Blake McCartney
The tour of Maine General in Augusta and the presentation of Grand Rounds with the Kent’s Hill students was a fabulous experience. Maine General is an amazing facility; it looks more like a hotel than a hospital. Unfortunately, we learned that they slightly under calculated the amount of beds they would need so there is sometimes overflow between the wings. When we arrived Sophie and I went on our tour with a Medical school student at University of New England named Britney. She had great insight on how to get to medical school – and how to decide whether or not you would want to go in the first place. It was interesting, Britney only applied to 6 schools! Most of her classmates applied to around twenty.
University of New England is an osteopathic school, so these students will graduate Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine. Britney described it as being a regular M.D. except when you cannot think of another treatment you use osteopathic manipulation. The most simple explanation was to compare it to using chiropractics. Osteopathic schools are an alternative to Medical School and definitely something to consider in the medical field.
Britney’s biggest piece of advice to us was to keep a routine during Med school, even during exam week. Also, she suggested taking one night off a week from studying – just to keep yourself sane. Panicking doesn’t help your grades, and you need sleep. This was definitely a theme Dr. K focused on during this semester of A&P. I think I learned the first week that cramming and staying up all night a few times in a row is not conducive to success – or a healthy lifestyle. Britney said it took her a long time to learn that though; a lot of her classmates never learned. Ultimately, she recommended staying as de-stressed as humanly possible. This is something I strived to achieve over Jan Plan. I learned a lot about my studying habits and strategies from this Jan Plan. Hopefully I will be a lot more efficient this semester; I think I have learned what does and what does not work. Britney also stressed that people have different learning styles. Some textbooks might not be written in a way that is easy for you to understand. Further, some professors’ lectures might not be helpful; learning those sections from the book might be more time efficient.
After talking with the Medical students we gave our Grand Rounds presentations. Everyone was very supportive of us; giving a ton of positive feedback. It was also a great public speaking experience, especially in front of a room full of doctors and Medical school students. Everyone was very friendly, but their level of knowledge was intimidating. I think they all recognized that they were in our position once and were very impressed with the lectures. I would love to have more public speaking experience, so I was really glad we were given this opportunity. I was also really impressed by the Kent’s Hill high school students – I wish I knew that much as a highschooler! This trip was one of the highlights of the class for me.
I actually did not know how much of a commitment this class would be outside of class hours. It wasn’t really what I expected from a Jan Plan class. In the end I am really happy I took this course. It was quite a few ups and downs! I don’t know when I would have learned the things I learned about my study habits. I realized I need to prepare in advance and put a lot more time into preparing for lectures. I usually spend too much time cramming, but I now know it is a lot better for me to let the information process with me over a long period of time. I got discouraged a lot this Jan Plan and as a result did poorly on some of the assignments, quizzes, etc. It got better though and I am so glad I stuck with it and didn’t quit. I wish this class could have been extended over an entire semester. I learned a ton of anatomy and physiology, but I also learned a lot of valuable things about myself that will help me throughout the rest of my college career. This course was extremely challenging, but we got so many opportunities such as Body Worlds, the Maine General Tour, dissecting the pig heart, among many others. I enjoyed it and think it was a rewarding month.