The Beginning

I know what you're thinking. Does the world need another blog about medical school? Have we not already exhausted the finite number of ways to describe the endless studying, the mindless scut-work, the boundless financial debt? Will my material be as repetitive and lackluster as the examples I just provided? Probably. As a traditional applicant, the journey through undergraduate, medical school, residency, and beyond follows a well-traveled path. A somewhat rocky and winding path, but highly traversed nonetheless. It is not my intention to revolutionize this journey. But I do hope to add my insight and experiences to the burgeoning collection, partially for myself, to reflect upon and organize my thoughts and beliefs, and for other students, to help them develop and navigate through their own adventures.

I am not the first to use a medical acronym in the title of my blog (not even the first to use this acronym). But I believe it accurately summarizes what I hope to accomplish. The SOAP note is a quick way to describe the management of an individual patient. Its constituent parts are Subjective (anything the patient reports), Objective (anything the physician can report), Assessment, and Plan. And so I plan (I'll hit each one, don't you worry) to populate this blog with my own musings and anecdotes on matters that are relevant to myself, other students, no one in particular, or no one at all. Whether they are experiences with people or the idiosyncrasies of medical education, I hope to infuse humor when appropriate (and a little bit less humor when wholly inappropriate) to make each story enjoyable, or at a very minimum, tolerable. Periodically, I also plan on including interesting scientific information or facts pertaining to the study of medicine, from pre-medical to post-graduate. And because I hail from a behaviorist research lab, I will sneak tidbits of behaviorism and psychology when I can. Humor will accompany these facts and theories, although it will be of the dry variety and quite possibly not funny to anyone other than myself and those who assume Fargo is a comedy. Now the assessment is trickier. It will tend to show up when I am trying to make a point or provide a moral to a story.

And so we come back to plan. As I await the beginning of medical school, my plan is to provide a review of the application process, as well as spend some time recounting a few of my more substantial pre-medical experiences. Once August rolls around, all bets are off.

-Liam



Note: In the event it appears this blog appears abandoned, enjoy the content I managed to provide.

Note: In the event the blog is abandoned because I was murdered under suspicious circumstances, I can assure you there is no hidden message present. Also, please enjoy the content I managed to provide.