A Rediscovery of Discipline

There's nothing like a good kick in the ass to encourage you. Second year is that kick. I haven't so far found a way to make this material "interesting" or "engaging" and therefore "memorable" for any significant amount of time. As an offshoot of the fact that I'm human, I'm prone to comparative analysis with all the other students in my class, some of whom are gifted with being tremendous reservoirs of memory and can recall with ease the intricacies of eponyms used briefly several months before in an unrelated systems course. This is in mighty contrast to myself. This morning I took a test and had many recurrences of the theme embodied by the following statement - "WTF is a Mallory body?"

(Of course, I mean, I remember things like - Mallory bodies are associated with liver cirrhosis in alcoholics - but I can't recall what SPECIFICALLY they have to do with hyaline membranes in the lungs [nothing], so I'm now pretty sure I'll be somewhat like King Midus as a physician, except with DEATH instead of the gold.)

My mind is just not cut out for recalling, without tons and TONS of outside investment, and perhaps a few narcotics, the intricacies of everything I've ever read in Robbins and Cotran. And so it occurs to me - neither, really, is anyone else's. The difference is that other people ARE investing tons of time into their education, and the results are showing in their recall. My roommate spends literally at least 15 more hours each week engaged in studying than I do (maybe not actively studying, but at least making a show of it down at Starbucks, while I, disgustingly, lie in bed at home napping).

So mark my words innernet - today marks the return of my medical school level of discipline. Today is the only test day in the past twenty years that has known me to study EVEN AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE TEST. Today is the day I become one of those medical students that can remember all that shit about mallory bodies and Lamellar inclusions and how dextromethorphan is an opiate that doesn't act at opioid receptors and how Pseudomonas aeruginosa smells like grapes and is the most common pneumonia acquired in patients with cystic fibrosis. Today I'll look up all those words that make no sense to me but all basically end up meaning the same thing (eg. suppurative, pyogenic, prurative, maturative, pustulating) and I will KNOW WHAT THESE TEXTBOOKS MEAN when they say things. I will read in advance and e-mail professors with my questions about the discrepencies between our pathology text and our internal medicine text when it comes to treatment regimens for chronic respiratory disease processes in overweight diabetics with complicating neurofibromatoses.

Today I will start studying for my boards which are still 9 months away - I will order those microbiology flashcards and I will look at a new one every day and they WILL BE MEMORIZED dammit! Today I will stop wasting moments of my life in sleep and laziness and arouse all noble sentiments within me to the rescue of my motivation from the clutches of apathy, ambivalence, and indifference! Today!

Actually, I'm pretty beat - I probably need to get to bed if I want to be awake at all in class tomorrow. Tomorrow! Yeah, I'll start tomorrow...