At this point in time, in the middle of dental school, I’ve spent many many hours in lecture halls. Here’s what I’ve found: a lot of professors are disorganized, and as a result tend to descend into tangential (yet important for the exam!) monologues that stray far from the ugly PowerPoint slide at hand. During these all-too-frequent digressions, one must be ready to transcribe a lot of information very quickly. To accomplish this, I have slowly adopted the use of a laptop during lectures.
I just took the National Board Dental Examination, Part I. And here’s the thing… the freakin’ thing takes over your mind. I was talking to a few of my classmates who also took it early, and I wondered aloud if they were experiencing what I had been: “In all of our lectures, do you keep picking up random facts and thinking damn, THAT’S what the answer was?!” They said that they too were experiencing this. They agreed: it is an unpleasant side effect of answering so many questions — your brain is constantly searching for the answers.
Gomez has a song called “Bone Tired”. Ben Ottewell’s singing makes the lyrics sound much more poetic than they look in print. Anyhow, it’s an interesting song from my perspective of early semester exhaustion.
This afternoon, I’ll go into clinic for the second time. I’ll observe a student dentist (or hygiene student) go through a full patient appointment. You have to check the patient’s chart, understand underlying medical conditions, scan for drug conflicts, meet the patient, find out why the patient is there, determine recent changes in their medical history, consult with specialists about treatment plans, possibly do some treatment, take radiographs, explain things to the patient, obtain consent, plan the time of the next visit, and on and on.
The picture below is a stack of the materials I covered for 3 of my 7 classes this past fall semester. I read, generated, or memorized every single one of the pages below.
Today was not a great day because I lost my keys in a snow bank. On the coldest day of this season. 0°F (before windchill), and I’m on my hands and knees outside the Rec Center, with my red bike tail-light to light up the dark, snowy ground, trying to figure out what the heck just happened.
On our honeymoon, I trapped a moment in my mind when I was standing behind Mykala with my arms around her waist, on the beach in Hawaii, at sunset. And I said to myself then, “Never ever forget this moment; carry it with you as long as you live.” It’s nice to visit at times like this. Times when I just spelled “systemic” like this: “cystemic.” A little weary, but holding up still.
When I look back at what I wrote when I got into dental school, I now realize, quite plainly, I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into. No. Idea. Reminds me of some of the letters from Confederate soldiers when they were going off to war — they had this romantic idea of what war would be like… and they were (1) completely mistaken and (2) grossly unprepared.
You know it’s a bad day in lab when you go backwards. That is, when you leave, you actually have more to do than you did when you arrived. Wouldn’t it be better not to show up at all? I wish there was some sort of warning system with red flashing lights: CAUTION — YOUR HAND SKILLS ARE LOOKING SUCKY TODAY. AVOID DOING ANYTHING DIFFICULT.
Upon entering the lab, I gave an enthusiastic “thumbs up” to a classmate of mine, Maria. She’s from Kyrgyzstan. Then, I got to thinking… isn’t that “the foulest of gesticular insults” in some countries? Hmm.
Read Memories of Bob Gorlin in Northwest Dentistry (the journal of the MDA). He has an entire syndrome named after him, and a clinical sign. He worked at the U of M School of Dentistry for 30 years. Well, he was the SOD for 30 years. But, that’s not the full story.
Tomorrow is the last day of dental school before my longest break for my entire 4 year tenure: 10 weeks! 10 consecutive, glorious weeks without having to go to school. Later summer breaks are substantially shorter… about 3 weeks at most.
The forecast for my last day of school? 93°F. And thunderstorms.
Nodding off in the library while reading operative dentistry is not such a bad thing. However, dreaming followed by waking up to some vocalization that you yourself are making is extremely not recommended. This technique does, however, earn you a row of study carrels free of people.
From my course eval of Dr. Katz’s Physiology course:
Perhaps I will have instructors who rival Dr. Katz’s wit,
knowledge, and personality, but I sincerely doubt I will
have the privilege of learning from another professor who
is capable of teaching as well as he is. Initially, I
couldn’t figure out why physiology came so easily in this
course, and then I realized it was because Dr. Katz was
teaching the material not presenting it. Normally, I spend
my days watching endless parades of powerpoint
slides — I am talked at over the slides and then expected
to regurgitate the information through rote memory. Some
of my peers have expressed a preference for this type of
classroom experience, but it drives me crazy. Actually
learning and understanding material (as I did due to Dr.
Katz’s lectures) made the topics more interesting,
relevant, and memorable. Everything Dr. Katz did, from
his jokes to his illustrations, was done with one purpose
— so his students could learn.
I am now officially a D2. Physiology final grade == A! Now off to taste wedding entrées with my lovely fiancée. Tonight, Legally Blonde the Musical. Tomorrow, more things!
Originally, I said “Tomorrow, the world”, but I’m trying to avoid clichéd language in my writing. Good luck with that. See what I did there?
This finals week isn’t as brain-meltingly insane as the one we had before spring break, but I do find my brain a bit mushy these days. Does that mean a ready-to-rock brain is crispy? Sharp, maybe. Hmm.
This low quality post does seem to prove that my gray matter has become gelatinous.
