I'm sorry, I can't

This is a phrase that I'm required to mutter often as a medical student that is also a parent. It's a struggle sometimes to have to turn down events because it means missing out on time with my kids, but thats the reality of being a parent and when your family is your priority. Saying it would cause me to feel a pang of guilt in the past but honestly it doesn't anymore. Frankly, I don't even like to say "I'm sorry", because I'm NOT sorry. But its a habit I'm working on - not apologizing for things that I don't need to apologize for.

But I digress. Because my family IS my priority, however important my medical education and career are, and I do make a conscious effort to balance them. There are times when my family time has to be sacrificed, like when I need to study for an exam or have a mandatory class that clashes with one of my kids school performances. Sometimes I make the decision to sacrifice my family time for non-mandatory, but important to me events. But there are other times that I choose to forgo opportunities in order to spend more time with my kids. I'd love to join the surgery club, for example, and be able to attend a surgery last minute, however I just know it wouldn't work. I'd also love to join a uni sports club but that too is just too rigid for me and can't justify an evening a week for sport when I have plenty of other time available to workout that doesn't take time away from my kids.

I think that sometimes people forget that I have kids though. I try not to bring it up too often, and I really try to not use my kids as an excuse for not getting something done (which rarely happens) - even when they ARE the reason. At the end of the day, I choose to pursue medicine while having a family and there are some costs to that, like less time available to study or take part in extra curricular activities. It is what it is and I'm not bitter about it at all. I accept it and I also try to be as organized as I can to minimize my time away AND be able to fulfill my academic obligations. But what does sometimes frustrate me is having to justify it. Like not being able to attend a club meeting on a weekend. People are understanding, but I often get challenged on it...like being asked "but couldn't you come for just an hour?" Not, not even for "just" an hour. Because its never "just" an hour - I have to arrange it in advance with my husband (who may have planned on me being there to get something done), I have to commute, I have to find parking, the meeting will likely go over because no one else is rushed...and it ends up being like 4 hours or more of my precious weekend time.

This problem won't go away. It's going to follow me for the rest of medical school, through residency and beyond. And even though my kids are getting older and more independent, it doesn't mean that I will need to spend less time with them (and of course my husband). Plus I LIKE to spend time with them. They are great kids. And people will just have to get used to me saying "I can't".

3rd year begins!

I realized that I haven't been as active in posting lately. The summer was a busy one and then school just seemed to start again, all of a sudden.

Classes have been in session now for two weeks and I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. Not to mention that the format is very different this year. Our classes seem to be done in bulk blocks as apposed to spread out over the semester. For example, I have parasitology and microbiology four days a week for three weeks and then parasitology is officially done and microbiology doesn't start up again until May for another three week block. And we have our first "midterm" on Tuesday! But then other classes we have consistently throughout the year, like Medical Polish (which I decided that I want to take as this is a weakness of mine - yes, I speak Polish fluently but I don't know most of the names of diseases in Polish and when I take internal medicine later in the year, I'll likely be the Polish "translator" student for my group, so I need to know my stuff).

So far though, I must say I'm enjoying the year so much more than last year. The classes that I have this year are so much more interesting because they seem so much more relevant to medicine. Plus we start actual clinical classes! THIS is what I've been waiting for.

I was going to do a post about going for what you want and how you need to really lean in, but that doing it the right way can seem - and will be - selfish.

But I kind of don't have the energy at the moment to delve into that, so it will have to wait for a future post.

However I wanted to update that I start my ER internship on Monday! I'm kind of cheating because it will be at the orthopedic hospital thats close to my house and they only take in wounds and orthopedic injuries, so my experience will be limited to those things but its close to my house and at least I'll get SOME experience. Unfortunately, I've learned a lot of people just get their internship forms signed without doing ANY work, so I don't feel bad. What I do feel bad about is that I totally forgot to order the suture practice kit last week to practice suturing on...I hope that if a wound comes in that the Dr I'll be working with will show me what to do, because I can't remember anything from the suturing course I took earlier this year and I'd love the chance to do some real live suturing.

Then in late August I'll be starting a family medicine internship. I met with the Dr I'll be working with today and he told me told me to look up the most frequently prescribed hypertension medications, because apparently thats the number one medicine he prescribes in his practice. But he seemed like a really decent guy who loves his job, so I look forward to working with him.

Otherwise I'm really enjoying this summer. Its not nearly as nice as last summer was, weather-wise, but I'm still enjoying it nonetheless. I've been able to get a lot of exercise in and it feels really good. I would love to figure out how to maintain this level of activity once school starts again.

A third of the way

Wow, I just realized today that I never did an end of year post! This is probably because as soon as exams ended, my in-laws came to visit us from NZ and then we all did a road trip to Croatia. We just got back on Sunday and are settling in to the summer for real.

I'm happy to say that I passed all my exams again and I'm very happy with my grades. I did much better than just pass but I'm mostly just happy I can enjoy the summer with my family without worrying about having to do any retakes.

Next up will be my family medicine summer internship (still in the process of organizing this).

In the meantime I'm going to chill, exercise and read some Scandinavian crime novels. And celebrate that I'm a third of the way through!

Exam fatigue

I have 4 days left until I'm DONE with exams and I can't wait. I'm having some real exam fatigue at the moment.

