The impression I got from our Pharm professor was that he really prides himself on not "teaching to" the national board exams. It's a position I usually respect. However, I respect it less and less every time I'm QBanking and get straight "How does this drug work?" questions on drugs we never learned. I don't mean "We didn't learn this particular drug, but I can recognize its classification by its suffix." I mean "No combination of the letters in the name of this drug is even vaguely familiar to me." Most of my classmates seem to be having equally hard times with Pharm, even the ones who spent a lot more time on the class (and in the class) than I did.

I actually went to all classes today. Crazy!!

Let's review my performance on Pharm exams so far.

Exam 1: Went to class regularly. Was in full study mode weeks before the exam. Went over each lecture multiple times. Made flashcards for each lecture and went over those several times. Grade: x

Exam: 2: Went to class sporadically. Did not look at any lectures until a week before the exam. No flashcards, but in amped-up study mode (that's full study mode x 2) I managed to go over all the material at least twice. Grade: x-1

Exam 3: Pretended class didn't exist. Started looking at lectures about a week and a half before the exam. Didn't look at the unit's biggest lecture handout until two days before the exam. Didn't lay eyes on two of the lecture handouts until the day before. Completely failed to learn the material from two other lectures. (In other words, never entered full study mode.) Grade: x

Clearly, all effort is futile.

In other news, I had my research poster printed today. I was trying to wait for input from my mentor, but I figure after two weeks (and two weeks past the "deadline") I needed to go ahead and get that done. I think it looks nice. Oh, and today I did my very first breast and pelvic exam. God bless the standardized patients who volunteered to help us learn that.

Today I'm going to whine about: typos in pharmacology handouts. They want me to not only memorize random strings of letters, but associate them with side effects and disease states. The least they could do is making sure I'm seeing the same string of letters every time. Am I learning about cehxrmitamide, or cehxrmitamine? I DON'T KNOW!!!!

Let's have a poem, shall we?

Monet's Waterlilies
Robert Hayden

Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.

Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.

O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.

You might be asking, why did LaKedra just write an entire entry on academic regalia? Because this is the alternative:

School
Dr. Pharm did not have many friends in the second year class this morning. Sure, it wasn't his fault that it was 13 degrees outside, but it was his fault that we had to show up for the mandatory problem set review at 8am. I know that the mandatory part was the only thing keeping me from staying in my bed, curled up under my five blankets. I'm sure many of my classmates felt the same way. There's a time for being forced to drag myself out of bed at all hours in all sorts of weather, and that time is called third year. Not now.

Percy
The first toy Percy ever had was a long, lush, pale blue feathery thing attached to a stick. We'd wave it around, and he'd just go crazy trying to "kill" it. Over a couple of months, the toy was gradually depleted of all its feathers, and was retired when it became just a nasty string on the end of a stick. The other day, I bought the exact same toy, so that Percy could relive the fun of his kitten days. This time around, he destroyed the entire toy in ten minutes. Guess I learned my lesson: 10-pound killing machines are stronger than 2.2-pound fuzzballs.

We learned the head and neck exam in Physical Diagnosis today. After a couple hours of lecture, we were sent over to the otolaryngology clinic. There, we were split into groups of five and got some hands-on learning from ENT residents. I really enjoyed that (and it was fine that I don't yet have my own diagnostic set. I'm working on it!). One of my group members was a very good sport and let us practice on him. He got two of his nose hairs plucked for his troubles.

After class I studied a bit of pharm, then tour guided. (It was a pretty good group, but small.) Then I studied more pharm, came home and worked out, quick shower, dropped by a friend's birthday dinner, then trivia. It probably goes without saying that several team names at trivia tonight referenced Heath Ledger's death. I must give props to Assistant Trivia Guy for not giving those people who think they're a lot funnier than they actually are, the satisfaction of having their attempts at humor read aloud. Instead we got "Inappropriate Name Number 1," and so on. Well done, Assistant Trivia Guy.

Since coming home from trivia, I've been studying... more pharm!!!!! That class and I really, really don't get along. We have a problem set to do that involves plotting things on semilog paper. Also, I just read a lecture that contains the word 'diastereoisomer'. I could've sworn I left the world of Chemistry and came to med school specifically to avoid such things.

My thoughts:

Today and yesterday, our Pharm lectures were given by Santa Claus.

Pharm shall henceforth be known as "Memorization Fest 2008," since I have to learn all the things, of ever.

Like last semester, we've again got that one professor who likes to hear the sound of his/her own voice too much. Sometimes, I think that I'd like to teach medical students someday, but I'm probably not cut out for it. Because if I don't have anything to say, I don't talk. Apparently, that's not the right method to become known as the Most Awesome Guru of whatever subject you're teaching. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to be a clinician.

I'm currently loving Lab Diagnosis. That professor also talks a lot, but it's stuff like telling us that we're dumb if we order folate and B12 tests in a patient with microcytic anemia. And for God's sake, before subjecting a patient to a painful bone marrow test, see if giving them iron fixes their problem. (Translation: common things are common.) I don't want to be a dumb doctor, so I find this sort of thing very helpful.

Today, I got an email from school telling me to sign up for a Step 1 test date sooner, rather than later. I also got an email telling me to mark my calendar for the Second-Year meeting on Third-Year clerkships. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Okay, classes!

Pharmacology: The course director is a GI/Hep guy, so I liked him from the start. We immediately received a pretty thick packet of notes. "That's not so bad," I thought. "It's only the stuff for the first exam." WRONG! It's the stuff for the rest of the month. I'm assuming we'll get another chunk of notes for February, which will cover the rest of the material on the first exam. Flipping through the notes, it looks like a lot of graph-like things. Reminds me of Biochem, which I liked, so hopefully I'll like Pharm too.

Lab Diagnosis: The course director was hilarious, and managed to get me more excited about the class than I ever thought I'd be. You needn't remind me that Dr. Neuro got me super excited at the beginning of last semester, and that one didn't turn out so well. Hopefully this will be better.

Nutrition: I was looking forward to this one, since we all know that my future lies in GI/Hepatology/Nutrition. Unfortunately, having a very energetic lecturer immediately before made the Nutrition guy sound even MORE dull in comparison. It's too early to judge, but Nutrition might be the new Radiology.

Physical Diagnosis: Apparently, they turn us loose in the hospital. I really thought it was going to be all standardized patients and simulations. I really, really thought that. Am I the only one who thought that?? Terrifying. BUT, a positive note is that I think I have a fun tutorial group (four of us, with a faculty preceptor, roaming around the hospital).

From this point on, I'm going to call this class "The Po-Po," or just "Po-Po." Physical Diagnosis... P.D... Police Department... the po-po?? Get it?? If we all start using it, it'll catch on. Let's do it!!