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Jeffrey Ini-Abasi: My First Impression of Medical School

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My first week (five days really) in medical school is finally done. I want to say I played myself by not resuming school early, but at least I resumed before some people – looking at you Rachel.

A week has gone by and I don’t think I’ve hit any sudden realization or epiphany, maybe a test or something will give me that jolt. For now I’m still kinda numb to it all. I have attended just two days of classes and that is not enough – to me – to form an opinion about anything, all I know is that I’m lost half the time and trying to get a good seat in the lecture hall the other half.

But you know who has opinions about everything? Every damn person in my class! No one can scare you more than a group of new medical students talking about how the previous set failed biochemistry and how they are not reading enough (lies, by the way.) All of them are reading, they just don’t want to admit it.

The reading showed during anatomy class last week. I watched in awe as they taught each other the pectoral girdle because our lecturer was insistent on teaching us about the breast. He compared the female breasts to numerous fruits and said, and I quote: “The male breast is uninteresting,” then proceeded to smile mischievously.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see any cadavers last week, because what is more exciting than the smell of lifeless bodies stored in numerous chemicals? I truly feel that seeing them will be the point I realize if this is for me or not, so the fate of my medical school career rests on dead bodies. Cool.

In all, the week was full of making decisions: I’m never resuming late again (hopefully); made a mental note to never sit at the front because this lecturer that teaches us Excitable Tissues will not disgrace me and my family please; I am also never going to use my little cousin as an anatomy prop — I was trying to palpate the bony tip of her shoulder and follow the ridge of her scapula (are you feeling all those medical terms?) only for my aunty to later start asking why her daughter was drawing lines on her shoulders and back. It almost became a spiritual situation involving an unsuspecting bottle of olive oil and the constantly used blood of Jesus, but I had to explain everything away and we all ended up laughing. My aunt still a tad suspicious though. The things we do for medicine.

So here’s to all of you having an awesome week, and to me seeing all the dead bodies I can ever wish for – on a table in the lab of course.

Random medical fact: the average nose produces about a cupful of nasal mucus every day.

Jeffrey Ini-Abasi is currently studying for a degree in Dentistry and dental surgery at the University of Calabar. A Chimamanda stan, he enjoys eating [who doesn't], reading [non medical] books and correcting people's grammar in his secondary school alumni WhatsApp group.

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