So, right now I’m currently 2/5 of the way through finals. I still have 3 more to go, but my stamina has dropped precipitously. I studied really intensely for the first two finals, and now it’s getting harder to find the motivation. Today is Sunday, and I really want to just take some time off to watch a movie, or read a book (a work of fiction, not a textbook), or play a video game for a while. But I won’t be doing that. My test is bright and early tomorrow morning, and if I don’t study my butt off today I could see my grade in pathology drop. Path has been my best course all year, so even though I want to slack off today, I owe it to myself to finish strong and get (keep) that A.
Reviewing pathology yesterday, I had one of those moments where I panicked and thought there was no way I could retain all the information. The thing about Path that makes it difficult for me is all the little details that must be remembered. If you want to pass the class, it’s enough to remember that Burkitt’s Lymphoma is a form of lymphoma that commonly invades the jaw or the ileo-cecal area. If you want to do well in the class, you have to also remember that it’s associated with c-myc translocation which puts it next to the IGH gene. The most common translocation is t(8;14)(q24;q32). You’d be well advised to also remember the lesser translocations if you can. (I can’t.) Finally, you also have to remember that the endemic and sporadic forms are associated with the Epstein-Barr virus, whereas the immunodeficiency form is associated with HIV. If it were just one disease process that you had to worry about, it wouldn’t be that tough. But there are hundreds of diseases to be familiar with. For some reason, I am actually really good at understanding how diseases work from a systemic perspective, and I usually have no trouble remembering what a disease does. Where I have trouble is remembering the tons of genetic minutiae to be memorized, the never-ending supply of trivia that goes with each disease.
Long story short, I had a “firehose” moment yesterday. They always say med school is like drinking from a firehose. I always thought that was an exaggeration, but I definitely felt that way yesterday. Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise that when I woke up this morning, one of the first things I thought about was this video clip from the old but great UHF.
Ah, the classics!