My Focus Against All Temptations
Today I was feeling tired and was tempted to skip an optional anatomy wet lab review after my morning classes. I had had a big workout yesterday, and feeling sore all over, I was really tempted to go home and eat a big, warm meal, kick off my shoes, and crawl into bed and get that extra rest to recuperate myself. I came home and cooked some lunch, and then right before I was getting into bed, that little voice inside my head firmly said to me,
“I cannot skip any opportunities. I am here to test my endurance, and my focus against all temptations.”
I listened, and mentally woke myself up.
And I’m really glad I did… because we just had a really awesome anatomy wet lab review. Each of the 20 or so groups in our lab had picked and listed out five structures on their cadavers that they thought were unique and well-dissected. Then, for the next 2 hrs, each group rotated from table to table and worked together to identify the structures on all the bodies, working under the time pressure of five minutes on each body.
It was really good practice seeing and touching all the cadavers in the lab, since each one is dissected a little bit differently. By the end of the rotations, I felt I had a good sense of identifying all the key structures no matter what body they were from. This is very important for our future medical careers because as doctors we will be treating all sorts of people. We can no longer blame the quality of the specimen for our lack of understanding. In the end, we will still have to know the body no matter what form our patients comes in: young, old, skinny, obese, anomalous, or injured.
Today’s task was also a means to teach us what it means to work as a team under pressure of time and unfamiliarity of other groups’ bodies. By discussing and debating with each other to solve the problems presented, we all gained something from one another.
More importantly, I had just experienced a test on my own endurance and my focus against all temptations. I couldn’t imagine how much I could lose by skipping opportunities like these, or how much I could gain by taking advantage of more of them. How could I really know? But today that little voice in my head showed me. Today was not only a test of my knowledge, or my teamwork, but ultimately, a test of my drive for my one goal here at AUC: becoming a doctor.
