O Week

I am coming to the end of my first week of medical school and I am absolutely loving it! We had our White coat Ceremony a few days ago and it was a little cheesy - big speeches and even one mention of how friendly doctors don't get sued. We got out coats placed on us and everyone clapped and took pictures. I am sure I would have enjoyed it more if my family was there, but they are thousands of miles away. Then we had a nice lunch and got a tour of the computer facility and shown how to log in to everything. All our course notes and schedules are online which is really cool but there are so many websites to remember and a lot of different log ins and passwords. The school I am at is similar to my undergrad university in many ways and it is a bit daunting to start over in a new city and a new school. I am constantly getting lost, don't know where anything is, and I have a to do list a mile long. The book list is ridiculously long and I am not even sure which books are actually important. Luckily the second years are extremely helpful and have been giving us tips and throwing amazing parties for us so we get to know everyone. We have had a lot of speeches and introductions to the curriculum in general and what to expect. One thing I really like about my program is the fact that they spend so much time talking to us about all the support that is available for us - emotionally, financially and so much more. They spent a lot of time talking about how to balance our relationships and they will even be setting up a Q&A for us to talk to physicians who are married either to doctors or non doctors and how they make everything work or how sometimes it doesn't work. We have also gotten a financial lecture, which is really nice because I am a lot more informed than I was before and even though my debt in the end will be staggering (even though Canada is much cheaper than the US) I feel confident now that there are lots of resources for me. I start actual classes on Tuesday so I will be updating my blog with more details of what med school is actually like.