Hello my friends, for those who read my blog regularly, you will know that I have just ended my final M1 exams 
which also brings my first year in LKC to close. I have thus decided to just write about my experiences in the past year and reflect on what I have learnt and how I have settled in to a new way of life as a medical student. This blog post is totally unscripted and it’s just me writing from my heart 
and whatever that comes to mind 
.
My medical school journey started off somewhere in July, with LKC’s Freshmen Orientation which was held online over Zoom 
due to COVID-19. Whilst the experience was a far cry from what I would have expected from a physical Freshmen Orientation Programme (FOP), I still had fun and can tell that my seniors really put in a lot of effort to make the FOP as engaging and enjoyable as possible. Making friends online is tough and Zoom fatigue is real but I guess that’s the best we can expect in a world where COVID-19 exists 
.
White Coat Ceremony was pretty meh and my spirits were kinda dampened seeing as though my parents couldn’t attend the ceremony due to COVID restrictions 
. We were all split into our individual houses and assigned a specific location where we are confined to for the duration of the ceremony. Whilst I enjoyed interacting and taking photos with my fellow house mates, I really wanted a formal white coat photo with my parents who have supported me throughout my journey so far. I am so thankful for my parents’ support and I know that in the coming years, when times get rough, I can continue to count on them to be there for me.
I am also thankful for a really chill house tutor and house fam HAHA. People are genuinely nice and amazing (both in terms of academics and extracurricular pursuits). I high key think I’m one of the most ordinary amongst the bunch of extraordinary people in my batch (hence the blog name).
After the inital formalities and introductory talks, it was time to get started on medical school proper. My first TBL was on 13th August 2020 and being a physics student back in JC, I prepping for this TBL and the subsequent few was a struggle 
. Bio students definitely have a slight edge when it comes to the first block in M1 – Foundations of Medicine (FOM). I spent quite a while getting the hang of concepts taught in FOM and in particular I remember having quite some difficulty with Immunology 
. I was initially overwhelmed with the number of different WBCs and the ways in which they perform their different functions. Frankly, the biggest challenge was teaching myself how to retain information and store them in my long term memory. I don’t know how best to put this but as a physics student, I feel that our minds are not wired 
to memorise things as well as bio students. Hence, for the duration of FOM, I was constantly experimenting with different techniques to help myself retain 
information better. I tried making my own notes and using Notion toggles but eventually ended up settling for ANKI flashcards 
. Additionally, I was also figuring out a routine that I can keep to seeing as my schedule is different every single week. Despite not having a fixed schedule in Medicine, I guess one thing I am thankful for is not having to worry about bidding for modules and knowing when to take which module so as to give myself the most advantage. This nicely ties in with my next point – the medical student bubble. Medicine is a really different course when compared to all other university courses out there, and I don’t say this to make myself or medical students sound special. In contrast, sometimes when I talk to my fellow JC classmates about university, I often feel a bit left out 
as I have no idea what they are going through in their course. Take for instance the ability to S/U or ‘DABAO’ 
a module or planning to take more difficult modules during an exchange semester to maintain your grades. I feel as though medical students are trapped in their own bubble and though I understand the inevitability of it, especially as we go into the clinical years where we will spend most of our time in healthcare institutions rather than the university campus itself, some part of me feels that medical students are missing out on the full university experience HAHA. Or maybe it’s just the thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.
Alright, back to the topic of Medicine. The second block of M1 is Cardiorespiratory system, we call it CR for short. I really enjoyed CR and I felt it was a welcome change from FOM which was honestly quite mundane. CR also involved some degree of physics which gave me a little confidence boost coming from a bio-filled FOM. FOM is more concerned with the basics of Medicine which is no doubt important but pretty dry at the same time. CR (and every subsequent system we learnt after) involved anatomy practicals as well as many clinical cases/scenarios where we could apply what we have learnt. The most exciting part is being able to attain the correct diagnosis and possible treatment options from the clinical vignette provided to us. On the flipside, the most annoying part is seeing blobs of pink and blue under the microscope 
HAHAHA histology is really not for me…
In addition to TBLs, anatomy practicals and science practicals where we get to learn the science in Medicine, we also have other modules such as clinical communications 
, clinical skills 
as well as clinical examinations 
where we learn the art of Medicine. In clinical communications, we are given the chance to interact with simulated patients and this can be really nerve wrecking during the first few times. Nonetheless, I am glad that LKC exposes us to patient communication early on in medical school as it gives us the chance to work on this skill in a controlled and safe environment where we are not under any pressure to take a real history from a patient and make deductions about their condition. In time to come, when I enter my clinical years and have more on my plate to deal with, I hope that being able to effectively communicate with patients will have become second nature to me. After all, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the workload in Medicine and unknowingly neglect the human behind the disease; something I hope to avoid as much as possible moving forward. Clinical skills and clinical examinations are similar in that it involves practising skills that are routinely required in a clinical setting. Both modules are very hands on 
and the only differentiating factor between the 2 modules is that clinical skills does not involve a simulated patient whilst clinical examinations does. Clinical skills involves things like learning blood glucose monitoring, wound dressing, suturing and so on whilst clinical examinations requires you to physically examine a patient (e.g. in listening to patient’s heart using a stethoscope during a cardiovascular exaamination 
).
By mid-December, we concluded the CR block had a week of study leave to prepare the M1 formative exams (forms). Forms tested us on content from FOM, CR as well as some stuff from longitudinal modules – PELLS (our ethics module) and SEEM (our research module). In all honesty, forms is a ‘trial exam’ and it mostly serves as a checkpoint for us to gauge how well we have been learning for the first semester in medical school. There are no serious repercussions for failing forms and the only real exam we have in M1 is the summative exams (summs) that I just took a few weeks back. Nonetheless, I tried my best for forms as I wanted a true indication of how well I was adapting in medical school and where else I need to improve on to make life easier for me in the second semester of M1. In the end, I fared decently for forms and decided to only make some minor adjustments and tweaks to my study routine. After forms was over, we had a one week break through Christmas 
and New Year 
before the second semester started in the first week of January. Semester 2 flew by super quickly for me and amidst the busyness, I still had whole lot of fun. In particular, I experienced hospital and polyclinic week which was really interesting but I shall cover that and all of sem 2 in part 2 as this is getting a little long and I will need some more time to do my reflections for that.
Hopefully you enjoyed reading and getting to know my perspective of M1 in LKC. I shall be back for more soon, stay tuned! 
Thank you for reading. I hope I managed to provide some value or at least entertainment to you. If you enjoyed reading this post, don’t forget to leave a like and share this post with your friends. Also leave me a comment or feel free to reach out and let me know what you think, I love hearing from you guys!
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