Inception Into First Year

The 2nd years made a video for the 1st years...

Inception Into First Year: A Bohemian Rhapsody Parody about Med School

A few things to keep in mind so that the video is more comical: a Foley Catheter is a catheter that goes into your urethra so that you can go to bathroom when you are unconscious. Donna is in charge of Student Affairs. The tall guy actually went to our high school. And yes, one of the guys sang the whole thing.

Enjoy! :)

Preparing for med school

I found a blog from a previous med student who suggested taking apart all of their books and 3 hole punching the pages into 3 inch binders. This is convenient so that you do not have to take all of your books everyday to class. Simply take out the appropriate chapters for each book, place them in a "travel binder" and you are good to go with a lighter backpack. Check out her website for some other tips: Medicine From the Trenches.

Picking them up from the print shop

Placing them in the binders.

All of the textbooks transferred into binders.

Things I had to buy to prepare for med school...

- White Coat ($35)
- 2 lab coats ($35 each)
- $900 in books (only the required booklist for first year)
- a $1500 laptop - highly suggested by all medical schools; on campus IT support available for this computer; students take their exams with this laptop; to prepare students for what current doctors are using
- disection kit ($30)
- stethescope ($150)
- $200 worth of shots (and counting)

*Keep in mind you have to buy all of these BEFORE your student loans arrive.

White Coat Ceremony

3,500 applicants, 700 were interviewed, and 200 were accepted

Today was the BIG day!! The first day of med school - The White Coat Ceremony, where each StuDoc receives their first white coat. The length of the coat is shorter, as it represents the status of the Doctor (when he graduates he will receive a longer white coat for residency). We headed to College Station early this morning, met up with his family, and watched this StuDoc walk across the stage! I am so proud! We have grown up together and it was a blessing to see God bring him to where he is today. As we were driving through east Texas we were reminiscing on when we were 18 taking the same route to watch him play football. Who would have thought then that we would be making this drive now? And who knows what life will be like and what blessings we will have when we return in 4 years for his graduation!??

I stayed up late the night before making my husband's favorite dessert and decorating our home to continue the celebration! His family wasn't able to attend, so it ended up just being the two of us. Which was fine and made for a relaxing evening.

I also gave him a gift basket filled with goodies and back to school stuff. It is so hard to plan a surprise for someone you live with! I bought him a new journal, planner, notebooks, binders and a few other things that I ended up having to take back because he came home one day with all this stuff himself. Let's just say "I know him well." The finished basket did have: folders, paper, coffee, tumbler, pens, water bottle, aTm cup, sticky notes, mini hand sanitizer and kleenexes, a sleep mask (for naps during the day), candy, gum, and a few other things I'm forgetting. I also got him a gift certificate for a massage and got his undergrad diploma framed for his office. All my stealth moves this week (sprinting out the door whenever he left for the gym and covering our home in streamers in the middle of the night) paid off because he was definitely surprised!

The keynote speaker gave a speech about being a servant leader - Serving and leading his community. My husband was a born leader and has always found himself in leadership positions. I have no doubt that he will fulfill this role as a Doctor. Equally, he already fulfills this role in our marriage.

Servanthood does not nullify leadership; it defines it. ... Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christlike, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.

This Momentary Marriage by John Piper

I am a little bittersweet tonight. I am so happy and proud that he got here and take part in his anticipation for this particular moment. But, I am also a little sad that the time has come and from here on out, well, our lives will never be the same :)

With love,

a very proud wife!!

Expectations

One thing that we learned from our Newlywed group was the importance of setting expectations. Before we got married, our pre-marital mentors asked us to write down expectations for our marriage: finances, love language, in-laws, friends, kids, future, etc. This helped reduce future arguments since we had already resolved them before they occured. We had read another med-school family's blog about this and decided to do this again. To use an example, it was important that I (the StuDoc) tell my wife what my schedule will be like - waking up early to study and going to bed early. I know that her love language is Quality Time and that I need to let her know when I'll be making time for her.

Below are a few things we talked about:
1. Schedule/Study habits
2. Finances and being on a tight budget
3. How often family/friends visit
4. Late night study groups/studying one on one
5. Date night and quality time

Every couple is different, and therefore each expectation is different. Of course, we are now making expectations on what we "think" will be expected. We promised each other we would go over these expectations a month in and see if what needs to change, if any. For example, study habits might need to change to at night instead of morning. But knowing that she could take that negatively and feel like I'm taking away from 'our time' without telling her.

We have been warned that communication is everything and there's no time for avoidable arguments.


Protecting our marriage,
the B's

Residency Payments

Dear Future Us,

Please read these in 4 years. I'm sure they'll help.

Financial Aid - Part 1

Financial Aid - Part 2

You're welcome.

Love,

the MS1 version of yourselves

ps: Congrats on graduation hubby!

This is something we have to look forward to...

Settling In

This week we have been getting settled in to our new apartment in our small town. I have to say we've been dragging our feet on this one. I think it's because after a second move in one month we aren't as motivated to decorate as before (or we just don't have any energy left). We were worried about putting a house's worth of belongings back into an apartment, but everything seems to be finding its place.

We were both worried about living in a small town after living in Austin. It has it's ups and downs but we are finding little things to do. It does have a mall (not a good one) and a movie theatre. We discovered Lake Belton yesterday and took Boss. We really enjoyed that.

The only time I think to myself "Oh my gosh, I'm living in a small town!" is when we are trying to decide where to eat out and we realize our limited choices. Also, in a packet he received from the school was a list of advise from previous med students. One's advise was "BJ's has a great happy hour." BJ's is like a Chili's, but a little more upscale. That was another "Oh my gosh, we're living in a small town!!" Another downfall, is the job search. I haven't heard good things from other spouses and haven't had much luck so far. I will definitely be having to open my search.

We find ourselves riding in the car making jokes with heavy Texas accents... "Busier than a one-eyed cat watchin two mouse holes." The funny thing is we've been making jokes so much that sometimes the heavy accent comes out when we aren't making jokes... Ooops! I wouldn't be surprised if we "tawked" funny when we left this place.

Because we decided to attend A&M last minute, we've been playing catch up this past week. We weren't able to attend Welcome Meetings and Pre-Orientation days to get our feet wet on what to expect. To my surprise there were a few things that were different from school to school... medical insurance for students (TCOM was covered by the tuition and TAMUHSC you have to seek out on your own and show proof of), ordering laptops, books, and equipment, schedules, and so forth. It's do-able to play catch up but a little pain doing it last minute. With all these Type-A student doctors running around, I'm sure their staff has their work cut out for them.

This past week we also attended a good friend of ours' wedding out in Marble Falls. It was a good weekend away from the week of chaos we are currently living and was a great time to visit with old football friends.

For July 4th, we were brave and went to a party hosted by 2 ER Drs at their lakehouse with other students and residents through a local church. We didn't know a soul but knew it was something we could only benefit from. We had a lot of fun meeting everyone and they were all kind and very welcoming. Most of them were in their residencies. We walk in and the room was filled with 5 month old babies! Someone mentioned that all of their babies were due around the same 6 weeks. Pregnancy pact?? Most of the couples were both doctors. I cannot imagine being a resident, as well as my husband, being pregnant, giving birth, and having a new born to take care of. They all looked so tired! haha. I think we will be taking on a few babysitting jobs soon. One piece of advise I received from a spouse about our new small town was it really is the people (and no traffic) that makes the town great. Being there and meeting all of them really did make that true.

Small town's aren't that bad,
B