“Dr. Lee”

Aside from exercise bio and my music courses, anatomy was, hands down, my absolute favorite course in undergrad. This was largely due in part to the fact that I had an amazing professor who basically taught us everything he taught the med students.

He is a magical human being (by that, I mean that he’s an MD/PhD, volunteers in Africa every year providing free medical care to kids and adults alike, is a pediatrician at UCDMC, teaches anatomy to the undergrads and med students, has 2 foster children and 3 kids of his own, does relief work [e.g. went to help in Haiti after the earthquake] and somehow still has time to spend with his family).

He taught it with clinical correlates, which instilled a great deal of love on my part for the subject. I could finally see the point to learning what I was studying. It was applicable to real life, and what was even more awesome about it was that I could basically be studying while I was at the gym. Doing squats? What muscles are you working out? What innervates them? What’s the blood supply? Where do they attach?

I owe my knowledge in anatomy to that course, and that has been beyond helpful here. While many people have been floundering, because this course is not an easy one to stomach on so little time (another plus to the quarter system–10 weeks and we learned it all), unless you happen to be a genius, or have photographic memory. My group met with one of the GTA’s today and he eventually banned me from answering any more questions.

S: What are you doing here anyway? You already know everything. Why aren’t you teaching the course?
F: Not everything. There’s some stuff I’m fuzzy on. And I would love to! In two years. (I want your job. ;_; )
A: You could be out drinking or something.
F: But I like this subject. ;_; And I don’t drink.
(Everyone else: whatta freak.)

Later…
S: That’s all for the upper limb, unless Dr. Lee has anything to add.
(Lab group looks around.)
F: …Were you talking about me? My last name’s not Lee. Chen or Wong would’ve been good guesses. Lee too, I guess.

So racist, hahaha.

In any case, I got roped into going to the anatomy review the second years put together yesterday because they needed people who were good at anatomy. While I don’t claim to be amazing at anatomy, I do admit that I pick up things a lot faster when I enjoy the subject. That being said, Dr. Gross gave me a pretty awesome foundation to start with, so it was really just a matter of review to solidify old knowledge again.

Adam’s mentor was apparently the second year who was putting it all together, so he asked Adam to help teach, and Adam asked me to help him. I’d originally thought that they just needed people to kinda stand around and point stuff out and talk about things–not just straight-up teach, but we got assigned to teach the posterior lower limb, which is actually what I’m weakest at, but we went with it, and it went really well. :D! (It reminded me of once upon a time, when I was standing in the UCD anatomy lab in the back of Haring telling someone about the digestive system. Someone mistook me for a lab aide, and I was super flattered.)

I’m super happy, since this is basically what I’d like to spend half my third and second-third (if I get the position) year doing. Early practice is always good to have, and teaching other people helps me to solidify my own knowledge. I think we managed to instill a good amount of what I knew into other people, and Adam and I worked really well together. :]! (I felt kinda bad though because I eventually just hijacked the whole thing. I’m somewhat of a zealot when it comes to anatomy. :[ Sorry Adam.)

All in all, things went smoothly aside from one guy who was being all kinds of selfish/inconsiderate and downright rude (the kind of person I love to hate). After he left, Adam and I turned to each other and said at the same time, “That guy was kind of a dick, wasn’t he?” (A sign that we probably spend too much time together, haha.) One of our mutual friends said she was surprised that I had managed to remain so patient with him/didn’t clock him in the face. I hadn’t ever actually interacted with him before, so although I’ve heard all kinds of weird things about him, both of us like to reserve judgment until they prove it outright. Now that it’s been done and we each have anecdotal evidence, I think we can reserve the right to think of him as an asshat.

Since Adam knows that one of my many dreams is to be an anatomy GTA (seriously though, >$100k to do what I would have done for free? sign me up!), he talked to one of the second-years who’s applying for it, and was told that they’re mainly looking for someone with experience in anatomy (hooray! 1 undergrad anatomy lab and lecture taught at med school level coupled with another anatomy lab course where I set the curve, A+’ed it and have a recommendation letter where he writes that I’m within the top 1% of all the students he’s ever taught in the bay area, along with a master’s level anatomy lab/lecture taught by the same professors who taught it to the med students should be a good start, yes yes?) and has the ability to communicate with others (I think all the shit I’ve done in the past several years from high school and on has been building on that, so double hooray!). I’d have to undergo a formal interview process, but anatomy is honestly one of the few subjects where I honestly feel like I really really know my shit (Adam said he was super glad I was there today and that Shane [his mentor] was really impressed; fistpump fistpump; twas a good day :D!), so there is hope for me yet!