Dr. Douchebag!

ahoy guys and dolls.....i know what your gonna say.....something along the lines of "where the hell did that asshole disappear to??" I have had my head up my ass for a while, and by that I mean I have been ridiculiously busy. Well, you have my apologies. But I'm back now, so deal with it!! I have plenty of stuff to share with yall.....which I will.......tomorrow......cause it's Saturday......and I have some beer drinking to do!! And if you are sitting here reading this right now and it is still Saturday night.....I have some advice for you. First, slap yourself. Second, grab a beer take it in the shower with you.....it's called multitasking.....you can get ready and pre-game at the same time. Third, put on your best set of duds. Fourth, go knock on the apartment next to you and grab the cutest girl (or guy) and tell them that you are taking them out for some drinkiepoos. Fifth, I order you to have fun!!

Alright, until tomorrow fellow obssesive-compulsive dorks!!

10 ways to ace any exam

I decided to actaully write something half way serious for a change. (no i'm not on drugs) I figured this will be my community service to the pre-med world for the upcoming fall. It took me 3 and 1/2 years to master this technique. And thru much trial and error I have come up with the 10 things you need to do to ace any exam. Some of these are purty obvious....but then again you are a college student and don't know shit. When's the last time you saw a college student do something that actually made sense...............exactly, so shut up and listen.

1. GO TO CLASS. Wow, who woulda thunk! Maybe if you would go to class one and a while you would have a clue as to what the hell is on the exam. I usually had about 5 classes in a semester and there would be at least 2 classes that I went to just for the 3 exams. I wouldn't recommend it, unless you either have a photographic memory OR it's some pussy fine arts dance class you took as a blow off class so you could have fridays off.

2. STAY AWAKE IN CLASS. I give you that at times this can be damn near impossible. Figure out a way to stay awake.....there's always a way. Slam a red bull during class or sit next to the extremely hot chick (or guy) in the class. Go to the bathroom and throw cold water in your face or just excuse yourself and run around the building a few times. Do whatever works.

3. TAKE NOTES. This is huge!! They don't have to be pretty, just scribble them down. If you don't have notes then you're fucked. It's as simple as that. This one covers that whole paying attention thing cause you have to pay attention to take notes. Even if the class has reached the level of crazy ass retarded boring, just try to pay attention and get the notes. You can still half zone out and get all the notes. I used to do that all the time. As a general rule of thumb, write down everything the prof writes on the board or on a power point. If you get a talker (talker= some crazy bitch who rambles on incoherently like they have uncontrollable diarrhea of the mouth) Just try to get the main points. The prof will probably repeat the main points or pause after a main point for writing. I recommend just one notebook for each class cause it's simple and you don't confused your tiny little minds!!

4. IF YOU MISS A DAY, GET THE NOTES FROM SOMEONE. You'd be suprised how much shit you can miss in a day. I had days where I just couldn't drag my ass outta bed to get to class. Either that or I was skipping it to go drink some frosty brews at the ballgame! Whatever the reason, remember to cover your ass and get the notes. I'm too damn lazy to rewrite what someone wrote, so I would ask to borrow their notebook for a few hours, walk to the library and photocopy their notes from their notebook!! Easy and simple!! Plus, it's a great way to meet a cute girl (or guy) in the class. Every once in a while, you can ask the prof for notes and they will give them to you.

5. ASK QUESTIONS. If you don't get something, just ask about it in class. If you ask about it while you're in class then you won't have to hunt down the answer in a book later. Also, you get points with the prof for asking questions. This will help you later when you have a borderline grade on something or when you need a recommendation letter! Plus, participation is usually a portion of the grade anyway. Chances are the question you ask in class will show up on the test somewhere which just means easy points for you!

6. READ THE BOOK. I can't stress this enough!! Read the damn book, it's not that hard!! It doesn't take that long either. Most exams have material from the lectures and material from the book that they don't go over in class. By reading the chapter you not only refresh the material in your head, but you also cover the stuff the prof doesn't go over but is still on the exam.

7. MANAGE YOUR TIME. If you do any of these, do this one!! This was my key to A's thru college. Read the book ahead of time. If you do a half a chapter or a chapter a day, you stay ahead of the class, you give yourself time to go over shit you don't get, and you avoid having to cram for exams. Don't wait till the night before the exam to study for it. Even if you think it will be easy. You wouldn't believe how good it feels to be a chapter ahead of the class in all of your classes. Never behind and never stressed. It eliminates virtually all the stress of cramming and all that jazz. For example, if I had an exam in two weeks which cover material from 4 chapters, I would read a chapter a day or a chapter every other day. This way it would leave me at least 5 or so days to study for the exam. My method is to read the chapter kinda fast and highlight the important stuff. I then go back and study the highlighted stuff and I study my notes. I also do practice problems if necessary. Once I read and highlighted all of the chapters I would start studying for the exam two days before. That gives me two days to STUDY (not start reading and then study). By the time the exam roles around you'll be a pro.

