Extended Metaphors for Med School

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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Post and discuss metaphors for med school. Opening with excerpts from two med student blogs.
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This passage was taken from topher's blog:
http://rumorsweretrue.wordpress.com/2006/11/01/pancakes-every-morning/

Medical school is like trying to eat five pancakes every morning for breakfast. You know you can do it. A Premed advisory committee endorsed you saying, “He has the stomach for it. He’s committed.” And you prove them all right. Every day you show up with your first-year optimism and your annoying hunger for learning and you clean that plate (just kidding, it’s adorable). But you begin to notice that those pancakes are slowing you down a little each day and the sugar highs and lows are screwing with your sleep. Smart person that you are, you decide to pass on the flapjacks one day. You think to yourself, “Self, I’m going to eat ten pancakes tomorrow so that I don’t have to eat any today.”

But it never stops. Turns out that “self” isn’t the most responsible lender, and before you know it there are 40 pancakes in front of you and your plate needs to be clean by tomorrow. So yeah, at this point it looks impossible. But really, it’s your fault.

In the future, as I like to imagine it, I’ll be in charge of all medical school admissions. The process will be six weeks long and will consist of nothing more than showing up each morning to eat five pancakes, at which point you can then go about whatever you were going to do that day. At the end of the five weeks a few jaded, newly diabetic hopefuls will come to my office and, mixed with both pride and resignation say, “I did it. I finished those goddamn pancakes.”“Wow,” I’ll say. “That’s very impressive. You must be very proud, and your parents must be very proud. Just one more thing.” They’ll reflexively clutch their stomachs, shifting their girth from one hip onto the next and groan,

“What’s that?”

“Regurgitate it.”
 
This passage was taken from DwyaneWade’s blog:
http://ms2step1blogging.blogspot.com/2007/12/step-1-rant-miscellaneous.html

Step 1 is to medical students as losing weight is to the average American. There is simple rubric to consistently losing weight: eat less calories than you consume, exercise, and don't fast. Similarly, there is a simple answer to Step 1 for most people: study hard for your classes your first 2 years of med school and know First Aid cover-to-cover. That's it. With that alone, you could pass and probably score around the national average or even above (depending on the person).

Like eating a good diet and exercising, however, studying hard for 2 years and memorizing and understanding a book written in outline form requires tremendous discipline. That's why people look for the easy tricks to boost their score, trying to figure out if BRS Behavioral Science is better than HY Behavioral Science, or reading BRS Epidemiology because they goofed off for their Epi course, or buying both RR and BRS Path, as well as Baby Robbins. It's like people buying that stability ball, and a new treadmill, and the Ab roller they saw on overnight TV.

Their missing the point and the boat and focusing on the things that add points to their score rather than tens of points (First Aid, studying for 2 years). Now, there are people out there who have/will learn all of First Aid, put in the necessary work, and do AMAZING on the boards by bulking up on outside material and review books. Just like those people who get even BETTER results with Ab Roller along with their everyday exercise and diet.
 
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"Training horses used to be a brute-force method that often involved tying up one leg, strapping on a saddle and forcing a wild and terrified horse to do your bidding." www.mareandfoal.org

Yep, it feels something like that I think...

I always like to compare medical school to breaking in a new mare. In the beginning, the bright, idealistic, enthusiastic, and undisciplined med student begins orientation, first blocks of anatomy, biochem, etc. Soon after, he/she is downtrodden from the first 6 weeks of med school as he/she is broken by a combination of the volume of notes to be consumed by the next exam block, a particularly humbling small group encounter with the preceptor, and/or doing a practice test the night before at 2 am realizing he/she is completely inept and should withdraw immediately before wasting any more tuition money, etc. Eventually the med student allows med school to "do her bidding", gets his/her act into gear, and proceeds with his/her education singing a humbler (although that may only be on the exterior for some particularly pompous folks) tune.
 
:laugh:Med school is like fishing...everyone gets screwed!:laugh:
 
Med school is like sipping water from a firehose...through a straw
 
addapted from a nursing joke:


What's the difference between hell and medical school?
You never tell a friend to go to medical school.
 
At my school we joke that learning is like trying to shovel frogs into a wheelbarrow. The more you try to shovel them in, the faster they just jump back out.
 
You ever see a martial arts master break a set of bricks? Well, you're lining up to hit those bricks, you have absolutely no idea if you'll make it through 'em all. You know it's going to hurt like **** and every so often your brain tries to tell you "hey idiot, you're trying to punch ****ing bricks!"
 
