Having completed my first year of medical school, I was given the opportunity to reflect on it in hopes of bringing a little bit of medical school past back to the present day.

Descending the steps to the basement cadaver lab, my team of dissectors began our first four hour dissection comprising the axilla and muscles of the back. I quickly became close to my group, with whom I spent 4-6 hours a day in the belly of the med center. We gleaned what we could from our anatomy professor who dared counter the illustrious Frank Netter and his anatomic drawings.

I believe the analogy of being kicked while you're down is the best measure of the 9 weeks that comprise anatomy. It is the cadaver lab that the physician's famously morbid humor begins formation, where cranial nerves and carpal bones take on obscene mnemonics, the most inappropriate of which are best remembered. Still, there are moments when examining the most human parts of the body, the hands, the face, the brain that it seemed more like desecration that dissection.

In a class of 126 students consisting of only 38% women, I feel fortunate to call myself a University of Nebraska med student. The professors serve the students selflessly and have been known to give additional lectures at obscure hours to accommodate students. However, on hearing the tuition of $55,000 a year for an out-of-state student, I almost considered a different profession. Fortunately, I receive a non-resident tuition that brings my yearly costs within the "affordable" range of $26,000. Rising costs make me cringe to think one of my children would ever apply to medical school; words I imagine were likely spoken by a certain father of mine.

Supplementing late night dissections was time devoted to drawing the locations of the duodenum, pancreas, and kidneys on whoever would lend their bare stomach to a washable marker. One challenging aspect of the UNMC anatomy curriculum is Living Anatomy, where partners must be able to demonstrate the locations of internal structures on the external surface of the body by drawing, manipulating, and explaining the chosen topic, all within one minute.

After anatomy and the lingering smell of formaldehyde, we transitioned into cell biology. I struggled with the change of pace because instead of four hour dissections, I was invested in four hours of monotonous lecture on obscure biochemistry topics. Two weeks for Christmas and two fewer students later, I found myself enjoying endocrinology and reproductive physiology. I didn't mind the GI lectures from the professor who said, "Corn in, corn out," but suffered through the renal lectures from the professor whose mantra was, "You drink, you pee; you don't pee, you die." Six weeks of neuro anatomy and one comprehensive test later and I was officially an M2

Each student is assigned a preceptor with whom we must work for a minimum of 15 hours each semester. My preceptor, a resident, was a wonderful influence who lets me do nothing short of everything. Seeing patients was often what kept me going. We prepare for patient encounters by practicing interviews with standardized patients (hired actors) where we play doctor and they play patient. These scenarios simulate all types of patient encounters, including the most awkward ones, but make the actual clinical patient encounters much less stressful. Bi-yearly, we take a clinical exam during which we are graded by a faculty member as we perform a history and physical exam on a standardized patient.

Of all the exceptional professors, dedicated preceptors, and inspirational mentors a medical student has through her education, I am of the fortunate few able to call upon my father for med school council, guidance, and support. His unique ability to commiserate with me the misery that can be medical school is often what I need; to know that he has successfully made this long trek gives me hope that I, too, am able to do so. A skilled clinician, thoughtful listener, and intuitive physician, he emphasizes to me to practice medicine in the fashion of the intertwined Aesculapian staff and snake: it is not science or art alone, rather the interweaving of the two that lend medicine its ability to heal.

Having seen my share of patients throughout this year, I can see how cynicism might overcome empathy and how the peculiarities of people might replace idealism. Not every day as a doctor or medical student is perfect. In fact, there are quite a few days in which I wonder, "Why am I doing this?" On those days, I remind myself of all the wonderful and interesting patients I have seen, the knowledge I have acquired, and the experiences I have had working on a Native American reservation, a homeless shelter, at a substance abuse clinic, and at the top of a mountain in Mexico, all this first year of medical school. Then I remember why.

Catie Mohr
2nd Year Medical Student