8. STUDY BY YOURSELF IN A QUIET PLACE. Believe it or not, but studying with other people doesn't work. You end up sitting and talking about random shit like where you're going to go out this weekend or about why Paris Hilton is such a skank. Also, studying with music doesn't work either. You cannot memorize things and listen to music at the same time. You're brain can't handle it. You brain needs to focus on what you're putting into it, otherwise you won't remember the material the next day. Find a quiet spot where you work best. I'm really picky about where I study. I need like mood lighting and everything. Go whereever you can be the most productive. (Not Starbucks!) Just trust me, if you do this you'll get shit done faster and you'll know more than other people--because all the other people are pissing away their time studying in starbucks with their friends not getting anything done. Hang out with your friends later doing something better....like doing kegstands half-naked!!

9. UNDERSTAND IT. It is by far way better to learn and understand the material than just trying to memorize it. If you understand the material you will ace every exam because if you ever get a tough question you can reason through it. Plus, if you understand the material, you won't have to spend so much time studying the material, it will just come naturally. I know there are some classes where that's just not gonna happen. In these cases, memorize the shit like there's no tomorrow!! One more thing....don't forget that all this stuff is gonna come back on the final, so if you understand it, the material will come back to you so easy and you won't get that "oh my damn, i'm gonna mess my pants" feeling!!

10. TAKE BREAKS. No one expects you to study for 9 straight hours. I give myself a list of stuff that I need to get done that day and I try to get it done as early as possible. This way I can screw around at night and do what I want (i.e. try to pick up women with horribly cheesy pick up lines)! Referring to #7, if you do a little every day, you save yourself alot of hassle. Anyways, take a break whenever you find yourself rereading the same line 4 times and still not knowing what it said. Grab a bite to eat, a 20 minute power nap, or talk to a friend for a bit. It gives you a refresher so that you can keep truckin!!

I assure you that if you do these, you will get an A on all your exams!! Once you get that A, you will be happy knowing you're doing what you came to do, and that you're probably making the rents happy too. Once you get a few A's and use these good study habits, it will become second nature!! By following these basic guidelines, you will actually be spending less overall time studying and have much less stress!!

One final note, once you're done with the exam....go fuckin' party cause you earned it!! Good luck and happy studying!!

ER: A crash course in medicine

As I mentioned before I work in the emergency room at a local hospital. This is my first position in a hospital. I had been in medicine for some time as an EMT, but that was all pre-hospital care. And let's face it, there's only so much that you can do out in the field. I was brought in to work in the ER without knowing a damn thing about stuff like venipuncture and IV's and all that stuff. They really go by the philosophy "watch one, do one, teach one". By my second day at work I was drawing blood and starting IV's on patients. By the fourth day, I was forced to do it as fast as I could. My preceptor kept telling me, "your in the emergency room, seconds matter, and you need to get that line in fast!" By the end of my second week I was teaching a new girl how to start IV's and draw blood. They just kind of threw me in the water and it was sink or swim. Well, in my case I swam with ease. Still to this day I have only missed two IV's. I was happy when people that worked there for years were telling me I was like a natural. It made me feel really good because I will be doing this stuff for a long time. This was the first thing that actutally made me think for a second, "I think I'm going to make a good doctor". Now, I know you want some of the good stuff too. Yes, believe it or not, I did make a few dumb mistakes. The funniest one was happened one day with the thermometers in the rooms. As some of you may know, they use a probe thermometer that is the size of a walkie talkie. There are two different probes in it, one is red and one is blue. You take the probe, put on a sterile, disposable cover, and place it under the patients tongue like normal. Well....what no one ever told me is that the blue one was for taking the temp orally, while the red one was for taking the temp rectally. Yup, that's right, I gave a patient and oral temperature with the red probe. I felt like an asshole when the nurse told me about it later. Whoops!!

The waiting game....

I think one of the most nerve-racking things about applying to school whether it be medical school, grad school, or whatever is the freakin wait. I 'm talking about after you have sent in everything and your application is all completed. At first, you're just like "fuck yeah, it's done and everything is in....to the bar!!" Yet, after a day or two of just forgetting about it, it starts coming back to mind. The more time that passes the more you obssess over it. Will I get in? I hope I get in!! You soon drive yourself completely nuts. I'm in the waiting game right now as I type. I'm waiting to hear from the very last program I've applied to!! This is my top choice school!! I should find out this week if I get in. I can't think about anything else. I'll keep you guys posted as to what happens. I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope I get in!!!! I'm going crazy!!!!

