“Lots of extra time in med school means…”

Study! It means study. This week I didn’t have any tests, which was nice, but it also meant that outside of class, I had a lot of extra time. It seemed like classes were less dense this week as well. So, I did a lot of much needed studying, especially in Anatomy. Next Monday is my Anatomy Lab practical. It’s going to be over about 300-400 structures. Yeah seriously. And I know most of them! It’s amazing how much I have learned in such a short time. I can say it’s taken a lot of work, but it’s been worth it!

In order to better study anatomy, my friends and I decided that we would get to the school every day at 7 instead of 8 like usual to spend an hour in the anatomy lab going over structures, reviewing, and teaching each other previous labs. It has been very useful! We study a different cadaver each day and have gotten plenty of lab time. I can’t say that I love starting off my day smelling like formaldehyde, but the rewards of learning well have been worth it!

I’ve also started running in the morning this week. When I was working as an MA at Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care, I would set my goal on my smart watch for 12000 steps per day and most days, without any extra walking or exercise, I would make that goal without a problem because of all of the walking and the pace I would keep at work. Well now that I’ve been spending most of my time sitting and studying, or sitting in class, that number of steps per day has been cut in half. I needed to do something to get out and be active again. I get up at 5AM and go run for about 20-30 minutes and then come back and get ready to head off to school for anatomy lab studies at 7. It was a tough change this week because I usually don’t get up that early, but it’s also been rewarding to get back to being active again. I plan to keep this schedule and run 3-5 times per week.

I will let you all know how that goes and if I can keep up with it. If you would like to follow my running, look me up on Strava. It’s a cool app that tracks my runs for me and shows me my pace. My watch has GPS tracking, so it shows the different routes that I’ve been trying. Have a good week everyone!

Levi Smith, PMAC & Podiatric Medical Student at DMU