The first semester has finally ended. All of us have survived and made it through. Our reward was a week and a half off of worry-free vacation. To say that we needed this is the understatement of this still fairly young year. I learned from my spring break earlier in the year that I needed to take more time for myself and give myself more time to just relax. I still kept very busy at first. I immediately went back to my home town after my last final exam to see my friends and family. I took care of some adulting right away and visited my family, then went to the west side of the state to visit my girlfriend (shoutout to Kayla), then back to the east side to have dinner with my extended family (and my 105 year old great aunt). One last stop in Pittsburgh (which is an awesome city, by the way) for a concert, then I was back in Morgantown for about 4 or 5 days to relax. I planned on exploring the city and do some hiking, but it rained almost the whole time. I was able to get a drink with a classmate and hit 9 holes of golf at least. I was very happy with my break, but to be honest, I was ready to get back into it, before I got too used to being lazy.
Before we knew it, we were back to class, which brings us to the present. Summer semester started about 3 weeks ago. This semester moves at a really fast pace, because there is a lot of information to go through in a short amount of time. This year, summer classes are different than in prior years' past. We have two classes: Systemic Pathology (a whopping 8 credits), and Clinical Pathology (2 credits). The difference between last year and this year, is that the Systemic Pathology class is now 4 hours long, starting at 8 am to 12 pm Monday-Friday, instead of 2 hours a day. This allows us to have time for lab activities if needed, and for us to do in-class activities. It's not as daunting as it sounds, though, as a lot of times, we don't go the whole 4 hours. On Tuesdays, we have our Clinical pathology class from 1-3 pm.
Systemic pathology is a continuation of the first semester pathology class. Grossing specimens are thrown into the mix, along with getting familiar with how CAP works (a standardization of how pathologists fill out the information needed in order to give a diagnosis). There is some heavy reading in this class, there can be a pop quiz any day, and exams are roughly every 2 weeks. We also have a microscope project due before each exam which involves us taking pictures of slides with the built-in camera. So some nights can be really rough. But on the bright side, we usually get out by 12 o'clock every day, so we have sufficient time to get this done. The Clinical pathology class is basically a med-tech training course. So far our weekly topics have been an intro, blood typing, imaging, and urinalysis and bodily fluids. There is sometimes a quiz at the beginning of class, and there are only 2 regular exams and a final exam, so they are worth a lot. The margin of error is small for this class. Even though these classes do take up a lot of time, I personally find myself having more time for myself than I did in the spring semester. I don't feel guilty for not studying on Friday or Saturday nights and I am enjoying my time here.
On top of classes, we have additional gross room rotations and autopsy rotations. My autopsy rotation was really exciting to me. We had the opportunity to perform an autopsy on someone that gifted us their body through the human gift registry. Groups of four rotate on days that there is an autopsy, and we got to be "hands on" with the autopsy that was performed. I found it fascinating and a can't wait to do this more in the future. We also have a blood banking rotation. I have not had mine yet, so I don't have any information on this, except that it starts at 6 in the morning...at least it's only once.
The summer here in Morgantown is actually pretty awesome. There is NOBODY here. It feels like we have the whole campus to ourselves. There are no lines at the bars downtown, way less traffic in the stores, and the gym is almost empty. The weather here has been really nice most days, and I've taken advantage of that to golf and go on hikes. I've been going to a local waterfall and I usually have the whole area to myself. Last time I went there, I was about to walk around in the water, until I found 3 pretty good sized snakes swimming around there. It was pretty exciting. A lot of my classmates have been doing community service in the form of "Habitat for Humanity" and other charitable organizations. There was a ceremony that I went to that was held for the families of the cadavers that our school has been using to learn. A lot of families showed up, and it was really nice that our school put this on as a "thank you." Memorial day weekend was really great, too. My girlfriend and her friend visited me and we went to Cooper's rock (everyone has to go here at least once), hiking, and explored downtown Pittsburgh. I am really enjoying this area now that the weather has cleared up, for I am seeing what it really has to offer now. I hope the summer continues this way.
