By Levi Smith
Week one is done! And I survived! I’ve been thinking this week about one of the books that we read for the Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care book club that the employees get to participate involuntarily. One of the books that we read was called The Happiness Advantage, by Shawn Achor. It was a great read and I recommend it. Shawn was a man who spent quite a few years teaching at Harvard. One of the concepts that he shared was about the students attending and how they went through their experience there. He said, and I am paraphrasing (poorly at best), that the students who did well and were happier while they were going through the tough curriculum of Harvard were the ones who had a positive attitude about their time at Harvard. The ones who did well had the attitude that their time in school was an amazing opportunity and that they were lucky or blessed or specially selected to be there. They were happy about the curriculum and hard work that they were required to do because they understood the opportunity that it was to be there. They didn’t take it for granted.
Obviously, this concept directly applies to me right now in medical school. This is an incredible opportunity that a very small percentage of students in academia get to experience. I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of this group of students.
Next week the curriculum gets a little tougher. Anatomy Lab starts on Thursday and I also have a Clinical Medicine Lab on Friday. In total, I am taking Clinical Medicine with a lab, Anatomy with a lab, Biochemistry, Principles, and Practices of Podiatric Medicine, and Cell Biology. Cell Biology doesn’t start until the 20th of this month. It is about 17 credit hours’ worth of classes, to compare to undergraduate, but the curriculum runs much faster than undergrad. It’s nice that the school eases the first-year students into the curriculum. It would be a little more overwhelming if it started all at once.
Just a quick side note, my wife and I went to a place called Zombie Burger yesterday. We had a burger called The Chad. It was a breaded and deep-fried mac n cheese bun (seriously), with a regular patty (you can do single, double or triple), onions, bacon, and more mac n cheese to put on the burger. It was heavenly! I couldn’t find out online how many calories it would be, so we aren’t counting it. (JK) We are loving Des Moines and getting to try new places and things! We’ve met a lot of new people as well. It’s been a great experience so far!
More to come next week!
