Orientation

At 1:00pm July 29th, 2009 the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine Graduating Class of 2012 met for the first time. It felt quite surreal walking into Foothills Hospital in my dress clothes. However, the surreal feeling soon wore off as we began typical Orientation activities - slightly immature, somewhat enjoyable, combined with lots of waiting, insufficient food, and poor ventilation. That makes it sound worse than it was; however, it didn't quite live up to what I'd expected of Medical School. We paid some fees, got pictures taken, had a bit of a tour, and stood around a LOT.

Today was much better...although it started at the shockingly early hour of 7:00am. We arrived at school and began placement testing. I'm not certain of its purpose. There were three components - the first was a clinical skills test. In a team of four we opened a door and found an upper year student with a dummy and a table full of tools. We were told the 'patient' was not breathing and we had to intubate them. Our lack of knowledge proved to be deadly and our patient died, with chipped teeth from the laryngoscope and the wrong tube in their mouth. The morning continued with a variety of tasks, written tests, a bell ringer anatomy/pathology test that became quite amusing. I identified the crusty wart lesion and described ballotment of kidneys - when you register them to vote and give them their ballots for the election.

Following this activity we were divided into different groups and constructed a somewhat anatomically correct individual using a large amount of candy and some pipe cleaners...and we only ate a small amount of candy. After a break and lunch with the Dean of Medicine we had a more thorough tour and lecture, in small groups about the nuts and bolts of medical school at Calgary.

We were encouraged not to stress about choosing a specialty right away but to instead enjoy the ride and get some experience first through shadowing and other opportunities before we narrowed our choices down for the Residency match in the spring of 2012.

We finished up around 4:30 and tomorrow we get free stuff, as well as begin picking up our equpment. I'm going to get my first stethoscope...which for some reason I'm finding quite exciting. I don't now what colour yet but I suppose I'll know by tomorrow evening.