Medical School? Check.

I finally began feel like I am in medical school about six weeks ago. Before that I had certainly felt like I was in school. Make no mistake, there was a lots of studying and a veritable mountain of molecule names and body parts to commit to memory.

In terms of intellectual stimulus, the whole thing had been underwhelming. Intellectually hard, yes, by nature of the sheer and insurmountable volume of information to commit to memory, but infrequently inspiring in an academic sense.

And then came physiology. I should have known that I would like it. The physicsesque prefix, the geeky "ology" suffix all added up to the most fun version of "The Way Things Work" I've engaged in. Unlike tinkering with my bike or pulling apart old telephones, considering physiology was about the machine that is always with me. Though a lot of the inner workings were what you can't see, things like respiration and heart rate I could feel in myself. Suddenly I was reading notes on the train with one finger on my carotid and holding my breath or thinking about the catecholamine release and resultant speeding of my heart brought on a sudden blaring announcement over the loud-speaker. There was just something about it. Like the inside of a clock, it's just plain neat.

Physiology came as a relief to my overly self-analytical self. A relief to the constant question: should I be doing this? I haven't wondered if I really want to take care of patients, to be involved in the nitty-gritty of people's lives at their moments of encountering illness, life and death, in solving the puzzle of maintaining their own health. Each Wednesday afternoon we tromp out to one of the myriad of hospitals in this flagship city of health care to practice our patient interview skills. In those moments, the act of doctoring has clearly presented itself as a good path. But here I was, months into school, and I kept thinking "didn't I used to really dig science, too?" It's OK, I believe now, that cell biology, molecular biology and anatomy, weren't awe-inspiring to me. The study of how our body works on a macro scale has the most clear relevance to the practice of medicine, and so I was thrilled that I liked it the best. The last month we've sauntered into immunology and pathology. Though In some ways a step back into molecule hell and the tyranny of three letter acronyms, it is made up for by the fact that we are now learning about diseases. And diseases always feel relevant.