This past Spring semester I spent teaching community college Anatomy and Physiology to rising nursing students as part of thier pre-reqs to nursing school. I found teaching to be much harder than I ever gave it credit for and definitely found out I am not a natural born teacher.....i.e. I kept saying "you get it right?" or "you know....right?". Teaching gave me an appreciation for all my past professors, grade school teachers, piano teachers, sunday school teachers, ect.
I also did some tutoring this past Spring for some of my Master's classes I had already completed which I liked alot better. I find it far more rewarding working with 2 or 3 indiviuals at a time and tutoring them rather than teaching an entire class. Maybe it was because I had recently took the classes I was tutoring for and had come across all the same doubts, fears, frustrations, concerns and exhaustion that Gross Anatomy has to offer and therefore could relate better to the Masters students.
This Summer I have been well....a lazy bum for the most part. After finishing the Spring semester, my mom, dad and I went on a little vaca to Roanoke,VA (my childhood hometown). I had been wanting to run a half marathon for quite some time and knew this siesta before med school would be a great time to do it. So, my dad trained me and on May 15 I ran my the Marine Corps Half (it was tougher than I thought it would be---I took a 3 hour nap after I finished it). I did pretty good for the first 10 miles and only walked through the aid stations. Once we hit mile 10 there was this HUGE hill with a quite significant elevation change. I had felt my left calf tightening up after about mile 6 or 7 but thought I would be fine. Unfortunately the hill got the best of me and I ended up walking up most of the Mile 10 hill. Nonetheless, I finished the race with a time of 2 hr. 17. min. I spent the rest of the trip visiting with old friends in Roanoke, VA which was wonderful.
While in VA, my mom and I went to a Trigiminal Neuralgia conference in Richmond to help find some addition information about a condition she has-Trigiminal Neuralgia (T.N.). If any of y'all are aware of how nerve pain is then your understand the desparation of someone with a nerve condition trying to find relief. T.N. is a painful nerve condition of the Trigiminal nerve (this nerve has three branches, hence "tri", branch one goes above the eye, branch two goes above the lip and around the nose, and the third travels down in the jaw) My mom has nerve pain associated with the third branch. The conference was to educate those suffering with the disease with options, treatments, and medications. My mom enjoyed the conference alot because it helped her develop a deeper knowledge of the disease and allowed her to speak with others who suffer from the same condition (T.N. only occurs in 1 in 30,000). It's amazing how just knowing that someone else feels the exact way you do will do for someone's morale. Hearing about all the different surgical procedures and listening to the neurosurgeons talk about thier specialties was particularly interesting to me.
Thanks to all who are keeping up-I start medical school August 9th and will post the doubts, fears, frustrations,concerns, joys, laughs, and reliefs to come.
