Future MDs are Pretty Cool

I started medical school on August 25th, 2014.

Well, that was a weird sentence I honestly thought I would never to get to write. It all still seems like a a dream and that eventually I will wake up, and go back to just be regular old me. But I keep waking up in a room that feels foreign in a city I hardly know.

So far, the only medical school related things I have done were a part of Orientation Week. So these are the following things I have learned so far in medical school:
1. Med students seem to have an endless ability to party
2. As a whole, med students have an above average liquor tolerance
3. Med students are still above average humans when hungover, and surprisingly good at playing quiddich.
4. I feel like every single member of my class (there are only 64 of us...) have amazing talents, incredible life stories and are overall just amazing people that I am excited to spend the next four years of my life getting to know and learning from.
5. Upper Year Med students are kinda crazy.
6. Amazon Prime for students is officially the best way to buy text books in the history of man.
7. Medical schools feed you a lot...and I have decided that they do this to make you too full to ever try to run away.
8. Med School swag is awesome.
9. Getting dressed in the morning and trying to decide if what you are wearing is "Casual," "Business Casual," or "Smart Casual," and which kind of cloths belongs to which category, and whether or not adding a scarf to your outfit makes you "Smart Casual" or "Business Casual," essentially leads to a morning crisis everyday.

This is Smart Casual...

Can somebody please point out  the difference???

   

And this is Business Casual...

10. I'm like the only single person in my class...

Check back in the future to see if I have actually learned anything about medicine!!

The Doctor Shortage

Finding a Family Doctor in Canada is tough. I have never really had to try that hard to find one, until now that is. Growing up, my Dad always had some sort of business relationship with every doctor in the vicinity, so we never had problems finding one. But then I left the nest at 15, and it was challenging, but my school had a doctor (although, not the best) who I could see before school or in the evenings. Then I went to University, and I had the University Clinic, and then when I changed schools, and a clinic 300m from my house had just hired a new doctor. So far, things have worked out for me, which is really great because you know, the whole chronic pain thing tends to require doctoring.

But, now that I am going to school in a "northern" community, and in Canada north = nobody wants to live in places that are freezing cold. So naturally, well educated people who can practice anywhere in the country, don't generally choose northern or rural communities. (Hence the formation of my school...). But, in any event, I am having a lot of trouble finding a doctor, especially because I am an out of province student. Being out of province shouldn't matter, given the whole Canada Health Act thingy, but it seems to pose barriers to accessing health care for me in Ontario (another problem to add to problems with the health system/health practices notebook I have been keeping since the 11th grade).

So in conclusion, the doctor shortage is really affecting me. And to add to another problem, because the community I am studying in only has a population of 110,000, pretty much all of the doctors in the City will be my professors and instructors in the very immediate future.

It is very strange all of a sudden switching from just being the patient, to being the provider (a very green and IdontKnowAnythingAtAll provider), but still being the patient at the same time. I feel like I am stuck in the middle!!!!

I never thought about my situation as being both a patient and a physician at the same time, and it is stressing me out. 

A Tuition Slap in the Face

Why is that medical schools expect students to say "how high" when they ask you to "jump?"

We got sent our tuition cost August 1st (we only had estimates before then), and were told it was due on August 15th...There were no mention of due dates before this.

I thought that after you got into medical school, they would stop throwing unreasonable curve balls at you and expecting you to catch them with your eyes closed. I was clearly wrong on that one.

I don't know about you, but I don't have $21,300 just chillin' in my bank account at all times. I have enough for the year, but not currently in bank account. And I can't access the majority of it until August 12th plus 2-3days for fund transferring...sweet!

And to finish off the email, they said "We hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable long weekend!"....yeah, thanks, I will have a great time trying to figure out how to rob a bank.