I'm half way done with final exams (two of four done) and have two more to go. Luckily we get our final results really quickly so I know I passed both genetics and biochemistry AND I was pleasantly surprised to get a bump in my final grade in biochemistry because some students who showed an extra effort (attendance at lectures, participation at seminars, actively leading in labs and/or high marks on mid-term exams) got about a 10% increase in their final mark which was pretty awesome for me. Especially since for me biochemistry was the hardest course this year and the exam I feared the most. Plus I was happy that we were given a reward for our hard work and consistency, which is something I find lacking in the program overall. Everything comes down to the final exam and I really think its not the best strategy to test our knowledge. So at least I'm happy with this one course making an exception.

I have physiology and immunology next and they are unfortunately back-to-back. I'm feeling ok about immunology because I really like the subject and really liked my teachers but I have no idea about physiology. Mostly because the course was a bit fat mess with some less-than stellar teachers, cancelled classes, inconsistencies in the test questions and how they were presented in class and in general I feel like the exam will be a crap shoot. Plus we've heard from upper year students that they just recycle old questions so studying for that class is mostly just going over old exam questions and thats boring. I feel like I'm studying to the test and not studying to learn.

In any case I'm just over studying. I've been preparing for finals for six weeks now, with four of those weeks still wrapping up some classes. I'm tired and feel guilty about being away from the kids, plus I MISS them so much. I went home last Tuesday after the biochem exam and took the afternoon and evening off before heading back into town on Wednesday morning and setting up camp in the conference room of my dad's office.

But I have to remind myself that in 4 days I'll be DONE 2nd year and will officially be 1/3 of the way through medical school!

Relate

A little while ago as part of our first aid course we were taken around the hospital and the ER to show us the protocol of what happens with ER patients. Part of that tour was showing us where patients are later admitted to ICU.

We saw a few patients, but two stuck out and made me realize how differently I think I look at things compared to some (most) of my younger classmates, because I can relate.

The first was a very young child that has been hospitalized for the past several months due to complications from the flu. And by flu I mean the proper influenza virus, not a GI bug. The little one may or may not live, and the doctor told us at this point in time the prognosis was 50/50. It really hit me and reinforced (again) how important it is to vaccinate, even against the flu and especially how important it is to vaccinate children, because they are the worst affected. But I don't blame the parents here for not vaccinating because I find in Poland the barriers to the flu shot are big and annoying. You have to be very determined (and be able to afford it) to vaccinate for the flu.

The second though, for me was worse. It was another child, though older, with leukemia who was in the ICU due to a different medical complication. However, it wasn't the illness or the suffering of the child that got me - it was the sight of the mother sitting on the chair, next to the bed, holding the child's hand in hers, her head bowed against their chest. For a moment, I felt I was that mother and it was my child in that bed and in just that moment, my heart broke. I could feel that despair and pain of seeing your child who is already suffering and been dealt such a shitty card so early in life, with another issue. The helplessness and emotional exhaustion just radiated from her, yet I feel like I was the only who felt it.

I don't know if this will make me a better or worse doctor. I hope the former. But maybe I will be able to help some of these patients by being able to relate.

And a major realization I felt afterwards is just how important it will be for me to have regular access to mental health support once I start to practice or even once we start clinical classes in earnest. Because as hard as it is to have these feelings, I don't want to become immune to them. I don't want to be able to "just deal".

Easier

Recently I realized how much easier being at mother at med school has gotten. And its mostly because all my kids are getting older. They all sleep well through the night now - with the odd wake up by my three year old demanding a drink. Plus I think they are now just so used to it, its like they've forgotten what it was like when I was around all the time and its been so good for my mental health.

Yesterday I was able to attend a non-mandatory evening event organized by some students in my year - on a whim - for the first time ever because I know my kids will be fine.

I can't remember if I ever discussed this here, but I definitely had some mental health struggles last year over the guilt I felt about pursuing med school with three kids. The adjustment was a little rough, particularly for my oldest son (which surprised me) and combined with some other stresses had me feeling really low for a while.

Luckily I had the presence of mind to realize something was wrong and I sought counselling and it was the best decision ever. My therapist helped me work through my feeling and I felt such a burden be lifted from me.

Which brings me to another thought. I still read so much about the relentless medical culture of pushing doctors and nurses and other health care professionals to the brink. I recently read "This Is Going to Hurt" by Adam Kay about his time as an OB in the NHS and one of the things that really stood out is the lack of mental health support for them.

Maybe its because I've read so much about this and maybe because I have already experience some mental health issues myself, I feel like I'm going to be going into it with open eyes and hopefully will not keep my thoughts and feelings bottled up. I want to actively fight the stigma and hopefully will be able to be there for colleagues to lean on as well.

I'd love to write more on the topic but I gotta study so I'm going to end this here.

How to prevent abortion

I debated bringing the topic of abortion up on this blog again. Last time I did, I was viciously attacked by an anonymous person (side note: if you truly stand for something, own it and use your real name - don't hide behind an anonymous profile) simply because I stated I was pro-choice and attended a rally in Warsaw to prevent further restricting the already incredibly strict abortion laws in Poland. But I digress, this isn't the point of this post.

With the recent news about several US states imposing strict abortion laws (banning abortion in all cases, even rape and incest) and setting the stage to overthrow Roe Vs Wade, there has been a lot of talk about abortion in general in social media where everyone is sharing their opinion. So I thought I'd share mine too.

