I was hoping for going into this which is comforting. 1st lot of anat+histo+knowledge+application tests coming up in a couple of weeks. I’d like to do more than scrape by on this first round of tests but worst comes to worse, I have positive momentum right now after feeling behind first block, so feeling good going into block 3 Resp and block 4 CV.

Glad I ended up in Sydney

Go you!

Thanks Matt ☺️

happy you’re enjoying it! year 1 is a whirlwind, and probably the least enjoyable/stimulating, at least in the dominant US paradigm, where most of the content is basic science, where much of it feels like premed content only way harder and with less time to study. it’s really a test of mettle more than anything. I had a good rhythm down but it really didn’t entail much more than living in the library from 10am through midnight 7 days a week

Yeah, basically my rhythm now except it's 8am-9pm. Cultural Australian laziness means we cut an hour so we can get to the pub. At least the libraries are pretty

Thanks for the update and congrats on getting through the first 2 blocks. Awesome that you are getting some patient experience during the drudgery of 1st year. Can help keep up the motivation as you stare at the physiology and all ways it can go awry for yet another organ system.

might have asked this already but what do you do TNMP? I’m an internist

HP how goes it?

It goes well! 1st year down 3 to go. Touch wood but it had been way easier than I thought it would be. First month kicked my ass: immunology, basic biochem bachelor degree in 30 days was rough. But it has been a real joy since getting into the bread and butter pathophys/pharm/anat. Said cyalater to an elective surgical week this summer: too arts-n-crafty, and I hate arts and crafts. Also kind of boring. Also not enough sitting down. Really need a sit down career. For a multitude of reasons I am pointing my plane towards Psychiatry, looking for volunteer and/or research opportunities currently.

Met some fantastic people in the course. The doctors teaching us are fantastic (for the most part). Sincerely caring, ingelligent individuals. Cohort is packed with top of the top private school, as you might imagine Usyd would be. Smalltownboy feelings amplified since joining this mostly select crew. There's some gems among them; and class-criticsm now feels a bit hypocritical considering the personal career at the end of this degree.

I'm mostly in love with medicine though. I feel personally fulfilled learning all the ins and outs of this gooey yet sturdy body we possess. Flashcards just fly by. The direct and primary engagement with suffering and the goal of alleviating it? What more could you want from a life? I know some of the romance will be kicked out of me along the way, but there's enough true feeling of worth and joy for what I've seen so far that I think it's all going to be okay

Very happy for you! Sit down careers = psych, radiology and pathology. Maybe GI if you spend your days scoping people :)

so happy to hear that, HP

Well that sounds great. If you’re looking for psych / research connections, reach out to NeuRA / The Black Dog - Perminder Sachdev and Colleen Loo have long research careers and are good folks as well, or at least they were 15 years back.

Thanks all, appreciate the tips :)