Drexel University College of Medicine - Medic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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master medicine will, by the very nature of the field, be doomed to frustration. senior year well, the class of 1967 finally reached the final stage of its perilous journey. as senior medical students, who by defini- tion are but one step removed from Cod, we all breathed a deep sigh of relief. it almost seemed as if the year would be over before the final transcript for the jimior year be- came available in mid-october, reflecting the speed im- parted to the process by the ultra-modern innovation of com- fx Q- . 2 pnters. it will always remain an enigma why junior students bother to take junior coinprehensive exams lor which the answers, with the exception of medicine. are never nmdi- available. obviously. another learning experience. the most noticeable characteristic of thi- senior year was its great flux and mobility, obviously an attempt by the ad- ministration to keep future doctors pliysimllx tit. .ilniost like an army, great numbers of students were Ion-x er going and coming from their heralded exploits at hospitals all over the state of pennsylvania. one would think that hahne- mann has enough to offer its students without has ing to ship them out for I6 of the available 35 weeks oi the senior year. of these affiliations harrisburg deserves special men- tion for the kindness of its friendly staff. the good lood at the right price and especially the many cooperative nurses and nursing students, all in sharp contrast to pgh. the major problem of the senior year seems to be that. in many respects, with six more weeks of general ob-gyn. eight more weeks of general surgery and six more weeks of general medicine. it feels like a repetition of the junior year. one would think that senior medical students would be considered mature enough to be able to take advantage of the experience of the previous years to chart a more flexible course for themselves. this would enable them to avail them- selves of the many excellent subspecialties hahnemann has to offer within the framework of each students special interests. it seems a shame that with four years behind us we feel that we have missed much of the best of hahnemann. having finally reached the end of the hahnemann road. each member of the class in his own special way will take his place in the challenging, rewarding and frustrating field of medicine. all of us shall long remember hahnemann and heartedly echo the sentiment of the preceding classes: it was an experience! f 'I 's 2 - x.. i E is - f . i

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tion of slides. we will also always remember dr. dipalma as a distinguished guiding light. we finally reached the pinnacle of the first two years as national boards deluged us with approximately 5 million objective, nonsensical questions for which We had been so adequately prepared. with frayed nerves and shell-shocked emotions the class of 1967 staggered forward to its junior year, confident in the knowledge that we had been thoroughly prepared to treat disease. we were then rather startled to find out that the carriers of disease were people. junior year well, we struggled up the tall mountain of medicine and finally reached the zenith-the clinical years at hahnemann. we had been told repeatedly that this would be like pass- ing from night to day, but unfortunately it seemed more like a passing cloud. during the first days of orientation, the departments told us what to expect of the coming year: psychiatry would be an emotional experience, surgery would be retractable, pediatrics would be noisy, ob would be plain old ob and medicine would be king of the sci- encesf, in retrospect, this seems an excellent summation. psychiatry was an unexpectedly rewarding, although trau- matic, experience, the caliber of the teaching being almost universally superior. the first practical lesson we learned was that you can empathize, but not identify, with the pa- tient, even while playing pool together. however, the most important point, which soon became apparent, was that J,-s, . ,Sgr l 'M'-1Zl.'.1Qf.!..f:'? 'VR Cn 'M f K9 RE.Q.TB.L P5 if Q X L , J on . . 0 .I 0 .Z rip' 'j MCEDLF2 I. . fi C' t ,fl v V l 2 1 J .. , , ,.. . 5... ...,. - y E it every patient has his psychologic overtones and that no branch of medicine can be adequately practiced without taking this into account. unfortunately, this lesson does not seem to be universally applied. surgery suffered from a lack of organization which was the strongest point of psychiatry. however, it was a well- balanced athletic program inasmuch as fatigued upper ex- tremity muscles from long hours of retractor holding were only equalled by exhausted lower extremity muscles from endless rounds. one might hope that interspaced between retraction and rounds time could be found to teach the few basic points that surgery has to offer the non-surgical doctor. pediatrics was a mixture of sight, sound and smells requir- ing the utmost in patience and restraint. the teaching was a study in contrasts between the younger and older members of the department. it is of interest that some of hahnemann's better pediatricians are stationed elsewhere. however, the one lesson that will always be remembered from our pediatric affiliation is that one must always be prepared-with lollipopsl ob-gyn, unfortunately, is still ob-gyn, as was mentioned before. medicine was a high point of the junior year. the teaching was more than adequate in both quantity and quality both on a personal basis from the generally superior residents and on a more formal basis from the excellent conferences, especially ground rotmdsv and the renovascular service. renovascular, in addition, provided comic relief by way of hahnemann's favorite nephrologist who hopped on one foot into conference one day sucking a lollipop, obviously hav- ing learned the pediatrics lesson well. the experience with the medicine rotation most forcibly impresses on the student the feeling that he will share for the rest of his life with all other physicians, namely that his ceaseless attempt to

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