Step Two: Fall in Love with Med School

You know those things that we’re supposed to do to be happy, healthy, productive people and yet we never seem to do them? Like eating well, exercising daily, reflecting on our lives, calling our grandparents, keeping track of our budgets, and remembering to appreciate every moment?  Alright, maybe that’s just me, but for some reason I just can’t seem to make all those things happen despite the obvious benefits they could bring to my life.  For example, this blog that I promised myself I’d write every week.  I haven’t written since our White Coat Ceremony over 3 weeks ago.  I’ve been having too much fun.  And yet so many blog-worthy moments have occurred but I haven’t taken the fifteen minutes needed to write them down.

A quick list of the Blog-Worthy moments: 

• Meeting and falling in love with the other 187 people in my class.  I’m honored to be a part of them.
• Meeting Eugene (but his friends call him Bubba), our cadaver.  Ronnie, one of my anatomy lab partners, created an entire life story for him.  Completely fictional of course.  But I think it helps to have a name and story for the man who generously gave us his body to teach us the ins and outs of human anatomy.  So we rejoice at the fact that Bubba has perfectly formed back and arm muscles because he spent his life fishing in the Gulf.  And we graciously acknowledge his moment of death when we recognize that most of his ribs are broken, implying that he probably died after intense CPR.  But his endearing gray hairs and soft, grandpa-like cheeks remind us that someday we’ll be dealing with live people, not dead bodies.  Eugene just gets to be our first patient.
• Trivia night on Tuesday night at The Bridge Lounge with half my classmates.  Followed by 8 am class and dissection of the spinal column with a bone saw.  Yummy.
• Partying like a rock star and absolutely falling in love with New Orleans all over again.
• Helping Jamie (my younger sister) move into the dorm I lived in Freshman year and watch her becoming a Tulane Green Wave.  I couldn’t be happier to go to Kick-Boxing class with her fist pumping right next to me. 
• Jumping on the opportunity to travel to Haiti for a 5 day medical mission trip next month.  Yes I’ll pay for it myself (with loan money of course).  And yes, I’ll miss 4 days of class.  And yes, some of my friends and classmates think I’m crazy.  But I can’t help but feel a bit like Paul Farmer.  And there are few experiences more exhilarating than feeling like your hero. 
• My consistently strange dreams about cruise ships with strange disease outbreak, flirting with classmates, or like last night, my academic adviser telling me I should write my blog...hmmmm.

Anyway, I digress.  I sit here in the Matas Library at the Tulane School of Medicine surrounded by my notes, a box of colored pencils in desperate need of sharpening, my thermos of now-cold coffee, and beautiful people all hoping to cram an infinite amount of information into our already saturated, sleepy brains.  And with our first test in T minus 9 days, I can’t help but smile when I think about how happy I am.  I love my life. 

So all those things I’m “supposed” to be doing to be happy, healthy, and productive…I’ll get to them eventually.  Because I’m pretty dang happy.  And relatively healthy.  And I’ll consider myself productive as long as I pass my first Gross Anatomy and Embryology exam.  

Step One: Get White Coat

My 187 new classmates and I walked across the stage today donning our recently awarded white coats and deer in the headlights eyes.  Moments later we returned to our seats as recognized and eagerly anticipated new members of the medical community. 

I’ve anticipated Tulane’s White Coat Ceremony the way a young child anticipates their birthday.  Will I feel different once they slip that coat over my shoulders?  Will the depth of the symbolism of that coat weigh upon my heart? Will I suddenly seize the responsibility that comes with the honor of being welcomed into the medical field?

And yet, just like those childhood birthdays, I didn’t feel much different once I returned to my seat…other than the fact that I immediately began sweating in the polyester.  But life experience has taught me that it’s not about instantly feeling a year older or fully appreciating these precious moments as they unfold.  I look over and see my white coat proudly hanging on the back of my door.  My stethoscope lays on my bed, ready for years of service in my increasingly steady hands.  These two symbols of my entrance to the medical field will slowly reveal to me the beauties, pains, and realities of the life of a physician.  And just like those childhood birthdays, I pretty much feel the same as I did when I rolled out of bed this morning.  But deep down, I know something is different.

After years of imagination, anticipation, and caffination, I’m really a medical student.  I find myself smiling with gratitude as I think back to the eleven year old me telling everyone I could, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a pediatric orthopedic surgeon”.  And while I no longer dream of being an surgeon, I’m still amazed at the fact that I’m here, now.  A medical student.  Only four years, thousands of dollars of loans, countless hours of studying, and from the looks of it, a bit of fun in New Orleans keep me from reaching my final dream of becoming Dr. Kayla Bronder.