Things we've learned...

[Auspicious]

1. As Cheri mentioned, anatomy is very important. If your SO studied primarily in fields other than organismal biology or physiology (like molecular biology or chemistry), anatomy may be a big change. And they could get frustrated because a fair number of their fellow students will have some degree of background in anatomy. Tell them to hang in there and that just because they don't honor in anatomy doesn't mean they won't honor in another class.

As a side note, it turns out this idea is very astute. My bf was a molecular geneticist before starting med school this year and I asked him about this theory and he was like "Oh yeah--I can tell you what's attached to what and I can tell you what every part does and how it does it, but I can't seem to put together a mental 3-D model of all the parts. And you have to be able to do that because a huge portion of the test questions are things like 'Is A inferior or superior to B' when A and B aren't attached to each other."

Unfortunately his school is on the block system (they do "head and neck," get a grade, then move on to "musculoskeltal" etc.) so his anatomy troubles put a lot of negative pressure on ALL of his grades. Thank god he's good at the other stuff, but it's still caused a lot of anxiety this year. I guess the silver lining to that cloud for me is that his interest in surgery, which was never very high in the first place, decreases almost daily. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for one of the "family-friendly" specialties.

His final test of his M1 year is in about 18 hours, and I can hardly wait. Summer is almost here.

[twinsmom]

I hear you on the end-of-the-year happiness. My DH had his final test for M3 in about 10 hours, and I feel like a kid on the night before Christmas, wanting it to be here so badly that I can hardly wait!!

Jen

[twinsmom]

Hey everyone - just a little update...

My husband met with the Dean again today and told her the ideas about the orientation, and she got really excited. He also told her about the 'survival guide' for sig. others in med school and she wants him to go with her to the faculty orientation next week to present it to the faculty 8O . Thank you so much for you ideas!!! I will be crunching to get it put together during the next week. If you have any other ideas, PLEASE post them!! I have LOVED the ones so far - you are all amazing!! Thank you so much!

Jen B.

[Rapunzel]

I have no new ideas but I did want to reiterate my suggestion that no med school faculty or staff be present during the spouse orientation. You can always have a seperate orientation with the financial aid office and any other student affairs people. 8)