Small Medical School Accomplishments and Celebrating Champions in Healthcare

Me and Dr. Regina Benjamin, 18th Surgeon General of the United States

Last week was definitely a good one! I received the grades back for both my OMM and SPOM practical exams, and I am happy to say that I did well on both of them. I received mostly 100’s on all my stations for OMM, with the exception of cervical muscle energy. I was so nervous that I had my patient look the wrong way for the oculocephalogyric reflex, and it brought my score down 20 points for that one station. Overall I came out with an A for the entire practical, and I do not have to remediate any parts of the exam! Remediation is required if a student makes less than an eighty percent on any station on the exam, so I am pretty happy I managed to do well. As for SPOM, we received our practical grades back early Thursday morning, and I was just so happy that I did well enough to pass the entire exam altogether with my written score included. Later that afternoon we received an e-mail saying that the breakdown of our written scores was available, and when I went to check, I was shocked to find that my score jumped up 11 points! It turns out that a few questions had more than one correct answer or they were simply thrown out, and I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of it. I finally feel like I am getting the hang of medical school, and even though the work never stops, I can finally stop stressing at least a little bit.  

Class, anatomy lab, and both lunch and dinner with the 18th Surgeon General of the United States. Friday was a very busy, but definitely good day!

Aside from grades, Friday was definitely the highlight of not only my week, but medical school so far. Dr. Regina Benjamin, the 18^th Surgeon General of the United States, came to GA-PCOM to speak to us and hold a Q&A session during lunch, and it was a wonderful experience. The GA-PCOM SNMA chapter (which I am a member of) presented her with a quilt at the end, and she even let me take a picture with her. Not only is Dr. Benjamin extremely intelligent and down-to-earth, but she also holds 23 honorary degrees, and does a lot of work to help rural and underserved communities. It was definitely an honor to be in the same room with her.

Later that evening, GA-PCOM held an inaugural Champions of Healthcare dinner that featured Dr. Benjamin as the keynote speaker. This was an amazing event that honored some of the outstanding staff, faculty, and students of GA-PCOM, and it was great to have one night of fun without studying. I also loved the fact that I got to have a chance to socialize and have drinks with both my professors and classmates alike. I thought I wouldn’t know too many people at the event since I am a first year student, but I probably knew half the people in the room! One thing that Dr. Benjamin said during her speech that evening was that the Lord takes you where you need to be, and as I looked around I couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that I really am where I need and want to be. I’m sure every medical student thinks their school is the best, but I truly believe mine wins hands down. GA-PCOM has everything I could ever want in a medical school, including diversity, a sense of community, and amazing students, faculty, and staff alike. I just feel so blessed to have been accepted into the school, and I hope that I can continue to work hard enough, so that I too can one day become a champion of healthcare.