This is a difficult topic. I'm not going to be flippant about it and say that a fetus is "just a bunch of cells" or whatever. I respect and accept that people believe that a life begins at conception. It is not a crazy belief. When I had a miscarriage at 7 weeks, it was devastating to me. It wasn't a bunch of cells, not to me.

BUT I also can't be flippant about pregnancy and postpartum and being a parent. Pregnancy is inherently dangerous and kills women every single day, even in countries like the US. But aside from death, pregnancy takes a huge toll on a woman's body. From permanent disfigurement, loss of future fertility, depression, to prolapsed uteruses and incontinence, the list of risks a pregnant woman faces is long and depressing. I had complication free pregnancies and I still ended up with bad incontinence. I still had my body distorted. I still had postpartum depression. I stalled in my career, even when I went back. Being a parent is hard, exhausting and expensive. And I had all the support and love in the world. So it was all worth it to ME. However, I can't imagine going through something like that for an unwanted pregnancy. Or worse an unwanted pregnancy that was forced on me by rape.

So instead of yelling at each other and hurling insults, especially those to claim to be pro-life, what can we actually do to prevent the abortions in the first place? But first let's look at why banning abortion won't actually lead to less abortions or less death at all.

What happens when you ban abortions?

1. More people die overall - just like when Romania banned abortions, this led to an increase in both maternal and infant mortality.

2. Interestingly, the number of abortions increases. In fact, in a 2016 analysis published by Lancet finds that the average abortion rate in countries where the procedure is prohibited is 37 per 1,000 women compared to 34 per 1,000 in countries where it is legal. A real world example is Canada - where there are no restrictions on abortion - which has lower rates of abortion than the US or many countries where they are restricted or illegal.

3. The number of unsafe abortions increases - as does the number of maternal death and serious health consequences for the women as this study shows.

4. Women find ways around it - rich women will just go somewhere where they can access it and poor women resort to back-alley abortion clinics or take drugs that will end their pregnancies. For example, in El Salvador, where abortion is illegal, 1 in 3 pregnancies still ends in abortion.

5. Maternal death increases - when you criminalize abortions and make doctors criminally liable, they are less likely in intervene in obstetric emergencies. For example, in Argentina many doctors will allow ectopic pregnancies to continue until the fallopian tube explodes because they fear that the fertilized egg will considered "living" prior to that - making it fatal for the mother as well. Some doctors won't treat women with chemotherapy because of the high risk to the fetus. And lastly, there is a huge up-tick of maternal suicide, especially in teens who are distraught by their situation. In fact, suicide is the 3rd leading cause of maternal death in several countries where abortion is illegal.

6. You open the door to investigate any pregnant woman who has a pregnancy loss. Imagine you are a pregnant woman who starts to bleed in your pregnancy - this is common but as any woman who has gone through this can attest to, incredibly scary. I've been there and I know. Now imagine you go to the hospital for help and instead are not only not helped but are reported to the police because suddenly you are suspected of attempting to end your pregnancy. Because doctors can't tell the difference between a natural miscarriage or abortion by misoprostol, an ulcer drug that is about 85% effective in inducing an abortion on its own. Which can be scary if you have a young or over eager doctor who wants to impress the administration and will report a miscarriage as an abortion. Or have doctors refuse to even admit you because they are scared of being involved and being arrested for conspiracy to commit murder.

7. The underprivileged suffer the most. No doubt that live-births will result from the abortion ban. But this will just perpetuate the cycle of child abandonment, neglect and abuse that are rampant in many parts of the world. Women and children will continue to be stuck in a cycle of poverty and violence. Is this really how we want to bring children into this world?

So. What can we actually do to prevent abortions? I'm especially looking at the people who are firmly anti-abortion and most vocal about it. Because if this topic really means that much to you, I really hope you are doing more than calling those who support a woman's right to choose "murders" on social media. Because let me tell you, shaming women will not reduce the number of abortions. So ask yourself what you truly want. Is it to prevent abortions from happening or is it just to feel morally superior in a hypothetical situation?

What you can do to prevent abortion

1. Actively support policies, organizations and political parties that are geared to women's health. A good place to start would be to support universal health care (I'm looking at you, USA). This may mean *gasp* ditching the political party you've always supported in favour of a party that wants to provide those things. Studies show that countries like Canada that universal health care have lower rates of abortion than the USA.

2. Actively support sexual education and free contraception, especially the birth control pill, which is credited with a huge drop in teenage pregnancy.

3. Actively support improved financial support and parental leave for parents. Don't just focus on mothers either. Give incentives to fathers to take time out of their careers to care for children. Plus if you look at the stats of countries that have strong parental leave, they also have much lower rates of abortion than countries that don't.

3. Help unburden the overburdened foster care system - register to be foster parents. Because these kids are the products of unwanted pregnancies.

4. Actively support policies that make adoption easier - for LGBTQ community, single dads and basically anyone who isn't in a "traditional" family situation adopt. Also, consider adopting yourself.

5. Adopt a single mother - commit to helping a single mother with all the costs involved in delivering and raising a child for 18 years. Giving a bit of money in a church collection every once in a while doesn't count (nor does it do much). Put your money where you mouth is and take on all the costs.

