You know you're a med student when..

1. You've become a hypochondriac.
Seriously? After hearing all those professors talk about whatever crazy, infectious, parasitic something, you'll start dragging dettol with you whenever you can. And those people leaving their used napkins all over the place? Ew!

2. You wash your hands upon entering AND leaving a room. Any room.
Washing our hands becomes part of our professional behavior. Can't have those nasty MRSA bacteria spreading around, can we?

3. You see an extremely tanned person, and think "Skin cancer.. I see skin cancer everywhere..!"

4. You see a smoker and think "Small-cell lung carcinoma everywhere..! PS. Stay away from me. I don't want lung cancer :("

5. You start having dreams about medical school and your classmates.

6. You start having dreams about your crush from medical school.

7. People ask you about their suspicious cough/discoloration/symptom when they find out you're in med school.

8. You manage to win a candy bar from your teaching assistant for finding a hard-to-find structure in gross anatomy lab.
True story. My TA dared us to find some occult structure, which was very hard to locate, let alone bring it into plain view. The reward? A twix candy bar.

9. Non-med people start looking at you like you're crazy when you start explaining things.
It's probably because you started using some gazillion-letter, German-sounding words. Either that, or you used Latin/Greek.

10. You always have to ask "which left/right?" when someone tells you to look left/right.
We're taught to look at things from the patient's perspective. So the liver is on the right side of the patient, but if you're looking at your patient from the front, it will be on your left side.

11. Your martial arts instructors always look to you for guidance when they're describing the weaknesses of the human body.

12. Your friends start calling you 'Doctor' even before you've got the MD.

13. You're satisfied with a pass.

14. You're extremely satisfied with 80% (or whatever grade which nets you honours. Honours = easier acceptance into residency!)

15. You can tell your family doctor that your liver is very hard to palpate, because the TAs and your classmates tried to do so during peer physical exam.

16. You start thinking 'liver failure' when someone mentions acetaminophen/paracetamol.

17. You diagnose a patient in 'House M.D.' before House does.
Double points when you were right.

18. You name your pets after a medical term.
Maybe I'll call my guinea pig (genus name: Cavia) 'Vena Cavia' for fun.

19. You've had people stare at you like you're a maniac, only because you've had your carotid arteries, jugular veins, trachea, thyroid gland and claviculae drawn on your skin.

20. You can explain to someone in great detail what tumor suppressor genes such as Rb and TGF-beta do, yet you still don't know a thing about why someone's knee hurts.

21. Your 'normal' friends tell you to stop talking about meds, because it's become the only thing you can talk of.

22. You can spend your day at the hospital without people asking "What happened?! Were you hurt?!"

23. You dislike breasts because they're so damn annoying to deal with during physical examination!

24. You like having breasts because you can practice palpation and percussion on yourself.

25. You play with medical gloves whenever your TAs/professors aren't watching you.
This includes blowing them up like a balloon, or slapping people with them.

To be continued..
I'm open for suggestions!

I PASSED!

The unthinkable has happened!
I passed 1.2 - Metabolic Disorders! I passed biochem!
It was a lousy 70%, but I'm still eligible for cum laudes!
I'm so happy!

Also, I'm sorry for my month-long absence. After my biochem exams, I just had to take advantage of the winter break, and ever since classes started again, I've been really busy with Radiology, Gross Anatomy and Physical Examination.
All three are quite nice. I scored a 100% on a Radiology bonus point test already, so I'm quite certain that I'll be alright for the final exam. Gross anatomy labs are awesome, but they'll start to wear you down after 7 days or so. But they're very useful.
Physical examination (PE) was quite awesome as well. We didn't really go at it like real doctors - it seemed like they were giving us a chance to get used to the fact that your classmates would look and touch your nearly-bare body.
We sought for some superficial structures and marked them on our dummies' bodies where we thought them to be. After that, we were allowed to check on some structures of the neck using ultrasound.
I'm bound by the Hippocratic Oath to not divulge information about what we found or about what happened during PE, so I won't be able to tell you anything about that. Anyone who breaks the oath through gossiping about what he/she found in another student/simulation patient during PE practice must leave medical school.
But I'll assure you that, although I did feel slightly exposed, I had a safe feeling to go with it, although that may come from my background in some contact-heavy sports. I've mock-wrestled people of all sizes and genders, so some physical contact isn't all that unusual to me. I can assume that this might be different to other students, especially females with a background story or with certain religious beliefs. But my school has tried to make PE practices as safe and comfortable as possible, and I could certainly see that.