studyingwithvi

[studyingwithvi]

man i miss the time before i really entered medical education when I’d get excited over whacky diseases and pathologies

i know too much now, it’s mundane, i eat my beans while watching professors dissect out structures on a cadaver and my only thought is ‘do we really have to know this for the test’

[studyingwithvi]

Let’s give a standing ovation for all those, who made it through today without crying. and also those that cried. let’s just celebrate everyone who made it through today, shall we? 

[studyingwithvi]

College Classes and Possible Careers

Trigger Warning: mention of notorious serial killers, death investigations, stages of decomposition and autopsies

I’m taking a forensic science class and I REALLY enjoy it.

I like puzzles and I’m good at identifying patterns. In a way, forensic science is all about identifying patterns and solving a crime is like trying to solve one huge puzzle.

I’ve been interested in macabre and morbid stuff for a quite a while and right now I feed that morbid fascination by watching true crime documentaries and listening to true crime podcasts.

Later in the semester I’ll be doing a total of three research papers on serial killers. For my forensic science class it’s a group project consisting of two research papers. My group’s research papers are going to be on the Son of Sam and Aileen Wournos.

My other research paper is for my Criminology class so it’s going to be focusing on the criminological theories, rather than the evidence and forensics angle. For my Criminology paper, my killer is H.H. Holmes.

This week in my Forensic Science class we learned about death investigations, the stages of decomposition and the basics of forensic anthropology and the responsibilities that come with being a forensic anthropologist.

We also saw photos of what a person looks like during different stages of the decomposition process and it was definitely a little gross, but having a visual to go along with each stage with was good for me, since I’m a visual/kinesthetic learner.

It’s DEFINITELY a bit morbid and gross at times, but that kind of stuff absolutely fascinates me. I’m not easily phased by those kinds of photographs. I’ve never been present for an autopsy before so I don’t know how I would react in real life, but photos don’t make me squeamish.

I’m considering becoming a coroner or medical examiner. It would be a way to feed my morbid fascination and I think there would be enough variety to keep me on my toes and keep things interesting (it’s hard for me figure out a better way to word that)

Sometimes the terms “coroner” and “medical examiner” are used interchangeably but there IS A DIFFERENCE between being a coroner and being a medical examiner:

Coroners are ELECTED officials and may or may not have a medical degree.

Medical examiners are appointed and usually have a board certification in a medical specialty and is typically a physician who is a board-certified forensic pathologist.

Being a coroner or medical examiner would also allow me to help people, which is something I want to do regardless of my future career choice. It would allow a victim’s family to get some sense of closure.

In addition to helping families get a sense of closure, as a coroner or medical examiner I would determine the cause of death, manner of death and estimate time of death.

If I were to become a medical examiner and get a pathology degree, I would also be performing autopsies and be responsible for certifying the manner and cause of death.

[studyingwithvi]

If people see that one tik tok of a guy recommending taking fish antibiotics if you're feeling sick, please dont do that its such a bad idea in so many ways

[studyingwithvi]

[studyingwithvi]

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Some days, you pour your heart into something, but the result is disappointing. That doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Repeat after me: That doesn’t mean you’re a failure

[studyingwithvi]

Here are my notes on Professor Robert Sapolsky’s Introduction to Human Behavioural Biology. I love the way he teaches, all of the examples and anecdotes to really help you grasp what exactly what concept he’s trying to teach. I think it’s important knowledge.

I really enjoyed this and actually want to learn it so I made notes.

