A stethoscope is a very interesting thing. As a kid it is
like the one thing you have to have to ‘play doctor,’ and it has become quiet
the symbol for the health care profession. There is just something about
putting a stethoscope around your neck that makes you feel important, like you
could change lives. I received my first stethoscope at my white coat ceremony
back in October. And, for the first time in my life I actually used it on a
real person (other than myself, my family, or my friends) yesterday. We are
midway through cardiopulmonary block and just recently had a clinical medicine
exam over heart sounds and what they indicate etc. But still we had only
listened to heart sounds online, through Ipod apps, or on each other. Lubb Dubb
. . . Lubb Dubb . . . Lubb Dubb .
. . you should have seen us fiddling with our stethoscopes trying desperately
to look and act like we knew what we were doing.
That was about 2 weeks ago, and since then our school has
decided to throw a great amount of material at us to the point where we are all
exhausted! The brief glimpse of excitement about our profession and what we
were learning quickly vanished beneath the weight of lectures and exams. But
next week we only have 2 exams and so this weekend I decided to actually practice
some medicine instead of study it every waking moment. With the end of the
school year and graduations around every corner, the local hospital system did
mass physicals for the area high school athletes. They asked some of us to help
out and so most of my Saturday I spent acting like a real doctor, well a real
medical student at least. I have been a part of these physicals before, as an
athlete just trying to get cleared to play, and as an athletic trainer trying
to keep athletes in their correct lines and direct them to the right places.
But this time by far was the best!
I was rather nervous walking in with my stethoscope around
my neck trying to remember how to use it. But I quickly settled into the
routine and found practicing medicine (even the little bit I know) was way more
conducive to learning than any textbook! I looked in ears, and throats,
palpated lymph nodes, and listened to heart and lung sounds (even though we
haven’t learned lung sounds yet). In those few hours I was able to put together
several things we had been learning with things from what I knew before and
even what I have yet to be taught. It was great to be part of the sports
medicine field again and I even got to show off some of my knowledge of sports
injuries with the doctors I worked with. But the best part of all, was when I
actually heard a heart murmur that was in a real person, like not from an
online tutorial!
But that was yesterday and now here I am yet again trying to
make myself study for my physiology exam tomorrow. This is the end of week 6 of
block 4 of my first year in medical school. Time really has flown since August,
but man, July cannot get here fast enough! The beautiful weather, birds
singing, and smell of spring beckons me outside to play and it is all I can do
to study. Friday we had a 2 hour exam and then 2 lectures afterward. But with
the little break in between a friend and I had to enjoy the outdoors so we
passed baseball in our dress clothes to give us a break from all that
seriousness.
So close! We are so close to the end of our first year, but
we are so tired! It is coming down to the grind, where the rubber meets the
road, and we are very aware that we are in medical school and not undergrad.
But we will make it. One day at a time, one hour at a time, we will get there.
And then before we know it, we’ll be using our stethoscopes on real patients as
a tool for diagnosis and not a confidence booster as we hang it around our
necks. So here’s to the grind, we all must go through it eventually, but you
just have to do it and keep going!
