Clinical goodness

So... Just two weeks and we're in the clinical setting. It's a nursing home but it's such a great break after sitting in a classroom for hours upon hours each week. Not that I don't love learning about drug metabolism for the third time in one week, but the break is nice.

My group is at a very rural nursing home in the middle of a cornfield. It's run by Mennonites, which I mistakenly believed are Amish-like. I do know they make a mean strawberry pie by the annual Mennonite strawberry pie festival. Anyway, it's a really interesting place.

All the students get a frail elder and a well elder for this clinical rotation. My frail elder is dying. I am not at all joking about this. She's dying and will likely die during my rotation. While I find this very sad, but I also think it might be a great opportunity for both me and this patient to enter the dying process together. Truth be told, it will probably definitely be a better opportunity for me than for her, but I hope we both benefit from it.

My well elder is a very gossipy old guy who pretty much lives in his own filth. I'm approaching this as my "light" assignment and not getting too creeped out by the old-man smell.

Another benefit of clinical is my carpool group. They are a group of very ambitious young women who I like very much. They are so cute and driven and smart. And... they asked me to come study with them. We're meeting to study for a test Monday night. I finally feel the emergence of the college student I always knew I could be, instead of the one that was too hung over to come to class so many years ago. I'm super excited.