4. Failure, Sports, Love & Going Abroad; Medical Student Years – part 3 [Updated 2015 11]

I think it can be helpful in writing something like this, hopefully for the benefit of those coming after, to be open and honest about all aspects of one’s experience. We know there are always those who are nearer the bottom of the class - the Bell curve and all that, and some who even fail. I do not think I would be as good a mentor to those if I had never experienced something like that.

In those days the results of our exams, which in the undergraduate years were mostly multiple choice and given in December and at the end of the academic year, were posted for all to see as simply 'pass/ fail.'  To our dismay, one of my friends and I discovered that we had failed the exams midway through our 2nd year. We were given the opportunity to make up for it with an oral exam, which, as you can imagine, could be even more trying. However, we did pass that. Just the same, that is an experience no one wants. 

Perhaps, as I intimated in one of the previous segments, I had overdone the balance in life. Perhaps I needed to focus harder on my studies and do a little less outside the classroom and my studies at home. What else can one learn from that experience? It does help to keep one on one's toes and humble, which is not a bad thing. But I also learned that, at least in medical school in those years, once you made it 'in,' the faculty really wanted to see their investment pay off. They worked hard to get those who got in make it through. So I carried on.

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I just remembered something that again has to do with balance in life that would probably have fit better in the previous "chapter." We in psychiatry know that physical activity is good for the brain, not to mention the whole body. We also know of studies that have shown a certain degree of exercise to be equivalent in bringing about positive changes in certain areas of the brain functionally that correspond to those also attributed to medication.

Some of you may remember that the 60s were the first time that there was developed in certain circles a concern for the physical fitness of young Canadians. They were often compared to the Swedes. The Army came out with a set of exercises called 5 BX which some of you may also know of, and which I began to do in high school and continued through much of my college and into my medical school years. It was often made easier to do to music. General knowledge also seems to have it that vigorous exercise should not be done at the end of the day. All through college the exercises were the last thing I did, in the large mens' washroom - my own room was too small - before a shower and 'hitting the sack,' and I slept well. 

Even though I came from the prairies, believe it or not, I had not been introduced to curling until in University, when a year of Physical Education was still mandatory. Thus it was that some of my best friends and I formed a curling team and put in a couple of years of curling at a club in Fort Garry in Winnipeg before the demands of clerkship and residency preempted that. However, ever since my Junior High days, I had enjoyed soccer and so I did play a few games with our medical school team, which was not the same as our curling in terms of a demanding schedule. 

I certainly recommend keeping up physically, as I think it keeps your body in better shape for those hours when you have to sit at the desk or in front of the computer screen nowadays. I believe it also helps to keep one healthier into one's older age, which is where I am beginning to be at now. I also think that we do not present a very good example to our patients if we are obese and out of shape, let alone smoke or drink too much. Fortunately, due largely to the influence of my faith background, illicit drugs were never a temptation and nor was excessive alcohol consumption appealing, let alone smoking. Staying away from all of that is also good for health.

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Now, some of you may have been in romantic relationships before starting medical school. Some may wonder whether you should get married before, during or after medical school and/or residency. Those can be important questions. One of my best friends in medicine had already been a teacher and he and his wife already had 2 small sons at the start of medical school. I know it was difficult for him to sometimes keep up with his studies, but he was fortunately quite intelligent. Another was married and had their first child during medical school. The fellow who failed with me had a girlfriend.

Our medical student chapter of the Christian Medical and Dental Society often had joint meetings with the Nurses Christian Fellowship. The School of Nursing and Nurses Residence were just down the block from the Medical School and residences where a number of medical students and residents lived. Thus, it was not surprising that we often met together. The student nurses were welcome at our fall retreats too. There was one young woman there from Hong Kong, whom I kind of liked, and who currently nurses in Vancouver. However, she was already "going with" another medical student, also from Hong Kong. However, one fall when we were meeting together, a young woman from Taiwan who was taking her Masters in Pharmacology and living in the nurse's residence at the time, just happened to pass through the lounge of the Nurses Residence while we were waiting for a meeting to begin, and our mutual friend introduced us.

We were introduced because I was already beginning to work on going to Taiwan for a medical student elective in tropical medicine. In those days we had a 3 months elective at the end of our 3rd year, and many of us tried to get something overseas, internationally or exotic if we could. I had no extra funds for this but a Reader's Digest fund and another organization related to the Christian Medical Society took care of that. This girl was from Taiwan and our mutual friend thought it would be good to have a connection there that could put me in touch with some real Taiwanese people who could enrich my experience there, which did happen. You see, I was arranging to go to our denominational mission hospital that was largely medically staffed by Canadians and some Americans, both in medicine and nursing, although they were actively training both nurses and doctors. Now that is one of the largest hospitals in the city of Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan.

One of my classmates from Hong Kong and this girl then arranged to go out for dinner with me just days before I left for Taiwan to give me some lessons in using chopsticks and teach me some introductory phrases of Mandarin. This was January in Winnipeg and when we left the restaurant the parking lot was in a foot of snow. In spite of that, the young lady accepted my invitation to join me in a party at my brother's apartment in another part of Winnipeg. Before the night was over, I believe she had helped push me out of the continually rising snowdrifts. Not saying that was what won my heart, but we started writing each other when I was in Taiwan. And she did arrange for me to be shown around Taipei by her brother one weekend and even have dinner with her family! At the time they only knew we had met; they did not know anything more. Nor did I know much more then. 

When I returned to begin my clerkship year, we started spending serious time together. Needless to say, that added a different element of enjoyment to that year of my medical school. Unfortunately, in those days mixed marriages were still not that acceptable and her family was very opposed. That created considerable stress for us, especially her, and she returned to Taiwan, leaving me alone, halfway through my 4th year, precisely when I was in that primary care rotation out of town that I had fought for. Knowing she was soon returning to Taiwan, I was able to arrange a rotation in Selkirk, maybe 35 miles away, so I could see her before she left, instead of somewhere hours away from Winnipeg. 

Anne - that was her English name - had a plan to get her family on side and come back and we would get married. She was still not back when final exams and graduation functions came. Our mutual good friend accompanied me to the last. I had one scary moment during the exams when we were doing a problem-solving question and I "observed" abdominal pain too long in a pregnant woman and her appendix ruptured and she lost the pregnancy. However, I still passed. I have always been a bit on the conservative side in medicine in some ways, and most of the time it has served my patients and I well.

To be continued at some point as chapter V.