Dear diary,
When I heard people say medical school will barely leave you time for yourself and other activities, I always had my doubts. I asked myself “how hard could it actually be, wasn’t it to just attend lectures in the morning and then have the rest of the day and weekend to yourself”
Over the holidays, I never figured I would be one of those students who wouldn’t have time for other activities not when I had it all planned out; attend lectures, update my diary, read my books, hang out and have fun on weekends. Yes I had it all worked out but seriously, it hasn’t quite turned out that way ever since I resumed school.
Well, we finally resumed on 10th February as planned (pity it took me one month and some days to update this), and I was so excited as I dressed in my well ironed ash skirt and white shirt uniform ready to tackle on clinical school heads on but my hopes was dashed because all we did that day was registration and stuffs like that.
The next week was filled with settling into the hostel, meeting with the provost and other administrative heads where the welcomed us to the school of clinical medicine and congratulated us on our success in the 2nd MBBS exams.
And the week after that were introductory lectures of what we will be doing in this 400 level i.e. 4th year. Basically, all we will be doing are just 2 courses, Pathology and Pharmacology. Funny right?
Well I felt the same way too when I first heard it was just 2 courses we were going to be studying for a whole year. I thought it was just going to be easy breezy; I mean, “who didn’t know that Pathology was the study of diseases and Pharmacology had to do with study of drugs?”, then I remembered that I felt that exact same way when I was in preclinical school 1 i.e. 200 level (2nd year) when I heard that we only did 3 courses (story for another day though).
Just imagine having 20 lecturers (professors and doctors) for just 2 courses, not including those handling the practical aspects; just think about it. 2 courses? Yeah right! More like 50.
Pathology is further subdivided into 4, namely; Anatomical/Histological Pathology, Chemical Pathology, Hematology and Medical Microbiology. All these courses with their huge textbooks are sure scary but what can a girl do? A girl signed up for it and I continue to give myself hope with the fact that I’m not the 1st to pass through this phase and there will be a lot more people behind me.
Between attending classes and listening to someone talk to you for over 2 hours per class and spending 2 – 4 hours reading trying to get a hang of what the subject is all about; leaves you with little or no extra energy for any other thing beyond eating, resting and sleeping to get enough strength to repeat the whole cycle all over again.
I think that the most important skill a medical student or any student for that matter, should have is good time management skills. As for me, I’m still trying to develop mine and figure out what works for me and how well to manage the little time I have and use it well. I pray and hope it gets better as I want to update more often.
I just thank God that my school finally decided to join the ongoing ASUU strike at the moment, at least I’m a bit relieved of school duties but not quite because of the topics I have to read up on.
Till the next time, hopefully soon.
Ciao amigos.
Diary of a Naija Medic 