USMLE: In Class

As our Kaplan course draws to a close (to which I simultaneously think "YES! I can't take it anymore" and "NO! That means my exam is just around the corner and I'm screwed), I'd like to reflect on some of my favorite things that happen in class.

By far the best/most entertaining thing that happens in class is when someone's book falls off of the mini fold-out desks we write on. This usually happens about once an hour. Honestly, it's been happening all year, and it is still funny. At this point, I'm so tired in class that I actually laugh out loud when it happens. It's particularly funny when a friend does it. I can barely contain myself when A does it.

Also funny is when someone drops anything - a waterbottle, pens/highlighters, a whole notebook/stack of books (this is the motherload). Last year, I used to love it when people (mostly A) would knock over their water bottles and it would clang and disrupt class (and I'm sure many of us remember when C spilled an entire water bottle that caused a total commotion as water spread across the entire floor of Tamkin).

Less funny is when R spills his coffee all over me and claims, "What did you do?!"

After 2 years of sitting in lecture with the same people, you begin to notice different mannerisms. One classmate has a very heavy step as he/she walks down the awkwardly spaced steps of Nelson. Another person wears a charm that tinkles (heehee, I just wrote "tinkles"...I'm 10 years old) as she walks in. It took me a little while to distinguish this sound from the jingle of R's dog collar (because, yes, sometimes people bring dogs to class). Some people arrive almost exactly 8 minutes late every day and then sit in the front row. Other people chatter annoyingly throughout class (okay, that's me and A... sorry guys! But it's all relevant!! (no, it's not.)).

Hmm... what else? Oh, I love it when cell phones ring. Mostly because it's always kind of a mystery as to how those people even got reception in the first place (it turns out Nelson is like the one place where AT&T actually works). The BEST was when R's phone started playing the Sexy Sax Man Video at the loudest possible volume imaginable (I didn't even know that iPhones could even play at such a loud volume... it was amazing... and he was sitting right next to me when it happened).

Am I missing anything? Feel free to add your favorites in the comments.

In Class: Best Class Ever

Today we had the BEST CLASS EVER (possible overstatement, but I feel pretty confident about this one).

The class was about old people and their risk of falling and what that can mean for them and us. Not only was there a physician, a physical therapist, and an occupational therapist (who goes by "The Magnificent"), there were 5 adorable seniors there to share their experiences with us. You guys, I'm mostly interested in working with younger patient populations (specifically pregnant ladies and their fetuses/babies... can't get much younger than that!), but I have to say it: old people can be pretty darn cute.

But the old people were only a small part of why today's class was the best ever. The real reason was that we had the lecture in Tamkin, the first year lecture hall. You see, in med school, we sit in lecture for hours at a time and rather than changing classrooms for each class/topic, we stay put and the lecturers come to us. The first years have all of their classes in Tamkin, while the MS2s "graduate" to Nelson (at first, I thought this was a downgrade, but now I'm not so sure).

As creatures of habit, people established where in the auditorium they sat early on during first year. Since I know you're wondering, I was a left-side front person (There's a lot of Left Side pride in our class; we even made up a dance during last year's retreat... and then got everyone to do it again at this year's retreat). Where you sit in lecture is serious business and if someone ever changed things up and sat in your spot, it could throw off your whole day (I remember this happened once and I literally just stood there blankly for a few minutes, unable to respond appropriately).

Anyway, for whatever reason, when our whole class returned to Tamkin today there was an air of total excitement/joy. Everyone went to their old seats for "old time's sake" and we were all really happy about it. Like kind of weirdly/pathetically happy about it. Is this what our lives have become? Are we so deprived of fun times that the highlight of our day/week/month is a return to last year's lecture hall and sitting in our old seats?

I don't know. Actually, I don't even really care. All I know is that today I showed up to class expecting an average lecture about the "Functional Status Exam." Instead I got a lecture about falling with cute old people, hilarious student demos on falling and taking your sweaty socks off, and a functional reach competition. This was all taught to me by The Magnificent while I basked in the glory of sitting in my MS1 seat. Like I said before, BEST CLASS EVER.

In Class: Flushing

Hi friends. It has recently been brought to my attention that we have a serious problem on campus: the toilets in the Medical Education Building do not flush very well. Well, to be honest, they barely flush at all. Every time I go into the bathroom, there are remnants of toilet paper (and more!) left behind, floating in the bowl.

My favorite part of this whole issue is that Med Ed is a brand new building and pretty high-tech (I'm pretty sure the entire building is wired to record our every move... and we could probably do telemedicine from the restrooms - just don't expect us to flush). But seriously. The toilets even have two separate buttons for "efficient" flushing: one for "number 1" and another for "number 2." I think it's an attempt to go green or something. Great thinking, Med Ed Building Designers! If only the toilets could flush all of their contents in the first place.

Another great feature is that the toilets usually flush for you (making the button choices obsolete). But how do they know if it's number 1 or 2?! One of my classmates suggested that it's based on the time you're sitting on the toilet. Maybe. But this was countered by the fact that girls really don't take that long to poop (we, unlike boys, come to the toilet ready to go, do our business, and are gone... no need to make an event of it). Again, Designers, clever thinking... if the flushes got the job done!

