So we are off to a new year, 2010, and also starting a new phase in medical school. They decided to call it Phase II despite still being in our first academic year. In the past students have been taught what the normal state of the body was throughout the entire first year and then during the second year they learn the disease state. I can see plus side of doing it this way in that you don't have to remember what normal was a year ago, but at the same time you will still have to remember normal and the disease when Step 1 rolls around so I think it all evens out in the end. It never fails that I get to participate in a guinea pig experiment during my education. It happened during my MPH and it's happening during med school. Go figure.
Enough with curriculum though. I need to vent about some of the student organizations and their elections. During the first two months of school we had a number of elections for student positions such as class president, VP, and all the other obligatory positions that are needed in a student body government. There were also a few positions for some of the organizations that deal with medical interests and issues. One in particular caught my interest, AAMC Student Representative. I didn't really campaign or anything, I just asked a few people if they would vote and prepared a little speech. I know I was by far the most qualified and I thought that I presented the best argument (don't we all think that!) as to why they should elect me, but of course didn't win. No biggie, I needed to focus on school and my family anyhow.
SOOOOOO elections for another org come up that works to provide free immunizations to underserved populations in rural Texas. I had some work with them during my MPH and had also attended the first event so I knew it was something I wanted to do. I had some ties to the CON, SRPH and the SGA so I wanted to work to get those going.
Well election time rolls around and the two people I am running against are freaking out because they thought the election was a done deal. There were two spots up for grabs and none of the others in the org were even contested. I sit in the back of the class of about 150 seats in a stadium type seating area. These two were down at the bottom with a worried look on their faces while they are holding hands, and I noticed over the top of my laptop that they keep looking up towards me. I mean they have to turn around to do it, so I know they are looking. It made me chuckle then and still does. Then they start talking to the person in charge of the election getting even more worried it looks. The election is minutes away and they run out of the room together. I walk down to the bottom of the room and start talking casually to the current president about when the election is going to start and I ask if there is any problem. Apparently the two chickens didn't think they had the election sewn up so they ran to get more students. I was pretty confident that I would win after seeing who all had hung around (most of them friends of mine). I didn't really care at all that they were trying to get more votes and just figured that if they did win so be it. It just wan't meant to be.
In the end I didn't win. SHOCCCCCKKKKEEEERRRRRRR! That doesn't really bother me since I didn't really want to work with one of the people anyway. I didn't really know him, but he seemed pretty anal retentive to say the least. Not a good combo!!
What bugs me is that despite two decent efforts to participate in my school, I have effectively been shut down. In the end maybe it is for the best as I could definitely improve my grades, but it is still frustrating. I'm not sure if I will volunteer for anything anymore. I need to talk to a few people and see how important it is to have student organization experience for residency. I can't imagine it matters that much.
I have been toying around with the idea to work on getting a completely student run clinic established in town, but that is another issue for another day. Until next time........sleep.