New Stuff

I know I've been slackin' on writing to all of you lately, but I have been gettin my ass whooped by stuff to do. I have been applying to grad shcool for a masters to better position myself for applying to med school. Ya know beef up the ol' application. Anyways, I started this new job about a month ago. I'm an emergency department technician and a health unit coordinater in the emergency room. It's pretty freakin sweet!! I get to do way more than I ever did working as an EMT. I get to poke people with needles alot. I just wanted to let ya know, I'll have a bit more time to tell you guys some interesting stories from the ER!! Just give me a few more days and I'll have some good stuff!!

Volunteerology

These days volunteering has become a big ticket item among med student hopefuls. All the pre-meds out there are trying to one up each other in their extra curriculars. I've seen it go from helping out in a soup kitchen to volunteering in a hospital to mission trips here to medical mission trips abroad to opening clinics in africa for the poor to single handedly saving an entire village of poor babies suffering from the plague and curing all forms of cancer while maintaining a 4.0 GPA at Harvard. I mean.....come freakin on people!! All schools might as well make volunteering into a damn class--volunteerology 101: the art of kissing ADCOM ass!!

Anywho, I've noticed that volunteering has become more and more like trying to get top secret clearance in the CIA. I've gone through more bullshit trying to get a volunteer position pushing people around a small community hospital than I had to when I became an EMT in a major city. Lets analyze this, shall we!(My expert knowledge from my psych degree shwoing itself) As an EMT peoples lives will depend on my ability to know what the hell I'm doing. Now, I was working on 24 hours shifts. So even being dead tired after 22 hours of saving dying people, if I got a call I would have to be on top of my game. As a hospital volunteer I will be pushing a person in a wheelchair from one room to another 1 day a week....for 4 hours. Now, in order to land this volunteer spot I had to fill out 3 applications, do a background check, go through 2 interviews in person, and one phone interview. I also had to get a TB test (standard for working in the hospital) AND a reubella titer and a Hep B titer. On the other hand, for my EMT job I had one application and one interview. Plus that standard TB test. So.....apparently they're worried the unibomber is going to feel bad and do a little community service. Does anyone notice something wrong with this picture.......




.........Jackasses.

The 5 stages of stress

I was sitting here thinking, because I have nothing better to do, about my days studying for the MCAT and the degree to which I almost soiled my elephant boxers (oh yes, I am that classy). I noticed that my stress was inversely proportional to the time until the exam....this sentence shows that my studying has paid off!! As the MCAT came closer my stress got progressively worse. My road to insanity came in stages:

Stage 1: You come to the realization that you know absolutely nothing. The past 4 years of class is just one big hazy blur of hungover mayhem. As you determine that you can no longer procrastinate and put off studying you throw up a little in your mouth. Time to bust out the text books that have been nicely propping up your beer pong table and put together a half ass study schedule that you will be redoing 317 times in the next 2 months or so because you can't stick to it. Better put on a pot of coffee.

Stage 2: You are moving into the realm of freaking out. The clock is ticking and you can feel it. Your eyes are bloodshot and you have drank all the coffee and soda (it's soda, not pop douche bags) in the apartment. Your tired of studying and and make frequent trips to the kitchen just to forget what the hell you went there for. Panic and fatigue are setting in and you have just redone your schedule....again.

Stage 3: You just smashed the piss out of the clock in your room in the hopes that it will buy you more time. You have thought of shoving this pencil in your eye and just ending it all numerous times. After grading the practice exam that you took, you spend some time curled up in the corner crying like a 2 year old. Once you stop crying you run to the store for some Sleep-B-Gone caffine pills because you have come to the conclusion that coffee is for pussies. You still don't know jack shit, but if you beef up the studying you'll be okay.

Stage 4: Fuck!!

Stage 5: You have gone completely retarded. You no longer even know who you are or what you're doing. You now stare blankly at the text book in front of you with dried tears and snot all over your face. You have just read the same sentence 23 times and still don't know what the shit it said. You havn't slept or showered in a week and your diet consists of hot pockets and jelly beans. The world becomes a gloomy place and you feel like punching anyone that smiles at you right in the kisser. You daydream about how you could possibly burn down the testing center and get away with it. You flush your study schedule down the toilet because numbers no longer have meaning to you. When your roomate asks if everything is okay, your eye twitches uncontrollably.

At this point you are ready to take the MCAT.

Taking the "scared shitless" out of the MCAT

Obsessing over the MCAT is natural and for some of us it is a daily ritual like stuffing your face with twinkies....err, uhh, is that just me. Anywho, when I went into the MCAT I thought that this exam would bend me over and spank me like the dirty little $210 whore that it is. But, as scary as the MCAT may seem, it can be conquered. And no, it doesn't require reading 17 different prep books cover to cover and going through a billion questions. This exam can be intimidating, especially with the stigma of being the mother asskicker end of the world doctor destructor type of exam. However, contrary to popular belief, you can do very well if you know how to approach it.

