Hippocratic Oats

Inspiration

January 7, 2011 at 12:07 am Leave a comment

I have to admit, the first week of the new year isn’t even over with, and I’m already needing some inspiration to keep me on track with my 2011 goals. I find if I have something tangible to focus on, I can drag myself out of bed a little earlier, eat a banana instead of that cookie, and keep studying that extra bit so I can cross out every last item in my agenda. What are these “things” I speak of? Here’s a few things that are helping me work towards my ten goals of 2011.

Studying hard

On February 4th, I’ll be taking my first shelf exam. The text is essentially a nation wide final in microbiology covering everything we should know for the Boards. To help organize my studying, I purchased a copy of the BRS review. It has a ton of practice questions after each chapter AND four full review tests. It arrived in the mail today (thanks Amazon for my free Amazon prime student membership) . One way I keep myself motivated when I have a big exam, is by staying as organized as possible. Who doesn’t LOVE to make and check things off a list?? I took a look at the BRS and my copy of Clinical Microbiology made ridiculously simple and came up with a Micro Shelf Schedule .

I forgot how cheesy the CMMRS is. Here’s one of my favorite pages. Neisseria tend to hang out in kidney bean shaped pairs (diplococci) and in this figure, you have both the meningitis causing and gonorrhea causing forms represented….hehehe. Even if you don’t find the humor in it, you can see the value of having a whole book filled with these little visual memory aids.

A common problem that many med students face is “burn out.” We study constantly. Today for example, after a full 4 hours of morning classes, after lunch we had another lecture on EKGs and then a small group session that latest for about another 2 hours. After all that, it was time to go home to eat a little dinner and then pick right up where I left off. I haven’t really left my desk chair for the past 6 hours AND after I finish writing this, I have another lecture I’m going to watch. This is a normal Thursday. As you can tell, the whole study thing can get real old real fast. To keep myself motivated, I often take a moment to look up from the books and enjoy the view from my window. Ok, I know this sounds wicked cheesy, but hear me out. From my favorite chair in my living room, I can see the hospital, my school building and (although not really having anything to do with this topic) the Carrier Dome. When I’m so sick of studying that I just want to crawl into bed and call it a day, I take a moment to think about why I’m actually putting myself through these 4 years. Medicine is actually what I want to do with my life. I’m here for a reason, and even if it can tend to suck, it will all be worth it in the long run.

Eating Right

To help me stay on track with eating healthy, I hung my outfit for Emily’s upcoming annual wine Birthday dinner on my bedroom door. Every time I walk by it, it’s a little reminder to eat right.

When Kelly and Emily were up this past weekend, we discussed how looking at pictures of our thinner selves was always a great way to stay on track. Here’s two pictures of a little less of me me from Junior year in college that I glance at when I need some motivation.

Working out

As I mentioned in my NYE post, Kelly Emily and I purchased S2H workout bands. I know they’re kinda of ugly, but it actually works! You wear it when you’re working out, and the band records how long you have been active for. Afte one hour, it flashes a rewards code that you can enter online to receive 60 points. I can save all these points, and get rewards like gift certificates to Target and Amazon.com. I figure if I’m going to work out, I might as well be getting something for it

A picture of the three of us from one of the last races we ran together. Hopefully, our new S2H bands will keep us motivated so that we can run the Boilermaker together again this year.

Organizing my life

And the very last thing that has been helping me stay on track these past few day is my friend, the one and only Richard. When Richard was visiting last week, he noticed how “ooc” (translation, out of control) my inbox was. I’m what you may call an email hoarder. I was on pretty much every mailing list you could thing of. After a little chat about how easy it was to unscubsribe from a mailing list, I finally took the plunge and started purging my inbox of unncessary emails. I unsubscribed from not 2, not 3, but 30+ places. Some of the most ridiculous ones included Picnic World, Peta, and Omaha Steaks (oh the irony, I don’t even eat beef).

That’s all for tonight. Tomorrow’s post will be a flashback to the Lake Placid half marathon, and it’s going to be a good one

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