Med School

Chapter 1

27/09/2011, 09:43am

First day of med school. Wow. It's been years and YEARS of hard work but I've finally gotten here. Kepner Building, First Floor, Room 221, University of Oxford. I walk into the lecture room and take my seat.

Notebook, check. Pens, check. Textbooks, check. I'm so immersed into my checklist of things that I don't notice someone settling down next to me. I dismiss it and the lecturer starts talking.

"Welcome to Med School. This is the first day of the most gruelling, intense and exhausting 6 years of your life. We will start off with - "

"Wow, you really know how to sell it!" A voice next to me interrupts.

Of course. I manage to get the god damn idiot sitting next to me. This kid may lose a finger or two if he isn't careful. Then again, the lecturer looks like he has the same thought.

"Something to add, Mr...-"

"Mr. Stevens, Sir. It's just that we know what we're signing up for. Maybe the first day isn't the best day to remind us that we basically will almost die trying to pass the next few years."

"Well, if you can't bear that thought on the very first day, maybe you shouldn't be here."

Daaaaaamn, son! I quickly snigger at this comeback and refocus on the lecturer.

"Funny, huh?" The idiot whispers to me, while raising his eyebrow.

"Hilarious. So funny in fact that I will now stop listening to you and start listening to the 60-year-old who just finished you." I reply.

I get back to scribbling my notes down: Manual Ventilation. Intermittent manual compression of a gas-filled reservoir bag to force gases into a patient's lungs and thus maintain oxygenation and carbon dioxide elimination during apnea or hypoventilation.

Okay, I get this. Watching a hell of a load of Grey's Anatomy before arriving here really helped. This all seems fairly straight forward. Just six years of this? Simple. Right...?