The exam can be broken down a bit and looked at from different angles. First, there is the verbal section. All you need to know for this section is your abc's and how to read. This section just tests your comprehension of those ridiculous paragraphs. Practice makes perfect for this section. When you test yourself on verbal for the first time, you most likely won't do as well as you want to, but don't fret my firend. It just takes a little time to get used to the retarded format they use. After doing a few handfuls of practice passages you'll get the hang of it and not long after that it will become second nature. By then you will know what to pay attention to in a passage.

The physical sciences is the dreaded section by many. The pricks who come up with the questions for the MCAT don't expect you to remember all these little details that you once learned 3 years ago and retained for about 6 hours until you were finished with the exam for that section. In fact, you don't even need to know that many equations either. Many students who havn't taken the MCAT before will sit there and try to memorize every equation in the book. Those people would probably be better off taking that paper and rollin' a doobie. Chances are that the equations you need for the exam you already know. As for mathematical calculations, there are very few and they are fairly simple. Most questions involving equations only ask about the relationships of variables (i.e. directly or indirectly proportional). Even in this section, probably about 65% of the answers are in the passage.

The biological sciences section can be reasoned through also. From my experience most of the questions concerning biology were in the area of physiology. If you want to do good in the biology on the exam know the human body. Just read the few chapters on physiology in your prep book. As for organic chem, well....sell that book for beer money. It is the smallest portion of the exam (about 30% of that section). You just need to know the basics of organic and you'll be good to go.

My personal favorite is the writing section. Pay no attention to anyone who tells you that you need a good writing score. I have personal knowledge from a friend on the admissions committee of a medical school (no I will not tell you which one you little brown nosers), that no one gives a shit how you do on the writing. Even despite the fact no one cares, it isn't very hard to do well on the writing section. If you took bullshit 101 in college which I'm sure everyone has, then you will do fine. You could probably write on the fact that Paris Hilton has been around the block so many times that she has developed her own strain of STD. As long as it was written in halfway decient English you will do well.

For the benefit and mental well-being of all pre-meds I have made up a helpful little guide for the MCAT which I call the:

MCAT Psychosis Prevention Program

Step 1- give yourself enough time to study, but don't start 6 months before the exam that you forget everything you learned at the beginning. I'd say about 2 months should do it.

Step 2- manage the time that you give yourself. For example, do one chapter or 2 hours a day. This way you won't get overwhelmed.

Step 3 - plan to be done with content about 2 weeks before the exam. This will give you time to take a few practice exams and touch up on a couple rusty areas. Don't freak out if you do bad or forget some stuff, besides on test day you would be suprised how much info comes flowing back.

Step 4- stop clenching your buttcheeks so hard!! Relax, all the info is in your head and you know how to do it. Be positive and confident. Plus, you can always take it again if something terrible happens for whatever reason.

Step 5- once you are finished with the exam go striaght to the nearest bar and start slammin' beers! You've just taken the biggest exam of your life thus far and that would drive anyone to drink. But really, it's an accomplishment in itself just to study and to take it, so live it up and use it as an excuse for your friends to buy you drinks! Cheers!!

One for all and all for medicine

It's official! Medcial school is the hardest school to get into ever in the history of the universe. There's nothing like knowing all that you want to do in life is wear that white coat and all you need to do is beat out 95% of the best students in the country to do it. It's a feeling that makes you want to heave that three day old pizza you ate for breakfast. But fear not my anxious ones....it is completely possible. There is yet a hope for all of those who decided not to be an anti-social hermit in college who spends every saturday night beefing up on their free radical reaction pathways for an exam two weeks away. I'm sure by now many of you have explored the....excuse me while I be politically correct...."non-traditional"....way of getting into medical school. The real fact is that there is no "traditional" way of getting into medical school these days. All of us pre-meds, aka geeks, are in the same boat, striving for the same thing....that shining, fresh, crisp piece of culminating reward commonly referred to as (cue inspirational music)....the acceptance letter.

Join me in my journey on the road to medical school. I've been through alot on that road thus far and have learned a ton of things. Therefore, instead of keeping all this super fantastic information to myself, I decided to give back to my community of fellow super-caffinated, strung-out, and most likely insane bunch of medical hopefuls. Feel free to hit me with questions, comments, or whatever else that ten pound heap of neuropathways can poop out (a gold star if you make me laugh). I'll share the good and the ugly sides of this trek and try to help as much as I can for the rest of you. That being said....happy studying and a merry nervous breakdown to all!!