Melissa's Bio

Melissa's Diary

This whole med school experience has really taken over my entire life. Considering that I volunteered for this, its not all bad. On the other hand, I’ve been trying hard to hold on to shreds of my former everyday life. I joke with classmates that I’m just trying to be a “normal” person. I’ve been politely informed that I no longer fit in that category. It’s a difficult realization.

So far I’m safely passing all of my classes, but I’ve had to make adjustments along the way. I determined that I study better at school, which means that I’m often there instead of at home during the evenings. In a non-test week I try to be gone only one night, but before an exam I end up being gone a lot. Sometimes I come home for a few hours with my family before heading back to school after my daughter goes to bed, but other days its just easier to stay up at school. It’s hard when there are days that I see my husband for less than an hour in the morning and then come home after he has gone to bed. Basically, I spend way more time with my study partner than I do with my family. Ouch! I’m still tweaking my actual study habits…it seems like once I get a particular class figured out they switch professors on us and I have to start all over again! So far we’ve had 4 professors teach anatomy, 2 for histology (overlap with anatomy), 3 for biochemistry, and I believe 4 for osteopathic clinical skills. I’m sure that once I get them all sorted out it’ll be time to start a whole new semester.

We’ve completed our first round of tests in all of our classes and have now taken our 2nd biochemistry and anatomy tests. It has been interesting to see how the class as a whole has been holding up. There were a few days when we had multiple tests on the horizon when nerves wore thin, but overall my class has remained quite cohesive. I’m grateful to be in a class that gets along well, especially since I know that it’s not the case everywhere. We have had a number of people share study sheets that they have made, links to websites they have found, recordings of lectures, etc. Some things are more useful than others, but it’s always nice to see people trying to help everyone out.

So far my family is holding up to the challenge. I think that my daughter is adjusting quite well to this whole process, but then I’m working hard to be sure that I’m not neglecting her (especially since she had no say in my decision to go to school). She gets picked up from school most days by grandma or grandpa, which is quite the treat to her, certainly better than mom picking her up. Of course, mom doesn’t take her to get treats after school every day! My husband is coping okay as well, even though he is left to pick up the pieces of everything that I can no longer get done. I’ve been able to continue cooking dinners (when I’m home) and fixing lunches for the next day. I still do the grocery shopping and laundry, but there are tons of other things that he is stuck with. I most certainly could not be doing this without my husband’s full support and help.

Today my school began interviewing applicants for next year’s entering class. A bunch of us joked that we should go and tell them all to run away and not look back! (At least I assumed that my classmates were all joking!) Knowing what I do now, would I really choose to not come? Of course not! This may be an obnoxious process, but I’m glad that I’m here. I know that there were many other people who would have been thrilled to have my place in this class. Even though I have days that I feel like my brain is too full to stuff in any more information, I’m thrilled to be here and am enjoying it overall. Of course, I still have a long way to go!

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