6. Can't "afford" to give your money? Then give your time and volunteer with families that have children with special needs. Step into the shoes of a mother with a child with a severe illness and give her a break. Make it regular and frequent. Show women out there that they will get help and won't left abandoned with a sick baby. There are many organizations that facilitate this.

7. Prove you are really pro-LIFE and not just pro-birth. Because those are two different things. Being pro-life means you believe in improving the lives of everyone already alive as well. So consider how things like education and the state of the environment are affecting life. Here in Poland, our ultra "pro-life" government continues to push the use of coal as our main energy and has led to Poland having the most polluted cities in Europe. A recent report came out to show that almost 50,000 people die prematurely in Poland every YEAR due to air pollution. And that number doesn't include the number of miscarriages due to birth defects in fetuses due to the pollution and toxic effects of inhaling coal dust.

8. Educate yourself on what abortion really is. I think there is a lot of misconception about abortion. Abortion means terminating a pregnancy - this doesn't always involve terminating the fetus. If the fetus would be able to survive outside of the mother, in the vast majority of cases the doctors will deliver the fetus alive and depending on the circumstances, fight to keep it alive or allow a natural death.

Please, before you preach about abortion and murder and how you think these abortion bans are wonderful, consider your agenda. Is your agenda to prevent abortions or is it to feel morally better than those who believe that a woman should have the basic right to control her own body? So, unless you are prepared to do the above list of things that ACTUALLY work to prevent abortion then please stop with the insults and shaming of women. You are not helping your cause and you are actively contributing to more death and misery. Please think about this.

I couldn't think of a title for this post, so I decided to just skip making one. I actually should be studying right now but I just wanted to update on here instead.

I have a biochemistry exam tomorrow that is pretty important. Its almost like a midterm, except the term is over, but I have to pass this exam in order to be allowed to write the final, which is in June.

I'm not that well prepared because I had an optional course that I had to do over the weekend, which greatly cut into my study time and my husband was away over during this time, so when my course was over I had to rush home to take over from my nanny, who kindly agreed to come over. Then today I had class from 8-6PM. I grabbed a ready-to-eat salad at the grocery store on the way home (well, not "home" so much as the apartment in the city my parents have that is currently vacant) and then plan on getting on with it.

Before I realized that I had the course this weekend I had thought I would have all this time to go over some of the material in more depth, but alas its not meant to be. I'll do my best do, and will get cracking as soon as I hit "publish".

Overall though I can't believe I'm just over a month away from finishing my second year. I'll be 1/3 of the way through! I feel like this year just whizzed by. I'm really looking forward to starting third year because FINALLY we'll be starting clinical classes and I can't wait for that.

Planning mode

I'm almost through my second week of spring break and it just whizzed by! We took the kids to Prague for a few days and just got back yesterday. It was a wonderful trip and I'm so glad we were able to get away.

Because the real work starts next week. So I'm using the remainder of my break to plan for the next two months. I have double the amount of exams this June compared to last year and I again plan to pass everything on the first attempt. But also I want to do more than pass. I really want to get some awesome grades.

With residency always at the back on my mind, I'm constantly thinking about what I can be doing NOW to help future me. And one of those things is get the best grades possible. This time I hope that I can do better than just pass. I want to ace them. Not only because I have my future rank on my mind, but because I think the courses we have this year - physiology and biochem especially - are just really important to know and understand.

Anyway, I think my favourite way of studying is a few solid hours per day with the weekends off/minimal studying and then increasing the volume as I near the exam. My main goal especially is to have covered everything from the beginning again so that by June I'm mostly doing review and old questions.

We will see. At the moment it seems feasible.

Because life just isn't crazy enough...

We got a puppy!

My husband and I have been discussing getting a puppy for a while now and started to do some research on breeders. We have a dog already, a rescue Bassett Hound named Bee that we love and have taken all over the world with us. She was diagnosed with cancer a couple years ago and we were told that she would probably die within six to eight months. However, she is still with us almost 2 years later! But I digress. There is no reason why we decided to get another dog really. Bee doesn't need the company, even though she is a social dog, now that she's older she really spends most of her time napping and eating. We just thought it would be fun.

My husband had a Westie as a teenager and he loved that dog so much. His family also loved her and when she died, they got two more! I also really grew to love that breed and decided if we got another dog, I'd like it to be Westie.

We've never had a puppy before (or rather, both of us had puppies in our families growing up, but none in OUR family as we adopted Bee when she was around two years old) and we thought that it would be a fun experience.

So last week we got a Westie puppy! My husband thought it would be fun to give him a very Polish name, so we christened him Zbigniew, and call him Zbig or Zbiggy for short.

He has been a wonderful addition to our family, but we didn't tell anyone about him until we got him because we didn't want to be told we are crazy (we know this already, lol) and we also didn't want to disappoint the kids in case it didn't work out for some reason.

The kids were over the moon and I have to admit, my husband and I are also totally smitten by him. He is the cutest, sweetest little ball of fluff ever. He has already become attached to us and settled into the house nicely. Apart from waking up suuuuppppper early, he sleeps all night and is already getting the hang of toilet training.

Consequences

Yesterday I ended up sending my youngest two to preschool after getting the OK from the preschool director.

But then my oldest son came home with a fever and his school has a policy of being 24 hour fever-free before letting them go back to school.

