Re-oriented 6:02 PM

There was another med school orientation meeting today. Unlike the first week of school, this was the "scary" meeting where they told you about the decompressed program (5 instead of 4 years) and lectured us on proper study habits. What a load of crap. We spent the first hour hearing about how learning is only effective in 50 minute chunks with small breaks in between; they then proceeded to lecture us for 2 1/2 hours without a break. To add insult to injury, when students became restless and talkative, they chastized us and flashed the college code of professionalism on the screen. Really? Is this how you treat adults?

Apparently UIC College of Medicine has a lot of trouble viewing us as responsible adults. Our tests are handled by an outside testing agency that runs each exam like it was a repeat of the SAT, complete with assigned seating, ID checks, and that cute little seal to break on the side of our testing booklet. When it comes to study space, do you think we can use many of the small conference rooms around the school? Technically yes, but only after we have reseved the room in advance and signed a contract holding us responsible for any damage. Not to mention that both the first and second year students (~400 of us in all) only have 6 rooms that we can reserve between us.

Now this isn't to say that the student affairs people aren't trying; apparently there have been a lot of changes in recent years with regard to student liberties. But dare I say, I think they need to try harder?

The college of medicine, while by no means poor, hasn't had any discernible face lift in the past decade. The few changes that have been made are only the result of wealthy donors threatening to withdraw donations unless considerable upgrades were made to student spaces. But even monetary threats have only gone so far. Judging by the thickness of the coffee stains behind my desk chair, I would venture to say that my classroom was last cleaned between the Bush and Clinton administrations.

Really, this isn't adding up in my head. The state of Illinois has the largest medical school in the country. Each year, on average, 300 students matriculate to one of the four campuses around the state. Yet state money only covers roughly 12% of the annual budget. The money that we do get seems to be misspent. Many of the locked, unavailable conference room contain brand new 60 inch plasma screen TVs, but to my knowledge they aren't used for more than an occasional powerpoint presentation.

So why is it that one of the country's largest schools doesn't seem that concerned with facilitating the success of its professionals? As a friend put it, Illinois seems interested in having doctors but not training medical students.

Oh well.

Nothing like bitching, right? It makes me feel better and probably pisses off a lot more people. And I got to use a picture of a sad clown, and sad clowns are both amusing and terrifying.

Party like it's 1999 10:45 AM

Posting tests taken vs. tests to go on the white board, 3 to 34, in the break room really takes away from that sense of accomplishment after you finish an exam. Though I can't complain, I've got a little old school Smashing Pumpkins on the ipod and at least a half hour until my next class. That will give me plenty of time to learn about OJ going to jail, Britney losing her custody battle, Bush's pick for attorney general, and many other important things of this nature. 

Listening to the Pumpkins makes me think about an article the Onion (quite possibly the most reliable news source on the face of the planet) wrote about the status of music as "tired." It’s funny as hell and makes fun of pitchfork media, so I'll post the link as soon as I'm on a computer that is actually compatible with Blogger. As sardonic as the article may have been, it raised a good point...can you think of one really great album that has been put out in the past seven years? Because I can't. 

I don't want to rant, and this certainly isn't some sort of age bias, because I was still in high school at the beginning of 2000. But when it comes to no holds barred great albums that have achieved commercial success, I really am at a loss for words. From 1990 to 2000 there’s a veritable catalogue of great albums that people can rattle off from the top of their heads. But what about this decade? Linkin Park? Death Cab? Kanye? Timberlake? Even the stars of the 90's can't seem to pull off any huge hits, Pumpkins included. So either music has completely sucked or I need to diversify. Hopefully I just need to diversify. It's quite possible that my observations are erroneous; I tend to have a lot of them. Hell, when I was younger I was pretty much convinced that Everclear was the greatest band ever, that Dave Matthews sucked, and that the Rolling Stones would never stop touring. Only one of those things really came true, but I still like to pretend that Dave Matthews is a talentless hack. A guy can pretend, can't he?

Biochemistry 3:58 PM

It has been about three weeks since medical school has started. Damn. The workload is like the big pink elephant in the room that you try to ignore while you dream of becoming a doc. Then you get into school and BAM! I guess they are teaching us to be veritable medical dictionaries, and as we should be. Only three weeks in and many of the jokes I make among friends are science related, of course we laugh but those around us look down and shake their heads.

I think the most discouraging part of it is that it's continually uphill from here on out. I was talking with a resident and all he could say was that every year, you will look back and say, "wow, I had so much free time." Now there's no way to know if that's true. I suppose this was a neurosurgeon resident, and they tend to have it a little harder than everyone else.

For now, I guess, I'll keep studying, keep making nerdy jokes, and keep procrastinating by updating this blog.

I don't usually look for political fodder on collegehumor.com, but damn, talk about throwing money at the problem. Yes, that's half a billion dollars on crates in Iraq.