One Block Down, Three to Go!

Kelly Buchanan, MS1

The first year med students just finished our first block of first year pre-clinical courses!! Granted, the first block (Molecules, Cells and Tissues) was only 6 weeks of our nearly 40 weeks in class this year, but of course, many of us used our successful completion of MCT as a reason to get out of town.  Some of my classmates went to Asheville, NC, some traveled to Washington D.C., and a group of us went to Topsail Island for a beach weekend. It was amazing. I am from Chicago, and driving 2.5 hours southeast from Chicago would put me in the middle Indiana’s cornfields. So, I was pretty amazed that driving 2.5 hours southeast of Durham landed us on the Carolina beaches.  The weather was perfect, and the company was even better. We drove down Saturday morning after a fun mixer on Friday night with the MS1s from UNC Med. We spent all day at the beach, rented out a house for the night, and returned to the beach Sunday morning for one last dose of Vitamin D before driving home. After 6 weeks of classes, it was an appreciated vacation. 

Photo credit: Jania Arcia Ramos and Sruti Pisharody

It was an awesome weekend with some of my amazing classmates, and I honestly cannot believe that I just started medical school and met these people a little over 2 months ago. Adjusting to med school could have been difficult, but having a school full of people who are genuinely excited to learn, eager to help others succeed, and always willing to explore Durham and the surrounding areas has made the transition easy. After an awesome weekend of swimming in the ocean and staying in the sun for way to long, we started our second block, Normal Body, on Monday. As fate would have it, in the first lecture, we learned about skin...and about the harmful effects UV rays can have on the skin if you don’t wear enough sunscreen.