The first day of.. Medical School.

So today was the day.
The official start of medical school. My official start on the tracks to becoming a doctor and fulfilling my childhood dreams.
It was about 8.30AM when I got to the teaching hospital. Students were waggling around, some with the notion that nothing was out of the ordinary, whereas others were eyeing their surroundings with cute googly eyes.
The beginning of med school is a very exciting thing, after all..
8.45AM was when the academic year 2013-2014 officially began. The dean, the professors and many other people came to lecture hall 1 at the AMC to welcome us to a beautiful educational programme. To a life of helping others in the exact way many of us wanted.
Hearing the words of welcome must have made many a student relax.

I can still remember the welcome speech in Health & Life Sciences last year. Different professors welcomed us to an extraordinary study (The bachelor programme Health & Life Sciences is taught at only one institution in the Netherlands).
The words of welcome lasted maybe 15 to 20 minutes, but now, at the teaching hospital of Amsterdam, they lasted for a good solid hour. Guess getting accepted into one of the few med schools does call for extra long words of welcome (nationwide 9000+ applications, only 2600 or so were accepted).
Of course, Health & Life Sciences wasn't as 'exclusive' as med school is. Everyone also had to congratulate us on getting into med school, something which wasn't necessary for Health & Life Sciences.

After all that, we started with clinical lectures. We had a patient+family over who would tell us his story, aided by the professor.
I'd thought it'd feel weird, to finally be sitting in the lecture hall at the teaching hospital. Y'know, to be finally a part of the medical world. But it was surprisingly 'normal' for me. Don't get me wrong, not many people get to study medicines, and I'm definitely happy and grateful for the opportunity life's handed me.

With clinical lecture done, we moved on to anatomy. In the USA, anatomy seems to be among the most feared subjects of the first semesters. Probably for good reason.
I'm so glad it was only a refresher lecture for me. :)

Despite the fact that the average medical school student is a little older than university students in other programmes (20+yo vs 18yo), we're definitely not that mature. Yet.
The poor professor had a little cough, and where the class didn't start with a cough, we definitely ended with a 'cough'. My fellow students just had to mimic the cough.

All in all, the first day of med school was very nice. Not too hard, but not too easy either. It was just right. I love med school!