If there’s one thing I’ve discovered this weekend between blocks 4 and 5, it’s the stark contrast between life inside and outside of medical school. It got me thinking… there are some things which medical students grow fond of in school, but when its taken away, there’s a noticeable impact.

Tuesday (February 16th) was the last day of anatomy lab. Four blocks…  over six months of growing as a medical student with the same specimen… and the journey is at en end.

This past exam week has been a marathon of sleepless nights culminating in a full session of “12 hours” from Wednesday night into Thursday morning. After the block party last night, I had been awake for 47 hours and was breathing hard just to get to my car… right across the street.

After anatomy lab today, I was fortunate to catch an explanation of rami communicans by one of our fantastic anatomy teachers. After having gone through so much of the human body’s gross anatomy, it’s a bit embarrassing that I still didn’t have a grasp of exactly how splanchnic nerves, the sympathetic chain, and white/gray rami […]

No scissors, forceps, or even a scalpel in today’s lab. Instead, we busted out our woodshop skills and used a good ‘ol hacksaw to split our cadaver’s head into left and right halves (a sagittal cut straight through). I’ll never forget the mixed looks of awe, disgust, and amazement throughout the room as we all […]

At first glance, the neck looks relatively simple. Surely such a mundane structure can’t be as difficult as the abdominal viscera, right? Wrong!

Around fifteen of my classmates took part in a “Disney Movie Marathon” yesterday evening where we essentially relived our childhoods by watching The Lion King, Anastasia (I just found out last night that it’s not a Disney movie), Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas.

At last… the first day of head/neck anatomy lab! My group spent most of the two hours exploring a skull while the lab directors/TAs went around removing the brains from our cadavers, so they can be preserved till next block. We discussed the bony structures, protuberances, foramina, and other landmarks of the skull while relating […]

I’m pretty sure no one has ever been this excited to start head and neck anatomy, but I am. However nerdy it sounds, I’ve been looking forward to block 4 (head/neck, pathology, immunology, and pharmacology) since, well, the beginning of block 1. As you would imagine, it’s the extensive study of the brain which I’m […]

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), the beloved institution responsible for my medical education, has proven to be an amazing place indeed. Many prospective students as well as current interviewees face a point in their application process where they must decide why one school is better than another, and since I’ve now finished 1/3rd of my […]