Louisiana State University Medical Center - Murmur Yearbook (Baton Rouge, LA)

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eee 94 Medicine es David Van Robert Velez Robert Vincent Michael Ward Thomas Weeks Robert Weien James Welsh Eric Wyble

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alae 7 | H ft | | | Mark Stephan Dennis Sullivan Rian Tanenbaum Robert Taylor Rose Ann Taylor Watson Tebo Roger Troendle Greg Tubre Sam Tumminello Raymond Vallado Medicine 93

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On August 10, 1978, Freshman Orientation began. It was designed to familiarize us with our new surroundings and to assure us that there was no cause for anxiety. It took a full two days. Then the upperclass men told us the real truth about Medical School, and it only took four sentences. They said: ‘‘In the Freshman year, they scare you to death. In the Sophomore year, they test you to death. In the Junior year, they work you to death. In the Senior year, they bore you to death.’’ And so this was the year in which we were scared to death. For some of us the fright was only occasional and low key, more motivational than detrimental. For others, the whole year was one long, painful anxiety attack until the last final exam about nine months later. Everything about the Freshman year was intense. We studied | harder and longer than we had ever studied in college. We | probably absorbed more knowledge in one year of med school | than we did in four (or five, or six. . .) years of college. It was a | year of basic sciences. We learned in great detail the gross and microscopic anatomy of the human body. We learned a lot more than we ever cared to know about the biochemical reac- tions of a cell. We performed surgery on volunteer dogs and breathed the O, on top of the magnificent, splendid twin peaks of Mt. Levitsky. We had various ways of letting off steam. When we partied, we didn’t get merely drunk. We got blasted. We got rowdy to the point of having neighbors call the police not once, but two or three times in a night. We gatored on the floor, and when that got old, we hung from pipes and gatored on the ceiling. Some of us released the pressure we felt every day in more subtle, normal ways. Some of us never released the pressure at all. Years from now, when we’re either well-to-do physicians or government civil servants, we probably won’t remember what an extraordinary year it was. A year in which the person we spent the most time with was dead, cold, and full of formaldeh- yde. In which NOPD went on strike and ruined a cherished tra- dition in this crazy, decadent city that takes its traditions very seriously. In which we finally began realizing a life-long ambi- tion. A year filled with anxiety, pressure, and wondering just what the hell type of masochism made us want to go to med school anyway. . = WN. And now in retrospect, it was a good year. We learned a lot. | if (CAL i We made some good friends and had some good times : TN together. | SCHOULS QF MEDICINE: But the best thing of all about the Freshman year is that, for é; most of us anyway, it’s over with and behind us. Medicine 95