The "To Do" List Keeps Growing...

Med school life is starting to get pretty busy. A month ago, I only had to handle 5 hours of lecture and an occasional meeting or review session. Now, though, it seems like each day is filled from morning to night with seemingly essential activities.

Today I had my first RAMP rotation (adolescent pediatrics @ Univ. Hospitals). It was a good educational experience. I'm still getting used to the idea of wearing a white coat...and having patients believe that I'm actually qualified to wear it. I had a good time in the clinic today, but I get the feeling that pediatrics might not be the best match to my interests. (I like kids, but I don't know if I want to spend my career doing well-child exams and ordering vaccinations.) Joking aside, the pediatricians I worked with today were exceptionally talented and I was thankful that they were so helpful/encouraging/supportive/instructive.

I'm not really looking forward to this week...it bodes of late nights, early mornings, endless reading, and more coffee. (sigh) I have a ton of "errands" (i.e., any non-academic task) to do: student loan determents, getting paperwork approved by the registrar, calling the Navy people, starting the HPSP application, sleeping (is an errand?!? nevermind, forget I wrote it), and more. And that's on top of the 1293812 hours of studying I have to do in the next six days. At least my weekly jujitsu class tomorrow evening will help with the stress, although last week I screwed up my ankle during class and that didn't help. Maybe tomorrow night I'll just take it a little easier than usual...

I've found that I get nervous about most of our non-classroom activities: patient communication workshops, physical diagnosis, etc. The strange thing is that I think I do pretty well in these sessions, especially the communication workshops, yet I still get nervous about them. I think most of it has to do with the fact that we're interacting with standardized patients. And, yes, I recognize that the purpose of standardized patients is to allow us to learn skills in a controlled, low-pressure environment...yet I feel that any environment in which I'm being tested on my interaction with patients will make for an inherently stressful interaction. Or something like that. Of course, I feel good about myself and the stress goes away each week when I complete each session and recognize that interacting with patients is something I do naturally. I just seem to forget that lesson each week.

Still working on the HPSP post. I'm hoping to call the Navy recruiter tomorrow afternoon to get some information, so perhaps I'll have more to write about by tomorrow night. Talking about stress...this decision certainly provokes it, yet I keep coming back to it, time and time again.

A friend commented tonight that the process of getting to know our new classmates is both fun and frustrating. How true that is. I think we've made it through a few different phases of getting to know each other...the working-hard-to-impress stage during the first week, the see-how-we-all-react-to-stress stage, the collective anxiety or discomfort with certain shared conversations/experiences, etc. Just a week or two ago, the pervasive question during our 10-minutes break between lectures was about which of our classmates would hook up/start dating/make a scene first. By this week, though, it seems like everyone agrees that those quesions are cliche/obsolete/no longer relevant. Perhaps it's because an exam is approaching and we won't risk the distraction; I'll wait a see if the same questions resume next week after the test.

At the same time, I realize that I've only been in Cleveland for six or seven weeks. To think that I actually know anybody yet seems quite premature...yet I feel like I already know who my friends are going to be. If that sounds confusing, then I probably explained it correctly.

Bedtime.

Mood: Anxious. And sleepy.
Song: Staind, "Right Here Waiting" / Patrick Park, "Something Pretty" / Speechwriters LLC, "Annie Dan"