The Complete Guide on How To Study Microbiology in Med School

Greetings! After the hit that was The Complete Guide to Pharmacology and it's prequel The Complete Guide to Pathology, your favorite med student in the whole world is back again with a new post. It's the same familiar format but a brand new subject.

Yes. You read the title. It's going to be Microbiology today. It's one of those subjects that feels like a bizarre mix of pharmacology and pathology if you asked me. There is logic and structure to microbiology, but there is also memorization, although not at the same intensity as pharmacology. Nevertheless, it's enough to make things a little daunting to the average med student.

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The Complete Guide on How To Study Pharmacology in Med School

We're back again with another installment to the "how to study in med school" series. In case you haven't read the previous posts, you can go read up on how to study pathology in med school, ten tips for studying anatomy and how to ace your viva. Again, I would like to point out that I'm not a perfect student and that these methods are not applicable to every student.

I write these posts so that you can have a bit of an exposure about the different styles and methods of studying, because everyone has their own style that helps them get things done with more efficiency. If you are currently studying and not getting the kind of output you are expecting, you need to stop and reconfigure your study style. I am a strong believer in studying efficiently instead of forcing my way through content and eventually burning myself out.

This is an especially important principle in med school as well. Med school is a marathon, not a race. You need to plan out your miles and make sure you don't get lost or tired or injured in the middle of it. Once you understand this, a lot of things get easier. You should stop stressing over trying to get a seemingly un-achievable goal of maintaining an A+ and stay focused on the end goal.

Anyway! Enough rambling. Let's move on to the actual discussion.

The Complete Guide on How to Study Pathology in Med School

Today I bring to you the first post in a series of (hopefully) four total posts. I've been planning this series out for quite a while but haven't been able to execute it, but hey, let's get started! Since I've started fourth year and passed third year (yes, in that order exactly), people have been asking me about how to study in third year.

I've been meaning to write these sorts of study related posts, but so far I've only managed to crank out a post about how to study anatomy and how to ace your viva. Time to change all of that now! Anyway,  let's get started. We're going to break this post down into a few sections and try to cover everything you need to know. Of course, if I forget something or if there's a query that you have, feel free to comment below.

Travelogue: Muzaffarabad and Pir Chanasi

Hello! Earlier this week, I went on a trip to Muzaffarabad and Pir Chanasi with my father and his team from the hospital he works at. It was a bit of an educational trip to one of the major hospitals of Muzaffarabad to teach the staff there about ESI, followed by the fun part of the trip- all of which I will be outlining below. I had a lot of fun on the trip and took lots of pictures, so look forward to the photographic spam!

yay for colors of autumn!

How Am I Studying: The End of Third Year

I remember when, not too long ago, I used to be writing all sorts of study posts during first and second year. Something happened around the end of second year (even now, I'm not quite sure what), but I just haven't been able to get back to the groove of writing about studying. I've always wanted to be one of those study focused blogs, but that seems to be getting harder and harder by the day.

Sometimes, the best way to get things done or to get things to change, especially if you're unhappy, is to take the first step and get started. It doesn't matter if the first step is really small, you just need to start and get the momentum building. You'll get where you want to be before you know it. However, something important to keep in mind before taking the journey is to consider how much you are willing to sacrifice with it.

There's no point in committing to a cause and getting started when you are just doing it for fun or if you don't know if you really want to do it in the first place. I feel like that's a problem I face a lot. There are multiple things that I want to do, but I am never sure if I will be able to put in the kind of effort that is required to get the ball moving. I wish I had the time to sit down and think about all these things and plan them out, but let's be real, I'm never going to find the time until I make the time, and if I can't make the time, then maybe I shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

It's a bit of a defeatist ideology, I realize, which is why I'm trying really hard to start working on things I think I am passionate about. The truth is, I have a multitude of ideas. I just need to get started.

The Autopsy Adventure

So what am I up to in med school? I just gave an exam on Friday (it was kinda 'meh') for the module we just finished called Medico-Legal Autopsy. It only lasted three weeks, but as you may have noticed, I haven't exactly been posting fresh content- most of the posts from these past 3 weeks have been reviews or old posts that I cleaned up and posted.