The real root of the problem seems to be the flushing power of the toilets. It doesn't matter if you press number 1 or number 2, or if the sensor guesses what's gone down based on the time you've sat on the toilet. If the toilets don't have enough flushing power, they're never going to flush everything away and we'll forever be stuck with a gross reminder of Med Ed's toilet technology failure.

So where do we go from here? Will we ever see the day where the Med Ed toilets flush completely? I propose we make a survey on how to improve the toilet flushing situation and then discuss its results at Dean's Hour. Who's with me?

In Class: Printing

You guys. I have to bitch about something: I effing hate printing stuff out for med school. And I have to do it daily. For no reason at all, it is the most stressful thing EVER.

Actually, that's a lie. There are plenty of reasons why it's stressful. First of all, there are only 3 working computers in the Medical Education Building where we do our printing. WTF?! So first off, you have to hope to get a computer to even start the printing process. Lame.

Once you finally go through like 4 windows on Internet Explorer (because for whatever reason, Merlin doesn't pop up first thing) and FINALLY print out the powerpoint/core notes/whatever, you have to walk out of the room to check the printer to see if everything came out okay. Usually, there's some form of drama like a paper jam or "the stapler is broken and everything has been canceled." Or my favorite from the other day: someone decided to print a 100+ page PDF cookbook that paused for 30 seconds between each page. Really?!

You can't even claim victory over the printing process once your stuff has come out. Well, first you have you find what you printed. You may think this would be easy since most things come with labeled cover pages, but it is still surprisingly difficult with the volume of printing going on in MedEd. Plus people steal stuff (A message to you, whoever you are: I will find you and hunt you down and you'll be sorry!! Okay, probably not, but still. It's not cool).

When FINALLY you get your printouts, there's always a chance of discovering a mistaken formatting error. Like accidently printing 1 slide per page of a 78 slide powerpoint presentation. Or worse: printing 24 slides per page (so, so tiny). Oh the agony you go through when this happens! You've come so far only to find that rather than a nice printout of a powerpoint presentation (I personally prefer 4 slides/page), you have papers covered with microscopic text about who knows what. Time to return to the computers to start the process again!

Oh, and usually, we're all crunched for time because this is all taking place during our 5 minute break between classes and we couldn't print before because the professor just posted his slides. TOTAL STRESS! Just the other day, I saw a classmate freak out in frustration, yelling and kicking at the printer. Like actually kicking the machine. To some, this may seem like the act of a stressed out med student, but honestly, anyone would snap if they had to deal with that printer on a daily basis. Or ever.

In class: "Question."

I love it when somebody has a question during lecture and they wait with their hand in the air only to receive zero acknowledgement from the professor. No, okay. What I truly love is how people feel the need to say the word “Question” as they wait with their hand in the air. I mean, I get it. They need to get the professor’s attention. But still. It is so…. weird.

I guess it’s because I’ve never seen/heard anything like it before. I’ve gone to small schools pretty much my entire life. With a maximum class size of 30, there was almost zero chance of getting lost in the crowd. If anything, you had to be on your toes, because there was a pretty high chance of being called on randomly. The only exception to my history of small-scale education was studying abroad in Scotland; I guess the British are too polite to yell out “Question” in the middle of a lecture.

Things don’t just stop at the person who is asking the question. Sometimes, a “Good Samaritan” will feel the need to lend a helping hand (or voice) to a classmate otherwise silenced by a blind professor. “Question.” We hear from the back of the classroom (these “Helper Bees” are usually in the back, where they have a good view of the entire class). The lecturer stops midsentence, and scans the auditorium in the direction of the voice. The class turns to see the source of the Question. Meanwhile, someone sitting in a completely different part of the lecture hall is still holding her hand in the air. Finally, contact has been made between Lecturer and Helper. “Down there,” Helper responds, pointing to the student with her hand up.

The best part: when the question, which has now caused quite a disruption, is something like, “Will this be posted online?”

In class: Sleepers

Okay. I know. I need to write more posts to this thing or LAMe! LAMe! will just be… lame. (Also, that last sentence was pretty lame in and of itself… I’m sorry). My problem is that there are pretty much only two things I think about: school and boys. School is boring to anyone not in med school (okay, yeah…and even to those who are in med school). And my thoughts on boys/dating are just kind of pathetic/embarrassing. Soo… that leaves me kind of low on topics.

Anyway, in an attempt to keep this thing going, I’ve decided to bore you all and start a series on my favorite things that happen in class. You see, I’m a class-goer (meaning, I’m almost always in class). I’m also pretty much terrible at paying attention. Instead I do really important things like daydream (class is probably my most productive daydreaming time of the day) and people-watch (I would definitely say that socializing is another big motivator behind my class-goer status).

Which leads me to today’s topic: Sleepers. My favorite thing to do in class is look for people who have fallen asleep. I’m not sure why, but it’s pretty much always entertaining to me. And it happens literally every day. There’s one guy who basically sits in the front row and nods off during almost every lecture.

Today, the professor asked if his review session was useful and we all agreed… and then noticed that a girl sitting directly in front of him was completely passed out. AMAZING!

Sometimes, if the people are sleeping in a particularly funny position, or if I’m feeling particularly bored, I’ll point out the Sleepers to the people who I sit next to. If they see someone napping, they'll give me a heads-up... it's a reciprocity thing. And if people are feeling especially feisty they’ll whip out their camera phone and take pictures and post it in our “Narcolepsy Anonymous” group of fb. So good.