Assalamu Alaykum.
It's been a while since I last shared about life in Med-school... hope I could catch up with my schedule and write some of them here as the end of the year draws near...
Aside from Fridays being my favorite day, there is yet another reason why I consider Fridays are great... No, it's not about the fact that we have exams every Friday (-_-), that one is just exhausting... But it's about out 2-hour session every Friday that makes a change for us.
The Art of Medicine is a one unique course we have every Friday afternoons. For 2 hours, we will talk not about the complex pathophysiology of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, or the Cushing's Syndrome, or Systemic Lupus Erythematosus or Kawasaki's Disease or whatever alien names and words only the medical student's can understand (or are still trying to understand). No, we don't even talk about the brain-bursting pharamakokinetic and pharmakodynamics of drugs of different diseases. Not even what you see in a histochemical assays or the pathognomonic signs of certain pathology (Yeah I know I am already speaking alien here, thanks to this life in Med we chose to be in). For once in our life, yes, even just for two hours, we never talk about those things mentioned above every Friday, every session of our Interdisciplinary Course or IDC: the Art of Medicine. Then what do we talk about you ask? What do we do during the IDC Courses?
We learn about different things, equally important to doctors and us future doctors (in shaa Allah). We talk about dealing with patients, listening and empathizing with them and their concerns, talking to families and friends of our patients, how to deal with death and suffering, how to deal with colleagues and superiors, how to work as a team, and how to make proper, timely and wise decisions when the time and need arise.
I cannot share much of what we learned each Friday but I can as much say that Fridays are always a great chance for us to step out of the stressful box of medicine and see another world that we are not supposed to forget. It's a great way to remind us that we are not any learning robots reading hundreds of pages from books and transcriptions, listening to lectures of complicated diseases, cramming them all up in our tiny brains trying to remember them all at once. We are, in fact, still humans who should learn to listen and interact with other people. Deal with our colleagues and patients not with our brains but with our lending ears and our understanding hearts (naks). For Medicine alone was not created or discovered for the sake of its complexities and intimidating loads of information. It was created and formed with a single mission: To save a life. (in shaa Allah)
After all, Medicine in not just a Science. It is actually an Art. :)
[Okay, I admit that I missed some of my IDC classes, or slept through some of them (c'mon! IDCs come after our Friday Exams!), but I can attest to one thing: I enjoy what I learn in IDCs. They were "lessons for life" that I have to carry on learning until the end of my career as a Doctor-to-be in shaa Allah. Magsukul pa katan mga kamastalan namu' ha IDC hehe]
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| Class 2017 with Dr Tony and Dra. Leonila Dans after our IDC: Art of Medicine Class (one of the best lectures I attended :D) Photo from John Tanchuco |
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