Melissa's Bio

Melissa's Diary

I survived and now I’m an MS2!!! Finals week was absolutely awful. I’m convinced that we were being hazed! I made it through everything intact, but the process was anything but fun. I was at school very late each night (3 am-ish) and back again in time to review before each final in the morning. My study partner and I had an additional study-mate for the week and the three of us took over a study room (which we call breakout rooms) for the week. One of the problems of finals week is that there are more people than usual studying at school. There are a variety of places where we can study (library tables, study carrels, breakout rooms), but we’re not allowed to actually “reserve” any of these places. We managed to work it out where we used the room during the day and night and another classmate used it early in the morning. By doing this we didn’t have to find a new room each day and we were able to keep our things there the whole time. The downside of the room we had was that it got very hot during the afternoon.

Some other classmates took spending a week in a breakout room to a fine art. Two breakout rooms in particular were completely “remodeled” by their occupants: furniture moved around, furniture from other rooms brought in, beanbags chairs, cots, coffee makers, fridges, etc. This all caused some controversy since there were meetings scheduled for some of the rooms. I found it all quite amusing, myself. I can’t imagine how long it took them to get everything out on Friday!

The Saturday after finals were over we had a class party at a local “ranch.” We all just relaxed, played, fished (there was a fishing pond), ate, and talked. Very nice change from the pressures of school. A classmate put together a powerpoint presentation of pictures from the year. Ended the presentation by declaring that we’re now 25% D.O. It is hard to believe that we’ve actually gotten a quarter of the way through this. It was also pointed out that we’ve spent half of the time we get together as a class. After second year is done, we’re all on our own for most of the clinical rotations. Considering the fact that I spend nearly all of my time with my classmates, its odd to think that I won’t see them much after another year.

Since we got out Friday, I’ve been catching up on my sleep. I napped Friday afternoon until it was time to get my daughter from school. I had planned on going to bed early, but we had tornadic storms come through the area, keeping me up watching the meteorologists until 2 am. I slept until 1pm Saturday and then napped for a while later in the afternoon, and napped Sunday afternoon. Hopefully I’ll feel somewhat caught up before too long!

I’m planning on spending my only summer off relaxing and spending time with my family. The serious only thing I want to do is spend some time shadowing in the ER. My study partner is trying to work out a way to shadow as part of a workstudy program. If he can work it out, I hope to ride on his coattails and do the same. We’ll see what happens.

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*Some names have been changed.