First Year of Medical School

This blog appears to be coming back thanks to Chuck C and the fact someone might actually find this blog useful (cough cough, next year's MSTP class) other than as a historical record of our experiences, pursuits, and growth as carefree physician-scientists. As usual, time goes by quickly when your having fun. It's hard to describe or even summarize all that we have learned and all that has gone down in the past nine months. Something that a current second year told me when I first got hear last summer holds true and bears repeating, "Study hard, and party harder." That is definitely a philosophy I have lived by since coming here. You put your 22+ hours of class time in, then maybe a total of 10-15 hours serious studying of writing you have to do on an average week, then enjoy yourself the rest of the time. (BTW this picture is, in fact, 4 MSTP'ers (two first years and two fourth years) drunkenly trying to spell out MSTP while at BrewCo, dont ask me why we decided to do it)

In an attempt to summarize they past 9 months i'll try to give you a run down of some of what has gone down in and outside of class, and of course i'll use plenty of visual aids for those of you who may get bored easily.

Lets start with class... (I swear lectures are usually well taught and interesting, you just need to catch up on your sleep sometimes)
Chuck C did a pretty good job at describing the overall feeling about what the MSTP and SOM has done to put together a very well organized cirriculum for us. I don't disagree and have very few complaints. Although I cant really speak otherwise since this is all I know, I feel the pass/fail system and integrated block system allows for a very well-rounded education that gives us all the relevant clinical knowledge from integrated perspectives while avoiding the busy work that i'm sure many older doctors think is rite of passage spend many extra hours in the anatomy lab and pulling all-nighters memorizing every step in the citric acid cycle.

I'll save a future post or posts to go into more details about different components of the course, such as PBL, doctoring, anatomy and histopathology as well as more about each block. For now i'll just leave it at "Dr. Metten Baked me cookies oh yeah!!" (I'll let Chuck C fill you in on that one)


Let's see now what have we done outside of class this year...

Outside of LA I have been on trips to San Luis Obispo, San Franciso, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Las Vegas, Rosarito, San Clemente, and San Diego. In LA we have been to Santa Monica, Malibu, Hollywood, Pasadena and more. Weekend trips early in the block and especially on block breaks are a must. Without having tests or busy work always over your shoulder trips to some of the most diverse and incredible places and just a short car ride away.

Many people might not think of LA as an ideal place to live, but I genuinely disagree with that. While I despise traffic, when you live within walking distance of where you work or go to school it is essentially a non issue. When I drive home to SD I just avoid rush hour and really have no problems real complaints about traffic. Southern California is definitely a mellow place to be with amazing weather and plenty of things to do for whatever you might be interested in.

I checked on google maps, and the beach is actually only 4 miles a way from where we live- not bad considering that I used to be about a thousand miles away from the ocean. I think i've visited the beach about 15 times since moving here. Not quite every week, but quite a bit and it's always a nice reprieve from anything else I may be doing. While i'm not the greatest surfer, it's always fun to get out there.

This winter season this year was relatively dissapointing with much less snow than normal, but snowboarding trips are always still a lot of fun. World class resorts like Mammoth and Squaw valley are about 5-6 hours away and decent resorts in Big Bear are only an hour and a half away.
I've also been mountain biking up in the Santa Monica mountains a few times, which have been a lot of fun as well. It's incredible how many state parks with all sorts of trails are just 15 minutes away from here.

Other than extreme sports there are quite a few social activities to do. Being in med school is a pretty unique experience socially. You are surrounded by about a hundred people with diverse backgrounds, yet similar interests. You get to know everyone pretty well just by being in class and labs with them day after day. Of the 150 people in our class there are about 80 or so people that also consistently hang out together outside of class. One of the major bonding events is whatever party we may have after exams. But also with so many people it is someones birthday essentially every other day, which is always another excuse to hang out and eat and/or drink.

Bowling at Bay Shore Lanes, thanks to C Love and the rest of that crew has been a regular Wednesday night event. you can't beat dollar games and 7 dollar long islands in giant goblets (BTW if you noticed something odd about this picture, you wouldnt be wrong, we happend to be playing the old "grab someones junk with tongs while taking a picture" game).

While Westwood doesnt have the greatest selection of bars it and surrounding areas have plenty of good options to hang out at. Maloneys (O-Hara's) is a loud and dirty undergrad bar that is literally two minutes away from our apartments. It definitely can be a fun place to go to sometimes but gets old. We need to start going on Tuesdays again this summer since they have liters of Miller lite for $4. The other main bair in westwood is BrewCo, which has a more quiet and relaxed atmosphere with a little older crowd. We also frequent Q's which is nice billiards style bar in Brentwood and will venture to a bunch of different bars in Santa Monica and sometimes into hollywood (although its a bit overpriced and not quite my scene).

Well I hope that this post was informative, maybe I should get some actual work done now (or not). I'll leave you with these last two pictures as a preview of the next year... Chuck C, our friend Chris B and have become the social chairs for our class next year, and there will be plenty more parties like this one (yes, we finished that keg when the very next day a med school sponsored event failed at that very task). Also we'll be looking forward to next year with the opening of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and of course Chuck C getting a record deal with David Geffen.

"DGSOM MOST DEFINITELY!"