Med School Update

A couple weeks ago we went up to Portland for a Northwest region Osteopathics Association awards ceremony. Western University was a main sponsor of the event and thus had invited students and their significant others to attend. While we were up in Portland, we visited some of Scott's relatives. Of course, Scott offered to practice his osteopathic manual manipulation techniques on them. He's been practicing these techniques on me for weeks, and I think he wanted a new scenario to analyze! Plus, I can tell he feels great satisfaction when he is able to reduce pain in a joint or muscle with these hands-on methods.

This visit reminded me that it's been awhile since my last update on our medical school journey. Here is the interview I had with Scott recently:

What are all the classes that you've had so far this year, Scott?
OMM (manual manipulation), ECM (clinical studies), Gross Anatomy, Head and Neck, MCBM (Molecular and Cellular Basis of Microbiology), IDIT (Drugs and Bugs), Blood and Lymph, and Neuro

Which class has been the hardest for you?
Ugh, all of them. Don't write "all of them"! Are you writing everything I'm saying?

Okay, I'll clarify... Which class was the most difficult for you to study?
MCBM was difficult because it was covering all the sciences. Like ALL of the sciences. You feel me? IDIT was a tough course because you had to memorize all these drugs and diseases, but then it was fun because you start seeing the correlation and talking about things you would see as a doctor.

How much do you study?
I go to class until 3:00 or 5:00 Pm, and then I come home and study until midnight. There's just not enough time to study all the material.

Do you enjoy school?
Very much. Thank you for asking.

What's one big take away from this past (almost) year?
I consider it more important to be balanced than to get high honors in every class - to be able to spend time with you (Katie) and spend time playing basketball and being physically active. I used to say "getting decent sleep" too, but that's not really possible any more.

Anything else you'd like to say?
Nah. That's my life right now.

I did some serious luring here, folks, and didn't make a big catch. Being so involved in the med school atmosphere it is difficult to come up with probing questions of interest to family and friends or perspective students. On my end (I should post the wives perspective someday) I've had a fairly easy time keeping busy. The biggest key is making sure that even though both of us are busy our worlds don't become so seperate that we don't understand each other any more. We know that we are in this together, and we make an effort to spend time with each other every day and have something that we can share like a TV show, scripture reading, or a date.

Any burning questions about medical school out there?