USC School of Medicine - Asklepiad Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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ik ..LjaiUi. lUUM) nineteen sixty eight

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sophomores . the class of 15 r J % Rarely will there ever be a year of such adjustment, anxiety or plain hard work, yet one culminating in such pride of accomplishment. Self-reliance, application of knowledge and the doctor-patient relationship are the style of the year. Perhaps the most stressful period of our lives was the review before finals. Life in those times was simple: study, eat and sleep, often eliminating the latter. The amount of material to be mastered in the eight, or so, courses of the second semester was more than any of us had met in a full year of undergrad. In looking back, it seems remarkable that we could study as much as we did over such a seemingly endless time. David Abrams, president

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Between uncertainty and experience is the sophomore. The medical sophomore progressively adds depth and color to the structured and colorless basic medical facts he accumulated m his first year, but is innocent of responsibility and moves incognito in temperance. A sophomore knov ' s Chiari ' s syndrome if he is competitive and Horner ' s syndrome if he ' s av ake, but he doesn ' t know what to do for heartburn. A sophomore finds hepatic fetor and orders dual transaminases, OT and PT, bilirubins, icteric index, alkaline p-tases. Quick prothrombin times, A-G ratio and, of course, on admit and follow-up CBC and urinalysis, but never o thymol turbidity, or ceph floe. A physician orders transami- nases and an alkaline p-tase and makes the diagnosis, and the cost to the patient is fifty dollars less. If we can just make it through the boards, we ' ll make it. The sophomore is tired and bored. Don ' t worry about it , soys the resident. Everybody feels that way. You get over it. Wait till you ' re on intern. The sophomore closes his books about one o ' clock or so and slips into bed. Thank God, I ' m not a freshman. At six thirty he stares sleepily into the mirror. Do I really need a tie today? Many days seem without substance. The calendar is a schedule of fractionated theatrical images. 8:00, pharmacology: So what explanation can you give for the data I ' ve produced here on the board. Hardy? Well, it would seem that tochy- phalaxis Sievers (raising hand, smoothing hair): Sir, sir! between uncertainty The sophomore lives in an expanded world but a small environ- ment. To him it ' s a tight stuffy uncomfortable four by four universe. It ' s a discarded door snug on cinder blocks, a second hand desk, o kitchen table, an antique secretary. There ' s just room to tilt back the chair crazily, comfortably. There ' s just enough light or too much light. It ' s quiet and lonely. The television that your roommate or wife or neighbor has time for, comes looking to make o sophomore more lonely. have a lark, have a lark, have a lark today Up high on more cinder blocks or in the case ore the books. In there, in the anatomy, in the physiology, the microbiology, the use of drugs, especially in the pathology, the sophomore knows, is the secret of life. It ' s so dreary. As freshmen, we found out how the body works. As sophomores, we learned it doesn ' t work. 9:30, physical diagnosis, the history: Have you ever hod the bad blood? Sheeat, man. 12:00, at lunch: Benedict: so naturally when I heard this murmur, I got the intern to confer on his EKG, and with an S-T segment like that, naturally . Newmark: What ' s this bull? 1 :30, survey of disease: Sherwin: Wycoff. Wycoff: Yes, here. Sherwin: Now, Russel, supposing you were a young handsome pneumococcus, and suppose you wanted to give me a severe necrotiz- ing Glenn: Doctor, I hove a question. Wycoff: Bless you. 50