It has already been 6 weeks since med school started, and although I knew med school wasn't going to be easy, the amount of content they cram into the lecture is takes a little to get used to.
So far, the first six weeks of 1st year med school has been the 'foundation' block. This block focuses on getting non-science background students up to scratch with medical science content. So for the past 6 weeks we've been taught intensely on:
- Anatomy
- Microbiology
- Cell biology
- Histology
- Physiology
- Social Foundations of Medicine
Each lecture from these subjects contained as much as 2-3 lecture worth of content that I experienced in undergrad. It was overwhelming initially, but after 2 weeks of lectures I don't hear people complaining about it anymore.
Other subjects include
- Population health
- Professionalism and Leadership
- Clinical Skills
I'd have to say that clinical skills are definitely the subject I enjoy the most. The skills taught in this subject are the most 'doctor' like skills we experience or see from a patient's view. So far we've learnt how to take a proper history (not so exciting), assess vital signs such as a blood pressure (very exciting!), perform a hand examination, and also ENT examination. I saw my first tympanic membrane yesterday. I'd say it was a moment to remember!!
At ANU, they have a formative exam at the end of week 6. The purpose seems to let us gauge how well our study techniques are throughout the semester, and thus give us an opportunity to improve before the actual exam in week 18.
During the first 6 weeks I've been paying close attention to the lectures and meticulously taking notes, however coming up to the exam I've felt that I'm not at the level I wanted to be. I feel that I need to revise the content more in order to retain the information. The day before the formative examination, I felt like I hardly knew any of the content taught in the first 6 weeks, and I was going to fail the exam.
After the exam today, I realised that the content they examined us on was quite general and I knew a lot more than I thought. I must have retained some very basic knowledge of each lecture as I paid attention to them during class. However the truth is that I still didn't know a lot of the finer detail taught. I may have passed this time, but from next week on I need to revise more often (on a weekly basis) and not leave it too far behind. The last thing I'd want is to let the already intense workload pile up!
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