My first week at medical school

Orientation week was a mixture of excitement and fear. We were excited about having made it to medical school, a place most considered to be for the tough and fearless bookworms.

I was particularly happy to be among that category. The fear came from the prospects of having to come so close to the dead (cadavers), something I only used to hear about and only experience at burials.

During orientation, we were also warned about retakes by the professors, student leaders and other lecturers who talked to us. That idea of a retake really scared me because I have never repeated a class and I’m not ready to do so. I doubt if any of us went for the fresher’s ball because we are expected to be in the lecture room from 8am to 5pm and they roll call.

Day one: We were put in tutorial groups of about 20 students each, including those from other courses like biomedical sciences, pharmacy, nursing, radiography and dental surgery. The lecturer then introduced the five course units to cover this semester, including the anatomy of the upper and lower limbs, cells and tissues, medical ethics and professionalism as well as nursing and first aid.

I remember the lecturer was so fast, switching from one slide to another on the projector. I had quite a hustle managing the speed. After the two- hour lunch break, from midday to 2pm, we had a lecture about medical ethics where we were told about the dos and don’ts of medicine which included equal treatment of all patients regardless of status.

Day two: A day full of anticipation as we moved to the anatomy laboratory. Yes, the day had finally dawned that we had to face the cadavers, but to our disappointment, the ones we found were remnants of those used by those students in the years ahead.

There were dismembered limbs, heads, bones and piles of muscles all preserved with formaldehyde. I will say I was excited by the sight and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one of those parts. The head of department, anatomy, told us that we always had to respect the dead, and not to take any of the parts out of the lab.

We were then handed bones of the upper limb, like the humerus, radius, clavicle and scapular. These, we were told to name and discuss in our groups. I was scared at first to have a real human bone in my hands but the feeling dissolved as the lecture went on. I remember going back to my hall of residence with a headache because of the too much work mastering all those names and terminologies.

Day three: Quite relaxed. In the morning, we had lectures about cells and after lunch, we were taken to the library where we were taught how to download e-books, shown all the voluminous textbooks and how to maximise the information from them. Of course, the same old library rules, do not make noise or sleep in the library.

Day four: In the morning, we had tutorials about medical ethics and after lunch, we made for the anatomy laboratory again. Still excited but not as before, we were handed more bones of the upper limb to master.

The lecturer also introduced bones of the lower limb like the tibia, fibula, the funny shaped coccyx (waist), and the majestic femur (thigh) which is the longest bone in the human body. We were told to expect fresh specimen the following week, which we all obviously looked forward to. Indeed, we had more names to master and yet more headaches at the end of day.

Day five: Friday of my first week of medical school started with revision and discussions in our groups, until midday when we broke off for lunch. In the afternoon, we had an information technology lecture where we were taught how to use wireless internet (he laughs) and how to use it to download the text books we needed, as well as other computer-related things.

I look forward to better and more interesting days in medical school, and I hope to graduate as a qualified doctor ready to practice the gospel of medicine.
Dreams come true indeed.