Pre-Med Career Day at UMMC.

Yesterday I spent the day at the School of Medicine at the University Of Mississippi Medical Center.

They had several speakers. They had a lady who is on the  admissions committee telling us what they look at when deciding who to accept. They had a person from financial aid talking about ways we can pay for school. And they had the dean of student affairs telling us about student life on campus. During lunch, med students rotated from table to table, talking to us about what life was like during their year. We could ask them anything we wanted, and they were willing to tell us - EVEN their MCAT score, which it seems people don't like to mention. :)

Then we went to mock lectures. My friends and I were signed up for genetics and pathology, but the genetics professor never showed up so they came and took us to the pharmacology lecture - MUCH cooler, I'm sure. In the pharmacology lecture they had a patient simulator - and he had a heart attack. They went over which meds they were going to give him in the ER, and how you can administer nitroglycerin every 5 minutes, etc. Then the patient coded and student volunteers gave CPR and administered a shock. It was very interesting, the material was very relevant, and I think everyone was riveted. What a great way to teach pharmacology!

The pathology lecture was what really had me riveted. I loved the slides of arteries, he had some that were 90% occluded and then one that was occluded by a thrombus. He gave scenarios and showed us different slides based on those scenarios. I really really liked pathology.

After that we went to a meeting area where different student groups had set up tables explaining what they were about. They had a dummy and i got to intubate him. :) they also had fake arms to practice drawing blood but the line for that was too long. We got to pick up treats from various tables, including pens, bandaids and candy! :)

I really really enjoyed this. I felt like it made me excited to go to Med School. It reinforced the fact that I REALLY need to work on the MCAT study materials that i have this week while i am out for Spring Break. It made me see how badly i REALLY want to become a doctor.

Tomorrow i will be shadowing a cardiologist. I am looking forward to seeing some really neat stuff while I am shadowing him. Hopefully he will have procedures/patients all week so that I can get a lot of really good shadowing hours in over Spring Break. It is hard for me to find the time for volunteer work and shadowing this semester, with 17 hours plus research, and 3 kids and a husband. Hopefully next year will be a lighter schedule, but with Gross Anatomy on the agenda I am thinking it will not be. ;)