He is 11 so I decided to just take him to my classes. I didn't want to leave him at home for so long by himself, especially if he wasn't feeling well. I was able to skip the lecture in the morning that wasn't mandatory and took him to my Immunology class. He was really well behaved and just read a Harry Potter book, but I also caught him listening to the lecture. He told me he enjoyed it even though he didn't really understand it.

After the class we went to Starbucks where I studied and he watched some Netflix on my iPad. But when I took him for lunch I noticed that he was looking pale and he started to complain of having chills and a headache.

I decided that it wasn't worth dragging him to my biochem seminar. He just needed to lie down and rest. It was a mandatory class but I emailed the head of the department and explained my situation.

She responded and sympathized but said that because it was a mandatory class and because I'd missed one already at the beginning of the year (when our flight back to Poland from Canada was cancelled after Christmas - I had totally forgotten about that), that I'd have to make it up by doing a presentation at the next seminar on the topic (which is about nucleotide metabolism). I was a bit surprised because it always seems that there are no consequences in this program for breaking the rules (for example, if you get caught cheating, you would at worst fail the class, but they wouldn't expel you from school like they would in a Canadian university).

Oh well. It's not a big deal and in all honestly will be a good way for me to really learn the topic and this will only help me on the next exam. I didn't do too great on the last one and want to redeem myself on the next one. Its' funny, because it actually makes me respect the program and course more because this is how it should be.

Well it finally happened.

I think I've been very good at covering my bases as far as childcare is concerned and making sure that I have back ups for my backups.

But I may have finally come to a moment where I'm stuck. My husband is away on a business trip for a week and my nanny had asked for Tuesday off for a medical procedure many weeks ago. I said sure and figured that the worst thing that will happen for that one day is that I'll have to skip a lecture. But as I've been to pretty much all of them, it wouldn't kill me. I have a mandatory biochem seminar in the afternoon but I talked to the prof and he said I can skip out a bit early to make it to pick my kids up from school/preschool on time.

Except I didn't count on the youngest two getting sick. We've all been battling a cold/sore throat for a few days and I really don't think that they should go to school tomorrow and maybe on Tuesday. Honestly, they aren't badly sick but they both have a cough and runny noses and their preschool are a bit anal about sending kids who are sick to school.

Enter my dilemma. Do I take the whole day off and try and get a doctor's note to cover myself? Do I send them to school sick and beg for forgiveness later (or just talk to their teachers and explain my situation)? Or do I just charge up the iPad and take them with me to my classes?

Hopefully being off on Monday will be enough for them to be back to their regular selves and it won't be an issue but worst case I need to think of what to do. I'm leaning towards just sending them to preschool anyway and hope they understand.

When panic rears its ugly head

Today I had a panic attack. Ok, not a real panic attack but a freak out. A freak out about what the hell I'm going to do after I graduate. Will I even be able to practice as a doctor?!

Yesterday's workshop on the NHS and how to get a post-grad job in the NHS after graduation was amazing. It made me excited to have a viable option for where I could go after I graduate - and would have a wonderful experience -  but there are still some less than ideal aspects to it. Like the fact that the foundation years programme might be split up among various hospitals that may be a 100 miles apart, which would require moving every year. That would suck for my family. The fact that the training process is so much longer. Another big issue is Brexit. No one knows whats going to happen. And its so frustrating because at the moment, as an EU citizen, my path to fully licensed doctor would be pretty much guaranteed. Once the UK leave, my status drops and not only that, the UK has significantly increased the number of medical school spots so there will be even more competition.

But overall, as much as the UK system seems awesome, I still think I would prefer to go back to Canada, even if I couldn't get into the program that I want most.

So today, while procrastinating from biochem studying, I decided to read up a bit more on getting a Canadian medical residency as an IMG. I went on to a forum and stumbled upon a post by an IMG that was successful in matching back to Canada. I messaged him and he immediately messaged me back! He had some great tips and advice but his underlying message was: this is hard and getting harder. Make sure I have a good back up. That only about 50% of the Canadian IMGs in the Irish medicals school that applied got matched. That some of them were shocking because they were incredibly strong candidates. That students from med schools in commonwealth countries are preferred over students from non-commonwealth - which will make me have to fight that much harder.

The whole thing really bummed me out. Normally I am able to just not dwell on it. I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing and just shelving the issue because there isn't much good that will come from freaking out. But I took that box off the shelf today and I guess I just got scared that maybe I'm in complete denial about what my future looks like.

I just so badly want to go back to Canada. I don't even really care where, I just want to go back. I want to finish residency and start earning decent money so that my husband can take a break. I want to create some stability and a permanent "home" for my kids. I want to be closer to my sisters and their families. I want to be closer to my friends and live in a place that I feel like I belong to, a place where the values I hold most dear are respected and expressed by our country's leadership.

Luckily my husband was pretty good at calming me down. He said that there is no way I won't get a job anywhere since doctor shortages are going up everywhere and all the places that this is happening are going to have to address it sooner or later. That I still have 4 years to do what I need to do and that he is aware of the risks, aware that we won't be able to make any real plans for ages and that he is ok with that. It did make me feel better. I guess for me, the stakes are high. It's not just me who is on this journey, its my family too.

Anyway, going to get back to what I should actually be freaking out about - and thats the biochem exam.

Fasting

Although I'm not really that religious (I think of myself as a lapsed-agnostic Catholic), I decided to give social media up for Lent.

