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| Tammy Hsu, MS3 |
In regards to the title, when I say “box,” I’m using it to describe the standard, well-packaged 4 years of conventional medical school: two years of classroom learning, one crazy clinical year, and then a final year of a la carte choices consisting of ICU rotations and whatnot. When I chose to come to Duke for medical school, I knew that the curriculum was different: only one year of classroom learning, then jumping straight into the clinical year, then a whole year devoted to research, then the usual last year. I thought, “Great, I learn better from patients than from books, anyway,” and gave little thought to the research year beyond the fact that it was cool I would get to do research with a clinician’s point of view. It wasn’t until I was actually in my MS3 year — now — that I understand just how valuable and amazing our third year can be.
For me, right after my Medicine clerkship ended, I jumped straight into research on August 22nd. I’m currently working on a translational research project that involves the Duke Ophthalmology department as well as the Duke Biomedical Engineering department. As part of the project, I have actually learned to perform (and performed successfully!) vitrectomies and subretinal injections on pig eyes in a wet lab with a real operating microscope and real surgical tools. As part of another research project I’m working on, I had the opportunity to visit the Miracles in Sight eye bank in Winston-Salem, NC, to learn how cornea tissue is donated, retrieved, processed, and delivered to the recipients to restore vision. This field trip in the middle of the work week not only helped me understand the research project, but gave me a greater appreciation for the bigger picture that surrounds a doctor’s daily work and OR cases. Plus, on the drive back from Winston-Salem to Durham, I also got to appreciate the best donuts I’ve ever had as well as mouth-watering, authentic Jamaican curry chicken.
DukeMed’s third year is also uniquely situated in an interesting crossroads of our medical career. It’s right after the crazy, busy rush of our clinical year in which we work on a schedule that someone else dictates for us, with constant pressure to achieve subjective perfection (also known as “Honors” in the medical student lingo) in the eyes of the residents and attendings who are grading us every single day. In our second year, despite our own internal goals to become the best doctor we can be, we are also constantly striving to be the best doctor that other people think we should be. In our third year, there’s a 180 degree shift — now, we are all striving to be the best doctor and best person we want to be. For the most part, I am dictating my own daily schedule; I am deciding what to do with my time to achieve the goals I’ve set for myself this year, and deciding what is most important to me. During my second year, I would make a list of things I wish I had time for; this year, I’ve identified the top things from that list, and made sure to set aside time for trying out new restaurants (finally, Yelp Elite!), learning Krav Maga and Medical Chinese, volunteering with Fremont Clinic, and traveling and spending time with people who are important to me.
This year has been such a blessing so far, and I am so grateful to have the chance to use it to help shape my own ideal of the doctor and person that I want to be throughout this lifelong journey in medicine.
