This post was hard to write for several reasons, one being that practically this entire year was a blur and honestly I don’t remember as much of it as I would like to. And two: I’ve always had trouble sharing anything more than the practical. But I’m going to try nonetheless
For me third year was a lesson in both confidence and humility. I’m going to try and address both while talking about the layout of third year? But block 9 at the very least
So third year starts off with block 6 : Cardiology, block 7 : pulmonology and then block 8 which is basically surgery. I’d like to talk about these individually , but I honestly don’t think I remember enough about the layout and tests to be very helpful at all. All I remember is that I found block 8 the most difficult in my journey this far … and I will leave it at that
Then in July came our first clinical block in medicine, obstetrics and neonatology. I don’t know if it was the teaching ( the head of block and all the lecturers were nothing short of incredible ) , the first clinical exposure, the patients?, my rotation group… thinking back it is probably a combination of all these… but I LOVED this block. Now that’s not to say that it wasn’t challenging , it gave surgery a run for it’s money for sure. But I learned more than I thought was possible in the space of 10 weeks.
I’ve always been the kind to sort of fade into the crowd a little bit, I have struggled with confidence and anxiety for quite a while. But this block and probably the rest of medicine required better from me. For the first time ever I had to be confident and assertive to learn as much as I could from each patient, each opportunity to perform a skill i had this far only ever seen on video or done in practice. My colleagues? Fellow students? challenged me to speak up , to go first sometimes . We cheered on each other’s first blood draws, injections, IV lines.
And I think this was my big profound takeaway from this block … or atleast half of it.
The other half is the humility part. Awe and wander at the complexities of the human body… At what a woman’s body can withstand and adapt to and at the tiny complex little beings they bring into this world. And then humility at how much time and dedication the doctors put into trying to master these complexities , the amount of priceless knowledge and experience they have and how eager they are to share it.
So that’s it… for now
I still feel incredibly blessed to be on this journey and Instead of counting down the days, months, years until the end (especially when I’m tired), I’m still trying to actively take in each and every day
TheWaitingRoom 