The reason for this is that even though MLA sounds really easy (it's just forensics. No pathology, no pharmacology, nothing), but it was still really exhausting because we went on autopsy visits every other day.

How To Write Reflections

Today I'm going to teach you how to write reflections for multiple reasons which I'll list out below:

-I got an assignment on reflective writing
-It's the most easiest solid thing I learned that I can share with you guys
-2016 is coming to an end and what better time than this to learn reflective writing?

What is reflective writing though? Reflective writing works on this model:

Fair enough, right? You work in that order to think about a problem you've had. That's it. That's reflective writing. That's all you gotta know. You start writing or thinking. It helps to make this a regular habit since you'll be able to seriously learn from your experiences.

Here's what I wrote. Not only will it give you an idea about reflective writing, but it'll also let you know about how my week had been going.

Earlier this week, I found out that my history notebook had been misplaced. This history notebook was very important because it needed to be submitted at the end of the gynecology rotation. I had given it to one of my receptors to get checked and it had gone missing in the process. 

When I first found out about my notebook going missing, I was not alarmed since I had been told that I would get my grades put in without the history notebook. When I found out that the entire portfolio needed to be submitted, I became worried and decided to check in with the clinical administration. They told me that I would need to rewrite the entire notebook in order for it to be submitted and my grades to be calculated, which made me feel like the entire procedure was very unfair for me. My friend and I forwarded the incident to a few other preceptors, which made me feel apprehensive. I received a call just this weekend explaining that my notebook had been found, which made me feel very relieved. The incident came to a close with some received feedback. 

The good thing about this incident was that it made me get out of my comfort zone to talk to people in order to get my work done. It also showed me all the ways that you could approach an issue, such as talking in person, sending an email or discussing with the correct authorities. I also learned that it's important to cover all of your bases right from the start and that if something seems fishy, it's important to hammer out the details, as well as the fact that there is a hierarchy that needs to approached in a correct way if you want your concerns to be addressed. 

The bad thing about this incident included the fact that I ended up getting quite stressed over it and was finding it difficult to focus on my studies. I also kept imagining the worst outcomes and was mentally preparing for them. At one point I had even given up and decided to start working on a new history notebook quietly. I also found myself more easily irritable and on edge. 

Thinking over this incident, I have decided to focus on all the things that went right. I feel that it was the right thing to do when I decided to approach the administration to question on how the mishap could be dealt with. It was also the right thing to email the correct authorities to update them on what had happened and ask for their help. These actions should have been done right from the start if there had been continuous communication though. 

Concluding this incident, I realized that there were ways in which the situation could have been handled better. First of all, this entire situation could have been avoided if we had decided to value giving things directly, instead of giving things on time. My friend and I had been focusing on trying to get our work done on the time we had promised to turn it in and this had resulted in a mishap with stress and a whole week lost. Secondly, we should have gone to get our history notebooks checked up by the person they were supposed to go to. That way, we would have found out about the mishap much earlier and been able to do something about it. Thirdly, we had ended up thinking about making a new notebook entirely, instead of looking for the lost notebook. Assuming that notebooks would get lost in a hospital that runs on patient files that look absolutely identical was not the right course of action. 

If this sort of incident was to happen to me again, I would definitely react in a different. My first plan of action would be to find whatever is missing. Most of the time, such things have only been misplaced and people dismiss the value of the lost item by just saying "get another one". I should also improve my communication skills. I found myself stuttering half the time when I needed to speak out about what my problem was. Maybe I didn't appear to have any communication issues to a third person, or even the second person I was talking to, but I certainly felt some fluency was lost under the pressure of the situation. I should practice my verbal skills more in order to be able to convey my grievances properly next time. Apart from that, I also need to pay more attention to orienting myself in regards to the hierarchy of authorities to approach for a problem, instead of approaching whoever I find most accessible. It's important to work within the system in order to minimize more problem arising from the primary concern.

Have you ever thought reflectively about things that have happened in your life? This whole exercise would especially be interesting for people who keep daily journals, although if you don't keep a journal, this could definitely be a good prompt if you would like to get started! Have a nice day!