After a very long road trip with one of my best friends (love you Kirsten!), I spent several days getting to know my new home.
Things I hate about Yakima, WA:
We received our assigned cadavers today. I read a book before coming to school - written by a philosophy professor who took a semester off teaching to observe an anatomy lab at a medical school. The way the students started their journey in the cadaver lab was completely different from mine. In the book there was a priest available to talk to students. They received a lot of instruction about the way to treat the bodies they would be observing. There was a lot of trepidation. It smelled awful. That was true in my case too. We moved as a large group from the lecture hall to the anatomy lab. There was a nervous energy in the hallways. People pulled their gloves on. Found their table. All the tables had the sides up and locked, protecting the bodies inside. My group looked around, wondering if we could get started (we'd been given a list of things to accomplish which included covering and wetting the hands, feet, and head as well as turning the body face down - we're starting on the back next week). Other tables were starting so we just did too. There was little hesitancy. Two of them took one side. Two of us the other. We unhatched the metal, lifted it down, locked it in place. The cadaver was covered in a blue sheet, zipped in. We unzipped it. The first thing I noticed was the waxy, yellow color of legs. And then I noticed we had a man. His feet, hands, and head were all covered in cloth under plastic. All we had left to do was flip him, cover him in a sheet, wet it down, zip him up and close the lid back up. We stood the four of us around the table, looking down. "How do we flip him?" I asked. We had no idea how to go about moving a dead body. Three of us have some experience with cadavers but none of us had had to physically move one like that. So I fetched an instructor. The older gentleman came over. I asked my question again. "Carefully!" He said with a small chuckle and then while giving verbal instructions, he grabbed our cadaver by one arm and one leg and pulled him to the side of the table before lifting him with my help and turning him on his face. It didn't seem all that careful to me. And it didn't seem like we were moving a human body either.
We finished covering and wetting the cadaver. We looked at each other. Without assigning tasks, we cleaned the table down and got it locked up and parted ways.
Things I hate about Yakima, WA:
- Where are my MOUNTAINS?!
- The homeless people hanging out at gas stations
- It took me awhile to find a grocery store I felt comfortable shopping at (These are things I never had to really think about before. I suppose when I moved to Idaho for my undergrad I spent some brain power deciding where I would get gas and where I would do my shopping but it seemed like all my choices were good ones - and they had a Maverik.)
- There is no Maverik
- The money it takes to set up your kitchen! I completely forgot about this. I haven't had to buy basics like SALT since 2007 when I started my undergrad, (Seriously, those large things of salt last ages.)
- I'm so far from my family. (Although, I will share that I haven't struggled with this as much as I thought I would and I count that as a real blessing. The only time I've been moved to tears over being far from my family is when my mom left after my white coat ceremony and I woke up really early the next morning and sobbed.)
- The amount of eligible, LDS men is basically any number raised to the power of (0) but I haven't found him yet, I'm just giving the city the benefit of the doubt here.
- The parties the students in my class throw revolve around drinking. I don't drink and that makes parties here boring as tomato soup. (This is not an invitation to share with my your great-great-aunt's tomato soup recipe which actually has a lot of flavor. I don't like soup but thanks for wanting to share!)
Thins I have loved about Yakima, WA:
- The Prests (This family is friends with my mission president and his family and they are the salt of the earth. I love them. I can't wait to grow up a little more and be like the Prests because seriously people, they are the best of the best.)
- U-pick fruit places. Getting raspberries, peaches and tons of blueberries for next to nothing? Not quite as wonderful as shopping at your parents' house but it gets a little close.
- My apartment and my roommate. It's SO NICE living with only one other person. And when that person is as kind and wonderful as the future Dr. not-K--- (she's getting married next year), then you really strike gold.
- The library system. Bless their hearts, when I didn't have any mail they still let me check out two books at a time and didn't bat an eye when I was coming back every two days to switch them out.
- BEING A MEDICAL STUDENT (which honestly could fit, though not equally, on both lists.)
That's not an exhaustive list but I'm exhausted so it'll do for now!
We got our white coats last week during orientation. Orientation was too long. It was horrendous. Okay, maybe it wasn't THAT bad but when you put 144 students in a room who are anxious to just.get.started and you talk at them for five days straight more or less? Yeah... That was fun.
But they did feed us lunch every day, I met some truly remarkable people who will be working with me for two years, I had some questions answered, we had one day where we were broken into groups and we just did assigned service around the area, and we got our student-physician gear (i.e. stethoscope, sphygmomanemeter (Cool, huh? it's a blood pressure cuff. No worries, I didn't know that either), name badges to get into the buildings, etc.)
And then school started. I really don't have time to write this blog post. If you'd like an exhaustive list of the other things I should be doing it would be longer than both those bulleted lists above.
We are in class basically from 8-5. They tell you to expect to do 40 hours of studying outside class. And don't forget to keep up your hobbies! And get enough sleep! And stay hydrated! And make sure you're working out too. And eating nutritiously.
We cover in an hour something we would have taken a week to cover at my undergrad. My friend Sarah put it well when she said "Have we been here 4 days or 4 months?!" Dude, no idea.
I'm still figuring out how to study. The tools you use during your undergrad just don't work because there isn't enough time to go over everything again. I'm still figuring out my sleep schedule. I go to bed early because I'm exhausted and then wake up early to get enough studying in and then have to take a nap because I'm so tired and end up staying up late and getting up late. It's a real mess. It'll smooth out (I hope), just give me some time.
We received our assigned cadavers today. I read a book before coming to school - written by a philosophy professor who took a semester off teaching to observe an anatomy lab at a medical school. The way the students started their journey in the cadaver lab was completely different from mine. In the book there was a priest available to talk to students. They received a lot of instruction about the way to treat the bodies they would be observing. There was a lot of trepidation. It smelled awful. That was true in my case too. We moved as a large group from the lecture hall to the anatomy lab. There was a nervous energy in the hallways. People pulled their gloves on. Found their table. All the tables had the sides up and locked, protecting the bodies inside. My group looked around, wondering if we could get started (we'd been given a list of things to accomplish which included covering and wetting the hands, feet, and head as well as turning the body face down - we're starting on the back next week). Other tables were starting so we just did too. There was little hesitancy. Two of them took one side. Two of us the other. We unhatched the metal, lifted it down, locked it in place. The cadaver was covered in a blue sheet, zipped in. We unzipped it. The first thing I noticed was the waxy, yellow color of legs. And then I noticed we had a man. His feet, hands, and head were all covered in cloth under plastic. All we had left to do was flip him, cover him in a sheet, wet it down, zip him up and close the lid back up. We stood the four of us around the table, looking down. "How do we flip him?" I asked. We had no idea how to go about moving a dead body. Three of us have some experience with cadavers but none of us had had to physically move one like that. So I fetched an instructor. The older gentleman came over. I asked my question again. "Carefully!" He said with a small chuckle and then while giving verbal instructions, he grabbed our cadaver by one arm and one leg and pulled him to the side of the table before lifting him with my help and turning him on his face. It didn't seem all that careful to me. And it didn't seem like we were moving a human body either.
We finished covering and wetting the cadaver. We looked at each other. Without assigning tasks, we cleaned the table down and got it locked up and parted ways.
The biggest thing I've learned since I officially started school on Monday is not to compare. Keep you eyes forward and your ears open for your instructor and don't judge what you're doing to the people next to you - they don't really know what they're doing either. Not yet.
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