I was just wasting too much time on FB and Instagram and I really just want to cut back. I've tried putting screen-time limits on my phone, but that didn't really work because I would just ignore the limit and I think I just ended up going on it more!

So a "cold-turkey" approach for a while is probably the best option for me. I know that the point of giving something up for Lent is to be less distracted from your relationship with God, but I think for me its about being less distracted from what is a truly a priority for me living my best life - and I think deep down, it amounts to the same thing.

I'm only 3 days in but its been easier than I thought. My biggest challenge will be reintroducing it later. I don't want to give it up forever completely, just manage it better.

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I have a big biochemistry test coming up next week. I'm not really nervous about it per se, because I understand it all - the only problem is the sheer amount of memorization required! I think amino acid structures will be the death of me. Mostly because I think memorizing them is pointless. I'd rather focus my energy on learning the different metabolic pathways or cholesterol synthesis (which I find personally interesting and important since I'm at risk for high cholesterol genetically).

The timing is kind of unfortunate since my mom is unexpectedly visiting Poland at the moment. Her best friend's mother died recently and she has come for the funeral. She is spending most of her time with her friend, but will be at home with us too - but I'll be busy studying and won't get to hang out with her as much as I'd like to. She is coming back next month with my dad though, so I'll see her more then.

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Tomorrow I'm attending a workshop on getting post-grad training in the NHS. I want to understand the process and requirements as best as I can because I need to be realistic about my chances in Canada. Its getting harder and harder every year. What if by the time I graduate, they will have completely taken away all the IMG spots?

Of course, Brexit has also put everything up in the air, but still the general process shouldn't change too much (as it is, currently the eligibility is based on EEA not necessarily EU citizenship). But I think going to the UK may still be easier for me and I want it to be a solid back-up. This workshop will take up all of Saturday pretty much, which is less than ideal given that I should be using that time to study for my exam or hanging out with my kids but whatever. I need to be flexible and do the best with what I can.

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I'm a little annoyed about something. Back in December I reached out to two former IMGs who did their residency at the place that is my #1 choice but never heard back. I contacted the girl (a good friend of a friend) and asked her to confirm that I used the right email addresses and she confirmed that she had and suggested I email them again because maybe the first email went to spam. So I did and yet again, have not heard back. From either of them.

I get that they must be busy etc but I also think a quick email even saying just that wouldn't be too much to expect, is it? I don't know. What I do know is that I will devote some time to helping IMG students make it back to Canada in any way I can, if I manage to.

Pleasantly surprised

This semester we had two new courses added to the curriculum. I have to admit I was a bit wary because they told us they are EU-mandated courses that now need to be taught in medical schools in Europe and last year we had one of those - called Occupational Health & Safety and it was the worst, most boring and useless class ever.

The classes that were added this semester are called Intro to Medical Communication and Research Methodology.

And both had surprised me with how good they are. In Research Methodology we are doing to learn how to use awesome equipment like PCR machines and we will be learning how to extract cells from mice! The lab that the classes are in are state-of-the-art, newly built (thanks EU funding!) and I'm really excited about it.

Medical Communications was also really good. The prof is a psychologist and I really like her teaching style. Plus the things she said the course will focus on are things that I really believe are so important with regards to how doctors communicate with their patients. I really hope people pay attention to it because I think we will learn a lot. Plus, she said that this is just an introductory course but most of our communications learning will come next year in our medical psychology class which by the sounds of it, I'll really enjoy.

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In other news I have a big biochem exam next week which I'm a bit nervous about. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with biochem. On one hand, its fascinating to learn about how our body works at this level, on the other, there are just so. many. enzymes and steps in all the various pathways, that I have no idea how I'll be able to remember them all. I think I'm going to have to make some Anki cards for this one.

Plus the exam follows a weekend during which I've committed the whole of Saturday to attending a workshop on the Foundations Years Programme in the UK. As much as I really, really want to go back to Canada for my post-grad training, I need to have a reliable backup, and think the UK would be best for me. At least, this seems to be the most popular and possible track for me (from what I understand, the acceptance rate to the FY programme from my university has been close to 100% of those that apply).

But I digress. Since I'll be away almost all Saturday, I'll have to be home for Sunday so I can spend some time with the kids. Which means the time I'll be able to study will be greatly reduced.

So I'm going to do my damndest to get as much done as I can before and just use Sunday and Monday to review.

Luckily I don't have a few regularly scheduled classes today so am going to use that time to study a bit (which I really should be doing now instead of updating this blog but whatevs).

Ok, so maybe it works...

Ha, so ironically just after publishing my previous post, I was scrolling through Instagram (procrastinating of course) and went into the "search" function to look for some cool medical pages to follow (I especially enjoy med school meme pages).

Anyway, Instagram has a "you might like" section and a profile caught my eye. It was the profile of that med student pretending to be a doctor - but he has CHANGED his profile and has taken "Dr" out of his name! Then I quickly checked his Facebook and website and those too have been updated with the word "Doctor/Dr" removed. Ha! I guess my meddling worked!

And no, I'm not going to share the profile. I don't want this guy getting any traffic from me as a source.

Not my battle

I have a hard time fighting battles that I shouldn't be fighting. Or at least, shouldn't be investing too much of my personal time and energy on because its not worth it.