Will Hunting: “You spent 150 grand on an education you could have got for a buck-fifty in late charges at the public library.”

Mr. Harvard: “Yeah, but someday you’ll be serving fries to me and my kids at a drive-thru on our way back from a ski trip.”

Will Hunting: “Well, maybe…but at least I won’t be…unoriginal.”
 
This is easily the most accurate comparison between graduate school and medical school that I've heard. I am going to mess this up a little, but this is close to the original quote.

Graduate school is like being dropped off in the ocean and told to swim toward an island. Only, you can't see the island, have no idea what direction to swim, it's night and there's a dense fog. If you manage to find the island, it might not be the right one and there's a good chance you will end up right where you started.

Medical school is like swimming a single lap in a heated, well-lighted pool with loads of well-wishers and fans cheering from the sidelines. There is always someone pointing you in the right direction and you have the certainty of a warm towel and a hero's welcome when you finish.
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Hoberto said:
This is easily the most accurate comparison between graduate school and medical school that I've heard. I am going to mess this up a little, but this is close to the original quote.
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Haha, I love that comparison. The only difference is that you have to pay $150,000 for your heated pool.
 
Hoberto said:
This is easily the most accurate comparison between graduate school and medical school that I've heard. I am going to mess this up a little, but this is close to the original quote.
Click to expand...

swimming in a heated pool doesn't sound too bad (versus an extremely cold or scalding hot one). it actually pleasant...are you implying medschool is...pleasant? 😕
 
Hoberto said:
This is easily the most accurate comparison between graduate school and medical school that I've heard. I am going to mess this up a little, but this is close to the original quote.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a pretty kick-*** representation of med school. I'd think it would be more like swimming in a pool filled with ice, and instead of well-wishers the sides are lined with worthless professors that have bricks that they toss in for you to carry from end to end and grumpy attendings who have that stick that hangs on the wall, but instead of trying to help you out they complain about how much shorter the pool is and how much warmer the water is than when they swam and whack you in the face every time you roll to breathe.


Or alternately, med school is like being the cutest guy in prison and being out of cigarettes...
 
sendwich said:
swimming in a heated pool doesn't sound too bad (versus an extremely cold or scalding hot one). it actually pleasant...are you implying medschool is...pleasant? 😕
Click to expand...
Well, you do have to swim 5000 laps without a break.
 
TheProwler said:
Well, you do have to swim 5000 laps without a break.
Click to expand...

Grad school is being dropped off near an island in some unknown direction. A plane occasionally drops by a case of Ramen in the worst flavor. If you are lucky enough to hit the island by dumb luck and some hard work, you'll survive and graduate some time this decade.

Medical school is being dropped off the side of a cruise liner. Everyone is on board cheering you on and you get to follow the cruise liner all the way home. You have to swim 24 hours a day and can't stop for breaks. People give you great food, but when you get home you find out they were charging you for it all along.
 
I was a mechanical engineer in a former life, and this is how I have described the difference between engineering and med school:

"Imagine engineering courses to be the study of a phone book. In each course you spend a semester doing something very particular with the book. You might study all numbers ending in 9999 and their distribution throughout the book, or study the combination theory of different number lengths or zip code systems. Or you might take apart a single phone number and learn evey possible relationship between its digits and how to derive it from first principles, and what it looks like converted to binary and/or hex. Or you might study the application of a single phone number - how you dial it, who it puts you in contact with, and in what situations that might be useful.

In med school they give you a phone book and tell you to memorize it. Then you throw it away and get a new one for the next course or section."
 
osli said:
In med school they give you a phone book and tell you to memorize it. Then you throw it away and get a new one for the next course or section."
Click to expand...

Mr. Freeze said:
That sounds like a pretty kick-*** representation of med school. I'd think it would be more like swimming in a pool filled with ice, and instead of well-wishers the sides are lined with worthless professors that have bricks that they toss in for you to carry from end to end and grumpy attendings who have that stick that hangs on the wall, but instead of trying to help you out they complain about how much shorter the pool is and how much warmer the water is than when they swam and whack you in the face every time you roll to breathe.


Or alternately, med school is like being the cutest guy in prison and being out of cigarettes...
Click to expand...

😆 Excellent.
 