The video is freely available and if having these notes makes understanding the lecture itself any easier to follow or understand, I’m happy to have made them.

pls excuse my typos 🤙🏽

[studyingwithvi]

A less pleasant reminder this time - studying is not supposed to be easy or fun; but it will be worth it  once you see the results and realise how capable you actually are <3

[studyingwithvi]

U ever think about how many medical advancements were directly related to the disenfranchisement and abuse of POC, especially black people? Bc it's kind of appalling

[studyingwithvi]

saw your recommendation of ninja nerd on yt and omg tysm!! i'm currently reading ophthalmology rn and i keep forgetting the anatomy of the eye and i just saw they have 2 vids on it!! eeeee i'm so excited to check them out omg! i was just thinking today how lecture videos like these are usually run by for profit institutions and it's really difficult to come across lectures for free... and that's when i saw your rec 💫 do you have any other yt channel recs like this?

yeah IKR!! their lectures are absolutely fantastic, i love how they’re fun to watch and feel laid-back without compromising on the quality of the material :,) i honestly think their biochem lectures were better than our actual prof’s…

and i’m so glad my rec found you just in time! :)) as for other yt channels, these are also quite good:

khan academy (for premed topics mostly, but still) + khan academy medicine

the noted anatomist (tbh i’ve only watched a couple vids, but the ones i did were great, so)

anatomy zone

osmosis (they also offer free high yield notes for the topics their vids cover if you go to their website)

medical centric (this has been recced to me, but i haven’t checked it out myself)

dr. preddy - not a yt channel, but there are a couple videos of him teaching and they are formidable. the only way to remember upper limb muscles forever. also, the brachial plexus and most lower limb muscles. just amazing for 1st year med students, really.

crash course (not really med student level, but if there’s anyone in high school or maybe even premed reading this, crash course is lovely)

as always, if anyone has recs of their own, please feel free to leave them in the replies/reblogs :)

[studyingwithvi]

Interrupting my most popular blog for one minute with something important for my fellow US peeps:

Who else in the USA would be interested in a spreadsheet organized by state & hospital that lists each hospital’s no-insurance, out-of-pocket costs for common procedures?

Because we could make that. We could literally crowdsource this info and put it together as a common resource.

Hospitals have tools online that list out those costs, but they are terrible. Absolutely fucking terrible and time-consuming to compare with other hospitals, which is absolutely on purpose. 

But! if people filled this out together, everybody doing a little bit (like when you yourself are looking something up), we could make a communal resource that helps people in the USA compare costs for procedures between hospitals.

Here’s an example I made comparing the same procedure at 2 different hospitals in Oregon:

in case that’s hard to see, here’s just the costs:

that’s terrible! 

imagine not knowing you had a choice that could save you $300!

we can make something better for each other, because our corrupt, for-profit capitalist healthcare system ain’t gonna do it for us!

Anyway, here’s the spreadsheet.

[studyingwithvi]

Ways to measure success without provoking a mental breakdown

I think one of the biggest issues both me and my peers (which I’ve seen being described as stressed, depressed and exam-obsessed) struggle with is feeling like a failure after not being perfect at any given task. We look at the numbers of correctly answered questions after an exam, at the numbers on a scale after one month of working-out and at the number of words we understand in a paragraph after a semester of learning a new language. And this way of measuring success, while easy and somewhat effective is very “black and white” and only shows a part of our improvement. So today I present to you my way of measuring success: 

Did you meet any new people in the process? 

Did you learn facts you didn’t know before?

Did you change your opinion about something? 

Did you learn anything new about your friends during the process? 

Did you overcome any of your fears during the process? 

Did you try something new? 

Did you finally learn and understand something that you had a hard time with? 

Do you now feel better about yourself/ more confident about yourself than you did before you started? 

Would you now be confident in giving advice about this thing you did to other people? 

Do you want to continue doing it? 

MY POINT IS, if you have answered any of these questions with a “yes” you succeeded. It doesn’t matter if it was only a partial success, that you didn’t get the perfect result or the result you were hoping for, but you did something - you made a step. The thing is, sometimes, we overestimate our abilities and underestimate the difficulty of the task we are presented with, so naturally, we feel disappointed by our result. But once again, if you did at least something, it’s already a win. 

Don’t be so hard on yourself and keep going!

With love, 

A very exhausted med student 

[studyingwithvi]

Why hasn’t this been done before?

[studyingwithvi]

Why hasn’t this been done before?

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