I used to spend a LOT of time online fighting with antivaxxers, for example, in various parenting forums and under articles about vaccines. But after a while it got so draining and depressing it started to affect my mood and I realized my mental health should not suffer because of others stupidity. Especially because this group is a minority (albeit a loud and vocal minority) and that my efforts made very little difference in changing anyones mind. And in any case, I found the best way to use my influence is to come from a place of empathy and understanding, and sharing my own worries and anxieties about my kids health and wellbeing with people I know instead of strangers on the internet.

However, I always seem to find a new thing to want to fight. Right now that is people who are pursuing medicine who shouldn't be. For example, I came across the Instagram profile of a Canadian guy doing med school in Poland but calling himself "Doctor" and his profile linked to a website of his where it seemed like the articles (all written by him) were written by a real MD. And not only is he not an MD yet, he also doesn't seem likely to ever be a practising physician as he hasn't applied to any post-grad training programs in Canada or anywhere even though he says he's in the 6th (and final) year of school. I even reached out to him under the guise of asking for advice on getting a residency in Canada and he told me he hasn't done anything yet - hasn't even taken the licensing exam! And whats worse is that stuff he was posting wasn't even medically sound. He is a vegan and basically pushes veganism as the cure-all for all health conditions and shares faulty information about animal products and how bad they are for health. For the record, I have nothing against vegans and I think that there is a lot to be said about the benefits of a plant-based or largely plant based diet. But thats not what he was saying. Anyway, it all pissed me off so much that I contacted his university (not mine, thank God) and informed them that they have a student pretending to be a doctor and giving non-evidenced based advice out online. I didn't hear back from them though.

Another thing is how many people I see pursing medicine in my program who I really don't think should be and fighting the urge to talk them out of it. People who are repeating courses and still doing badly, clearly having no or little understanding of basic topics. Even people who are scraping through (often cheating). I worry about them but honestly worry more about their future patients. The problem is that I even LIKE some of these people and think they are nice, fun, interesting people. I just don't think they are suited to medicine.

I was kind of ranting to my husband about it the other day and he was like "why do you care? Just focus on yourself" and I know he is right. But man, it's hard when you see a train wreck about to happen and know there is little you can do to stop it.

Compared to this time last year, this month has been a breeze.

I have one exam, an important one because its a final exam and its a graded class, so not pass fail (cytophysiology).

But I've had a decent amount of time to study. Its the first time I've had the kind of time to study the way I'd always wanted to. Slowly, bit at a time. Of course, now I'm three days out and a bit behind of where I'd hoped to be at this time but thats ok. A friend of mine made some excellent flash cards for Anki (best thing ever for any student - check it out) and I'm going to focus on them when I get to the point of, ok now "its time" to review what I've learned.

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A friend of mine from high school who is also a graduate of my medical school (however from the Polish division) is now a successful OB-GYN and Instagram celebrity (and an amazing business woman - she has developed a whole brand around pregnancy, postpartum and infant care products). She has over 400K followers on Instagram and recently made news headlines because she raised over 1.2 million zloty for this amazing charity that raises funds for equipment for children's hospitals. If you speak Polish, check out her instagram @mamaginekolog.

Anyway, she recently ran a contest to promote awareness for cervical cancer, in honour of Cervical Cancer Awareness Week here in Europe. It was the "pink lips challenge" and she challenged us to post a selfie with pink lips and spread the word. I love this kind of stuff - I'll even admit that its social media posts that reminded me to get my most recent Pap smear, so I wanted to pay it forward. She also said she'd choose her favourites and showcase them, and she chose mine! I was flattered and she also posted about how I'm her friend from HS and that I'm doing med school after having 3 kids.

Doing so suddenly brought a flood of people liking my Instagram profile and women contacting me about pursuing medicine later in life and after having kids. Its been so nice to tell people, YES, DO IT! So many of them are even way younger than I am and thought they were too old.

I hope I've inspired at least one to go for it.

But it has also made me wonder if I should maybe tailor my Instagram a bit more to show the life of being a mom and med student? And should I focus on just my life or should I add an educational component to it?

My sister really wants me to make an Instagram account or use my current one to dispel all "Wellness" myths out there. We talked about how one of the biggest problems with the medical and science communities is that they are so uncool and often, cold (ironically, ha!). She said she's not surprised that people are leaning towards woo and pseudoscience because it sounds so much more interesting than the boring stuff that doctors and scientists say.

I personally love the science and find it fascinating but I see what she means. People want to hear that celery juice has magical properties, that eating organic will prevent cancer, that taking turmeric supplements will cure arthritis AND depression. Even if there isn't a shred of evidence to support this or the "evidence" is based on incredibly weak studies or just based on personal anecdotes, people love it. She says that there is this element of hope in it that people are drawn to and many turn to it when medical doctors don't offer solutions and don't even seem to care.

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Which sadly brings me to my next thought. And that is how many people there are out there that just shouldn't be doctors. Unfortunately, being in medical school, it's made this realization bigger. A HUGE chunk of the people in my program shouldn't be there. Some are smart but doing medicine for the wrong reasons, but most who shouldn't be there (and are doing it for the wrong reasons or don't even know why they are doing it) are just plain stupid and it's terrifying to me that they will one day be responsible for people's lives.