Going to med school is like getting married to incredibly ugly person who has a large trust fund. You have to go through 10 years of torture, but when it's all over, someone will cut you a nice check.
 
Depakote said:
It's been posted before, but it's one of my fav's and bears repeating:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5RapBjos3I[/YOUTUBE]
Click to expand...

I went to undergrad with the dude w/ the glasses (Alex); he was in almost all of my pre-med classes. Hot damn, you never know what you're gonna find on SDN.
 
Depakote I started watching the video you posted but turned it off half way through because that is just simply the worst song ever to be made in all history. It made my ears bleed.
 
osli said:
I was a mechanical engineer in a former life, and this is how I have described the difference between engineering and med school:

"Imagine engineering courses to be the study of a phone book. In each course you spend a semester doing something very particular with the book. You might study all numbers ending in 9999 and their distribution throughout the book, or study the combination theory of different number lengths or zip code systems. Or you might take apart a single phone number and learn evey possible relationship between its digits and how to derive it from first principles, and what it looks like converted to binary and/or hex. Or you might study the application of a single phone number - how you dial it, who it puts you in contact with, and in what situations that might be useful.

In med school they give you a phone book and tell you to memorize it. Then you throw it away and get a new one for the next course or section."
Click to expand...
As a fellow engineer, I really like this comparison.
 
Med School is like going to school and doing something you hate for a very long time!
 
HEADintheCLOUDS said:
Neither would the people competing in the special olympics! 🙂
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Holy ****...they banned HEADintheCLOUDS! Anyone wanna guess what name he re-emerges under??

I've got 10 bucks on HEADinASS.
 
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HEADintheCLOUDS said:
Neither would the people competing in the special olympics! 🙂
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As soon as I saw this comment I knew it would be the "ban-worthy" one.

He did a d#@n good job there for quite a while. Was probably a troll, but his narrative was cohesive enough it's almost possible a person like this actually exists out there. Scary.
 
BoredMD said:
Hmmmm...I give you a couple more posts max, HEAD. 😉
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I came back with headinthecloud without an S and they caught me. But the mods are idiots so with this name no where near the original they wont find me. Plus I am unbanable!
 
PS. I am real. Why is that scary?
 
Unbanable said:
I came back with headinthecloud without an S and they caught me. But the mods are idiots so with this name no where near the original they wont find me. Plus I am unbanable!
Click to expand...

Let the countdown begin....

Although, I'll admit, I got a kick out of some of your posts. :laugh: Please tell me what med school you go to.
 
BoredMD said:
Let the countdown begin....

Although, I'll admit, I got a kick out of some of your posts. :laugh: Please tell me what med school you go to.
Click to expand...

I go to UC san Fran. Its a state school in California.
 
Yay! :clap: No more HITC. Although, his narcissism made me laugh.

I especially loved the "Thanks for admiring me while I failed out of 1st year" threads...
 
....
 
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Maxprime said:
Medical school is being dropped off the side of a cruise liner. Everyone is on board cheering you on and you get to follow the cruise liner all the way home. You have to swim 24 hours a day and can't stop for breaks. People give you great food, but when you get home you find out they were charging you for it all along.
Click to expand...

Mr. Freeze said:
That sounds like a pretty kick-*** representation of med school. I'd think it would be more like swimming in a pool filled with ice, and instead of well-wishers the sides are lined with worthless professors that have bricks that they toss in for you to carry from end to end and grumpy attendings who have that stick that hangs on the wall, but instead of trying to help you out they complain about how much shorter the pool is and how much warmer the water is than when they swam and whack you in the face every time you roll to breathe.
Click to expand...

:laugh::laugh::laugh::clap::clap:😆😆:claps::claps:
 
Depakote said:
It's been posted before, but it's one of my fav's and bears repeating:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5RapBjos3I[/YOUTUBE]
Click to expand...

I'm about 75% sure that video was filmed in the house I'm living in next year
 
Depakote said:
It's been posted before, but it's one of my fav's and bears repeating:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5RapBjos3I[/YOUTUBE]
Click to expand...

YAY Alex! He was a member of my dissection team in anatomy. Great sense of humor. This film won 1st place at a SLU short film competition.

Great metaphor too! Most apt!
 
Depakote said:
Well, since everyone seems to know the creator, give him my kudos.

Random off-topic note, I'm wearing my Cardinals jersey today (St. Louis native here)... That's really a sign that I need to do laundry.
Click to expand...

Go Cards
 
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