Thankful

Hi my friends!

I'm halfway done my Pediatrics rotation and am currently in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) part of my rotation. The attendings I've been working with are so incredibly knowledgable and patient with me while I try to learn about Neonates.

I started noticing myself playing the dreadful "what if" game again with myself. I started comparing my journey and experience with others - and I thought to myself "Okay, if I'm doing this I'm sure others are as well" so here I am writing a blog post about it!

FIRST OF ALL, if you are reading this and you are in the medical field I wanted to say congratulations to you for choosing this path. From my very limited experience it is very rewarding but also extremely challenging. And no matter what part of your journey you are on I applaud you.

Now for some feelings I have directly towards my peers in MS3 - I know we spend all day with one another in the same hospital but in different rotations. I can almost guarantee we've all had the thought "I wish my rotation schedule was more like ____" or "I wish I had _______ attending".

I'd be lying if I said those thoughts never crossed my mind, they have, and I'll be the first to admit it.

BUT

After several different discussions I've had in the hospital with patients, nurses, residents, attendings and other students I've started to realize how thankful and lucky I am to even be on this journey. Not everyone is lucky enough to go to undergrad, get accepted to MERP, get accepted to medical school, go to medical school on a foreign island, (this felt weird to type) be fortunate enough to even write step one, rotate in a hospital, match into a program and eventually become an attending.

Some people may dream of it but are unable to attain it for whatever reason. Coming to the realization that I am lucky to be able to wake up early in the morning to go to the hospital to learn and then come home tired but still push through and study for upcoming exams has really helped my fatigued brain.

Suddenly when I've started just being thankful for being in medicine the comparisons I'd been making previously stopped - and I just wanted to experience the rotation in whatever order it had been given to me.

ANYWAYS, I need to stop procrastinating and start going through UWorld again.

- Jen

Type A or B?

Hi Friends!

I'm writing this post because I've been having many conversations about this topic over the past few weeks and I honestly find it pretty interesting.

I'm sure you've all heard about Type A and Type B personalities - but what do they really mean?

I just typed them into google and this fun little quiz came up to see what personality type you are

What Personality Type are you?

As medical students I think we all have a part of Type A personality in us, some more than others, but what does that really mean?

Other than the obvious personality traits a Type A person is described as impatient, concerned about time management, anxious, rigidly organized, workaholics... the list goes on. What else does Type A mean?

There have been several studies published that show that people who have Type A Personality are more likely to have early CAD (coronary artery disease), high blood pressure and are at an increased risk of stroke. As someone who is trying to be in the medical field and who's job it is to advocate healthy choices and decisions, I believe it's pretty ironic that we could be the patients who have very preventable health issues.

Then what do we do to prevent this? I'm going to be honest I'm still trying to figure it out for myself because my personality heavily sits on the Type A side but I think it just all comes down to having an outlet.

Whether that means drawing, working out, dancing, singing, going in nature, playing with animals (favourite by far), reading, watching your favourite TV show - we need to integrate something into our schedule that can help relieve some of our stress.

For example, I'm gonna use myself here, my first round of studying at home I just studied day in and day out. No breaks. Nothing fun. No days off. And I noticed that my energy levels were SO LOW. It was so hard to get out of bed in the morning - so difficult to get motivated and tough to even learn new information. I decided something had to change so I started integrating in work out breaks, dance parties, study space changes and little did you know my productivity levels increased and even though I was waking up an hour earlier (some days even more) than I did before I had a heck of a lot more energy. I gave myself one day off a week and to my surprise even though I was working one less day a week (shame, shame, shame) the other six days I was working I was able to get so much more done and I was able to retain a lot more.

Figuring out a schedule that works for you can be a pain but once you figure out what works best for your body I promise your studying will feel totally different.

- Jen

Brace yourselves - Mini 1 is here.

Hey guys!

I was planning on blogging once a week - I promise - but I quickly realized that it would not be possible. The work piles on quickly. As I mentioned before for two lectures a day I am doing a significant amount of work in the evening to stay on top of my studies. Here's a typical day.

6:30 am - wake up
6:31 am - make coffee
8:00 am - 2:00 pm - classes
3:00 pm - gym
4:00 pm - study
7:00 pm - dinner
7:30 pm - 11:00 pm - study

And then do it all over again the next day. One important thing that has been drilled into our heads is to keep on top of your school work. Even if that means you staying up later to finish your notes for that day you should do it. In undergrad I would aim to stay on top of rewriting my notes on a daily basis buuuuuut if I happened to click on an episode of Greys Anatomy instead I wouldn't be too concerned.

I told myself I was still technically learning since it is a medical show ;)

It's impossible to do that in medical school. The vast amount of work that is given to you - and that you need to learn gives you little to no time to binge watch Greys Anatomy or whatever other TV show you Netflix in your spare time.

Now I should probably get back to studying and practice what I preach.

Until after mini 1!

Jen