I'd also love to think that it's just this program, as the relatively easier admissions process attracts many who just couldn't get in anywhere else. I mean, I'm one of them! Hopefully though I'm not one of those people who are totally in denial about their abilities as a future physician. The frustrating thing is that I really believe its a great program if people follow it properly and didn't try to cheat so much or just learn to the test - but actually learn so they can use this information to treat their future patients. But many don't see beyond scraping by and passing. However from what I read in other blogs and on med school forums all over the world, it's not that dissimilar here. There are just too many people who become doctors who shouldn't be doctors and they are hurting the profession and are part of this distrust of medicine and science that has been trending lately. I hope to be part of the change.

All that said, though, there are some amazing students in my program that will be wonderful doctors and will do great things. They are the shining light of my program and what makes me love it and makes me completely NOT regret taking this path.

New Year, New....style?

I've been experimenting with the style of this blog and I kind of like this new style of just writing a bunch of thoughts that I have running through my head.

I'm in this group called Balance 365 Life (which is a group that literally supports just that - balance in the areas of fitness, nutrition, self care etc - its amazing and I'll definitely devote a whole post about how its impacted my life sometime soon) and one person there suggested that instead of New Years Resolutions, she will have a "word" for the year. I liked the idea a lot and have decided that my "word" is going to be Consistency. Consistency with studying, with my exercise, with blogging, with the healthy nutrition habits I've developed. I've noticed its all all easier if I just do the things consistently.

Because I studied pretty consistently before my physiology test, I did pretty well on it. I noticed how after going to the personal trainer consistently has improved my overall fitness and appearance. I find I don't feel the pressure to do this huge update on my blog and wonder what to write about if I just jot down my thoughts consistently.

Now, consistently doesn't necessarily mean intensely. In fact, consistency trumps intensity every time. Going to the gym once a week, every week for 4 months is much more effective than going to the gym 5 days in a row once and not at all the next 3 months, for example. Studying everyday for a couple hours is more effective than cramming everything the night before a test (lol, kind of like I am doing now for a biochemistry test I didn't realize we are having tomorrow).

That said I do have some goals for the new year. I want to spend less time on social media, so have decided to focus on reading more to crowd out my social media use. That and I've finally decided to just put the screen time limits that the iPhone has to use. I also have some goals to do as well as possible on my graded courses. My first big course that I will be tested on is cytophysiology, the final of which is on February 1st. I have started studying - and planned on getting a couple hours in today until I found out we have a less important but still important biochem test. But its ok. Hopefully I'll be able to make up some of the time tomorrow.

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While I was in Canada, I emailed two IMGs who were successful in getting residency positions back in Canada, at the very program I want to get into. Neither of them have emailed me back yet even though it's been over a week.  I didn't contact them blindly, my friend's friend (who is a Canadian med grad and who put me in touch with the IMGs) had asked them if I could and they both said yes and gave her their email addresses to pass on to me. So I'm wondering why they haven't even acknowledged the email. I hope they are just busy or maybe don't check their email that frequently (though I don't know how anyone can NOT check their email frequently - I check mine several times a day).  I'm starting to wonder if/when I should send a follow up email? I'm not in a crazy rush but I do want to know what they did and start planning.

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I had an interesting chat with a friend about my involvement in the student government at the med school. She's not a med student but she did tell me that she thinks I should just not be involved and focus on my own thing. That the systems in Europe are so slow to change that it's not worth the frustration. It made me think...I had been wondering about how to get involved next year but I think that my goals of getting a Canadian residency and the work involved with that should trump something that may not help me much in the long run.

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I finally got around to reading Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann. It was awesome and I will have to post a book review soon. Highly recommend.

Reading etc

I love to read and one thing that a lot of people told me when I got accepted into medical school was that I wouldn't have time to read. Not me. I find the time. Mostly because I just love to do it, so I find the time. I love to read all sorts of things - in fact, I need to up date my "Doctor Reading List" for medical/science-y books I've read in the past while - and have a stack of books that I want to read this year. I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions but I do believe in having goals for the year and mine is to read more and use my phone less. I waste waayyyy too much time mindlessly scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. I really need to limit that. So my goal is to read all the books on my nightstand and then some and I think a good place to start would be during the evening before I get ready for bed. I do read often before bed, but I'd like that to be the dominant habit.

Today I was browsing an Indigo book store in my hometown and came across this book called Secrets from the Eating Lab by Dr. Traci Mann. that I've been meaning to buy for ages and it was on sale. I'm excited to read it.

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I'm currently studying for a physiology test that I have this week. I was supposed to have it tomorrow (Monday) but our flight back to Warsaw was cancelled and rescheduled for Tuesday night. Luckily my teachers were understanding and said I can write it on Thursday. Took a bit of pressure off as I hadn't been able to study as much for it as I had wanted to. Still might go to my dad's office on Wednesday after I get the kids settled so I don't have to wake up at the crack on dawn on Thursday to make it for the test. Not looking forward to the jet-lag though.


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Overall we had such a great trip back home for Christmas. Makes me more and more convinced that coming back home to Canada would be the best for my family. I've been lucky because my best friend from childhood is good friends with a doctor who did the family medicine residency at the hospital that I want to do it in. And she put me in touch with the two IMGs that she did the program with. Hopefully they get back to me and give me some good advice! Even if they just share what they did to be successful would be great for me.

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In less than a month, I'll be half way through 2nd year! Its really flying by...