I wrote this text in an email to a family member earlier today, and realized it conveyed my feelings about the past few weeks very well, so I've decided to share it with you all:
....I am sitting here on the Anschutz Medical Campus, preparing for my 3rd of 3 exams this week, and just thanking God that this week is over. Now that the month of October is halfway over, fall has really made its presence known here in the Denver area, and everything is beautiful. I am looking out the window during this short study break, and admiring how beautiful the medical campus has become. The medical campus is situated on the old Fitzsimons Airforce Base, and is in the last stages of development (they are currently in the middle of building an addition to the Children's Hospital, and building the new VA hospital. I just remember when I first visited this campus 3 years ago when I was planning on applying to PA school, the campus seemed so "new." The concrete sidewalks connecting the buildings still looked like they had been freshly laid, and the trees and shrubs were little babies. Now, the trees that were so little just a short time ago have really grown, and the leaves are changing the most gorgeous colors of red, deep purple, and yellow, and the entire campus is covered in crunchy, dry leaves that I just love to go out of my way to step on when I'm passing from class to class. I only wish I had more time to appreciate how pretty this beautiful campus is, in spite of the intermittent noise of Flight for Life helicopters taking off, and ambulances coming in and out from the many hospitals here.
Now that I am officially halfway through the semester, it feels like a huge relief knowing that there may actually be a light at the end of the tunnel of this, so far, very difficult semester. I am doing very well in most of my classes, but I've also had the humbling experience this semester of failing an exam for the first time (actually, this just happened yesterday with my Pathology midterm). However, I have resigned myself to just getting to the point of passing, and being happy with just that. Having 10 classes at one time is crazy sometimes, but actually, quite manageable. Even though most of the semester has been filled with the drudgery of classes day in and day out, I have had some interesting and clinically relevant experiences, such as learning how to perform a pelvic exam on a live person for the first time. Although nerve-wracking at first, it felt for the first time that I am moving one step closer to actually practicing clinical medicine, which is a wonderful feeling.
As I have been moving through classes, some of them very clinically-based, I have also been slowly narrowing down my interests as far as fields of practice this semester, and have a very strong feeling that I would like to either pursue a career in Endocrine medicine, or Emergency Medicine, but, at this point, I am definitely leaning more toward Emergency Medicine, and have been for quite a while, even before I started the program. I have always seemed to function best on a slightly elevated level of stress, and since there is always a level of high-anxiety/chaos in the ER, I feel like this would be a very good fit for me.
That seems to be all that is on my mind for now; back to studying for my Women's Health exam.
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Friday, October 15, 2010
Reflections after a very difficult week...
I wrote this text in an email to a family member earlier today, and realized it conveyed my feelings about the past few weeks very well, so I've decided to share it with you all:
....I am sitting here on the Anschutz Medical Campus, preparing for my 3rd of 3 exams this week, and just thanking God that this week is over. Now that the month of October is halfway over, fall has really made its presence known here in the Denver area, and everything is beautiful. I am looking out the window during this short study break, and admiring how beautiful the medical campus has become. The medical campus is situated on the old Fitzsimons Airforce Base, and is in the last stages of development (they are currently in the middle of building an addition to the Children's Hospital, and building the new VA hospital. I just remember when I first visited this campus 3 years ago when I was planning on applying to PA school, the campus seemed so "new." The concrete sidewalks connecting the buildings still looked like they had been freshly laid, and the trees and shrubs were little babies. Now, the trees that were so little just a short time ago have really grown, and the leaves are changing the most gorgeous colors of red, deep purple, and yellow, and the entire campus is covered in crunchy, dry leaves that I just love to go out of my way to step on when I'm passing from class to class. I only wish I had more time to appreciate how pretty this beautiful campus is, in spite of the intermittent noise of Flight for Life helicopters taking off, and ambulances coming in and out from the many hospitals here.
Now that I am officially halfway through the semester, it feels like a huge relief knowing that there may actually be a light at the end of the tunnel of this, so far, very difficult semester. I am doing very well in most of my classes, but I've also had the humbling experience this semester of failing an exam for the first time (actually, this just happened yesterday with my Pathology midterm). However, I have resigned myself to just getting to the point of passing, and being happy with just that. Having 10 classes at one time is crazy sometimes, but actually, quite manageable. Even though most of the semester has been filled with the drudgery of classes day in and day out, I have had some interesting and clinically relevant experiences, such as learning how to perform a pelvic exam on a live person for the first time. Although nerve-wracking at first, it felt for the first time that I am moving one step closer to actually practicing clinical medicine, which is a wonderful feeling.
As I have been moving through classes, some of them very clinically-based, I have also been slowly narrowing down my interests as far as fields of practice this semester, and have a very strong feeling that I would like to either pursue a career in Endocrine medicine, or Emergency Medicine, but, at this point, I am definitely leaning more toward Emergency Medicine, and have been for quite a while, even before I started the program. I have always seemed to function best on a slightly elevated level of stress, and since there is always a level of high-anxiety/chaos in the ER, I feel like this would be a very good fit for me.
That seems to be all that is on my mind for now; back to studying for my Women's Health exam.
....I am sitting here on the Anschutz Medical Campus, preparing for my 3rd of 3 exams this week, and just thanking God that this week is over. Now that the month of October is halfway over, fall has really made its presence known here in the Denver area, and everything is beautiful. I am looking out the window during this short study break, and admiring how beautiful the medical campus has become. The medical campus is situated on the old Fitzsimons Airforce Base, and is in the last stages of development (they are currently in the middle of building an addition to the Children's Hospital, and building the new VA hospital. I just remember when I first visited this campus 3 years ago when I was planning on applying to PA school, the campus seemed so "new." The concrete sidewalks connecting the buildings still looked like they had been freshly laid, and the trees and shrubs were little babies. Now, the trees that were so little just a short time ago have really grown, and the leaves are changing the most gorgeous colors of red, deep purple, and yellow, and the entire campus is covered in crunchy, dry leaves that I just love to go out of my way to step on when I'm passing from class to class. I only wish I had more time to appreciate how pretty this beautiful campus is, in spite of the intermittent noise of Flight for Life helicopters taking off, and ambulances coming in and out from the many hospitals here.
Now that I am officially halfway through the semester, it feels like a huge relief knowing that there may actually be a light at the end of the tunnel of this, so far, very difficult semester. I am doing very well in most of my classes, but I've also had the humbling experience this semester of failing an exam for the first time (actually, this just happened yesterday with my Pathology midterm). However, I have resigned myself to just getting to the point of passing, and being happy with just that. Having 10 classes at one time is crazy sometimes, but actually, quite manageable. Even though most of the semester has been filled with the drudgery of classes day in and day out, I have had some interesting and clinically relevant experiences, such as learning how to perform a pelvic exam on a live person for the first time. Although nerve-wracking at first, it felt for the first time that I am moving one step closer to actually practicing clinical medicine, which is a wonderful feeling.
As I have been moving through classes, some of them very clinically-based, I have also been slowly narrowing down my interests as far as fields of practice this semester, and have a very strong feeling that I would like to either pursue a career in Endocrine medicine, or Emergency Medicine, but, at this point, I am definitely leaning more toward Emergency Medicine, and have been for quite a while, even before I started the program. I have always seemed to function best on a slightly elevated level of stress, and since there is always a level of high-anxiety/chaos in the ER, I feel like this would be a very good fit for me.
That seems to be all that is on my mind for now; back to studying for my Women's Health exam.
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