Realizations of a two week med student

Do you know the feeling when riding a roller coaster you hear the machine grate and rumble into motion?  Before you realize it, you're speeding 60 miles per hour, your wits barely with you, and everything becomes a blur of hazy unrecognizable images. All you know is you're moving fast, too fast you can't even think, or feel your heart trying to escape from your chest...

Now imagine Med school.

Today will be my second weekend as an official med student. After such a long, ordeal-ridden path towards admission, I have been accepted at PLM-College of Medicine. If you're thinking of going to PLM in the future, I can only give one advice: know and complete their required units, possibly even before submitting your application. My  friends at PCU and myself waited torturously for the subsequent lists because the first batch of accepted applicants were only those who had no deficiencies. My NMAT score also helped in way as PLM selects students by ranking.

I came in one week after the start classes. To be honest, I was contemplating on focusing on our business instead. I took it as a sign from the heavens that being rejected by three medical schools only meant I was not destined to go into medicine. But lo and behold, PLM called in. I thought if I'm going to med school, it's either I go now,  or I completely forget about it. I guess God only made me realize how much I really wanted to be a doctor in the first place.


I have heard so many times that getting into med school is the easy part, and staying is the hardest. For my friends and I, neither comes on a silver platter. PLM-CM have long had the reputation of releasing its results late. If waiting wasn't torture enough, there's learning you will not be accepted after spending your summer taking additional subjects.


Anyway, as I noted in a previous post, tuition at PLM is socialized. But even if you fall under Category 3, (click here to read the previous post) you would still be paying lower compared with other medical schools. 


Now for the fun part...


The gap of one month from my last post to now could be no clearer indication of how med school is practically eating up 90% of my time (The other ten percent for activities necessary for survival and maintenance of life). I don't think I have ever been this consistently busy. I am now just switching from doing med stuff, eating, doing med stuff, travelling, doing med stuff, sleeping and so on and so forth. Is it hard? It IS hard. The only consolation I think of now is I'll finally become a doctor in five years, and I could now write about med life first hand.


I am not really complaining. In the first place I am here because I wanted to be here. And honestly, I'm deeply happy to be here. Although thinking about going through a storm and actually going through one, will never exactly be the same thing.


If I am this busy the first leg of the school year, I could only imagine what the future months will bring. I now read chapter after chapter of my huge textbooks, not because I am being studious or anything but because I don't want to stare blank faced when our professors spew stuff I haven't even heard about. It's a complete shake up for me since I admit I didn't read much during my Nursing days. I currently have seven subjects, Physiology, Biochemistry, Gross Anatomy, Histology, Family and Community Medicine, Bioethics and Neuroanatomy. Nursing students I think would generally require major study for Histology and Biochem since our discussions of these subjects were just pretty much on the surface. 


And no med people are not really big nerdos. My classmates are actually a fun bunch, and I think I'm very lucky to belong to a class of such well rounded people. I even think they're actually more fun-loving and crazier than I am.


I know writing this post will be one of the very rare times I could actually do something apart from med. The difference now is I'm heading where I want to be headed. Just thinking I will be a doctor in a few years invigorates me life a good cup of coffee on a gloomy day. I'm just so fired up I want to close my eyes and feel every twist and turn this roller coaster has to offer.