A river Cuts through a rock, not becaus of its power but because of its persistence
-Jim Watkins-
Learning has been an integral part of my life and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
Over the last couple of years, I have had to confront a wide variety of courses with their similarities, peculiarities and differences.
Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pathology, Pharmacology, Paediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Community Medicine, Medicine and Surgery.
Tell us about the one thing that was easy for you to learn.
Of all these courses, Anatomy came so easy to me.
It was so easy that I began to tutor my colleagues in anatomy. Now anatomy is the study of the structures in the human body. It was very easy for me because there was an atlas which always gave pictorial representation of the structures making it easy for visual memory.
Apart from the atlas, we dissect cadavers weekly and visualise in person all what was learnt in class and from studies.
tell us about the one thing that was really difficult for you to learn
On the other hand, I found Biochemistry quite challenging. Biochemistry is the study of the chemical composition of the body as well as the various processes they undergo.
There were a lot of hormones, enzymes, nutrients, etc.
When you read about something like an enzyme, hormone, etc you have to imagine or memorize the pathway as there was really no way to actually have a mental picture. There were some animations to help but they never could replicate the value of the atlas to anatomy. Likewise, the biochemistry practicals was not as effective as the dissections for my style of learning.
This meant that while I was doing excellently well in anatomy, I was struggling in biochemistry. This necessitated some introspection to decipher a way to navigate the difficult situation because at the same time, I was studying physiology and it was not as easy as anatomy for me and not as hard as biochemistry.
How did you later learn it?
I confided in my sister, who was ahead of me in medical school and she advised me to give more time to biochemistry and also scheduled a good number of tutorial sessions where she taught me some pathways and revised relevant scenarios with me.
This ensured that my understanding of biochemistry improved and so did my confidence. Before long, I was able to teach some aspects of biochemistry to my colleagues too but my proficiency in anatomy was always more outstanding.
Some days before an anatomy exam, you would definitely see me revising either biochemistry or physiology. I would only begin to revise anatomy the night before the exam. This was because I was so confident that regardless of the area a question is asked I would do well.
Surprisingly or unsurprisingly depending on your perspective, I would always end up doing better in my anatomy results than in both physiology and biochemistry despite doing less revision for anatomy.
Several years later, I am still called upon to teach younger medical students anatomy just before their exams, even on short notice but I never venture into teaching biochemistry because it would require extensive revision on my part before I would be able to teach it.
Teaching the younger students anatomy
My love for anatomy has found a greater use as I am currently doing my surgery rotations and I easily understand everything being done, sometimes even anticipating accurately.
This has also made me pick an interest in surgery, and I may end up as one. Whether or not this actualizes depends on a multitude of factors and the journey is just starting.
By comparing the two instances, what did they tell you about yourself?
I realised that I understand better with visual stimulation and practicalization, because anatomy had more room for this unlike biochemistry where a lot of memorization is required, sometimes even without understanding and I am heavily reliant on my understanding of concepts to make progress.
In addition, I also got to know that with dedication, I would be able to surmount any obstacle and henceforth, no matter how difficult a course appears to be me, I am reat assured that with the right amount of dedication and persistence, I would dismantle it.
This has become a guiding principle which helped me in some of the other courses I listed and made sure that I didn't even find them difficult.
All images used are mine except otherwise stated.