Poised on the Verge

So, I write this on the eve of my first day of medical school. On thursday we received our syllabuses for gross anatomy. The syllabus itself is a packet nearly two inches thick with outlines for every lecture. There was an accompanying packet filled with cross-sectional diagrams of each unit we’re covering. The first unit is the back, from the nape of the neck to the iliac crest.
Friday I bought my Netter’s Anatomy Atlas which is filled with pictures and labels, but no other text. I have an old edition of Moore’s Clinical Anatomy to supplement. Hopefully between the two of these I can make some sense of gross anatomy. Netter’s set me back $75, but at least it’s a nice book. The biochem book I bought during under grad was $130, and I only used it twice, which is why I still have it. Perhaps Voet and Voet will be more helpful in medical school than they were in under grad.
Friday and Saturday I studied the first unit, trying to get a handle on the language of anatomy and at least a superficial understanding of where the various muscles of the back are located. Moore’s is hard to read because it uses words like “inferolateral”, which I think to the layman would mean “down low and to the side.”
I’m pretty worried about the workload that I’m getting myself into with school. It’s been over a year since I’ve had to study every day, and that was for organic chemistry. With o-chem, I knew that if I put in about 2-3 hours a day I would be ok. For anatomy, I think, at least judging by my preliminary attempts to learn the back, the time investment will be something more on the order of 5-6 hours. The last time I had a workload that was similar was during the e term I was writing my thesis for history. During that quarter, I remember that pretty much every free minute was spent in the library writing or doing research. There were many times that I felt that I didn’t have time to go to class because I was too busy studying. Since I was pretty depressed during that time, I’m more than a little concerned about what is going to happen during medical school.
Being on the edge of this impending besogne I am reminded a little of the feelings I would have in high school when I was rowing. Every afternoon during the winter months I would get nauseous with anxiety when I thought about the upcoming erg workout. I couldn’t think about anything but how much it was going to hurt and how badly I wanted to do anything but row, a fear which was exacerbated by the knowledge I couldn’t get out of it. I know intellectually that medical school is going to be hard, but like when I was rowing, I also know that I can’t realistically get out of it, nor, deep down, do I want to. It’s going to be important to remember that there will occasionally be fun times and rewarding times interspersed with the hours of studying.
A vaincre sans périle, on triomphe sans gloire-Corneille. He did actually write something worthwhile!