Thursday, July 13, 2006

Fourth Day of Orientation

Today we had the morning off until 11:30, at which time they gave us lunch. We heard from a member of the CCLCM student government. Basically, both the M1 and M2 classes elect four members of the student government, and these people are responsible for serving as liasons with the CCLCM administration, as well as with the main Case campus. They also conduct town meetings and present student concerns to the deans.

After this presentation, we had another computer tutorial. Today we mostly focused on how to navigate the portal. I'm not sure whether I've explained before that CCLCM is a very technology intensive program. Nearly all of our curriculum and assignments are available on line, as are our portfolios, our assessment questions (more about them later), and our microscopy slides. Apparently we don't actually use microscopes here. Dr. Mehta, the computer specialist, also showed us how to do some really neat things like highlight or write on power point presentations while using the computer as a tablet. But THE coolest thing that we saw today was that it's possible to use the Microsoft student notes program to not only take our own notes, but to connect with other people so that we can all have the same notes, and all edit them at will. That is just amazing. It works kind of like AIM or other chats that allow you to go into group rooms, except that here we're doing it through a sort of word-processing program that is more than just a word-processing program. It also allows us to grab pictures or screen shots off the internet and drop them in, or to draw our own diagrams. There is a tablet tutorial that comes with the computer. I haven't had a chance to take it yet, but I'm planning to do it this weekend. But if you were wondering, the tablet PCs are just amazing.

Later in the afternoon, we went to Case and got our student IDs. The weather had been rainy this morning, but it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day by this afternoon, if a bit muggy. Some of us still needed vaccines, so we went to Student Health Services to take care of that. Afterward, we were shuttled back to the Lerner Institute, and we had the rest of the afternoon free. In the evening, there was a reception at MOCA, which is an art museum at the edge of the CCF campus. Most of the class attended, as did several of the physician advisors, College staff, and other people affliated with the CCLCM program. I saw my PA there, and we are going to meet to discuss my academic plans sometime next week.

Tomorrow we are basically just going to Case to write our oath for the White Coat Ceremony on Sunday. In the afternoon, I need to go to the lab and meet with my preceptor. Apparently there is some kind of safety training that I need to do. Speaking of safety training, we got six new online modules added today for safety training. I had just finished the HIPAA ones, and now I have to do all of these too. Sigh. I am ready for orientation to be over so that we can get on with the real stuff.

2 comments:

Sara said...

No microscopes??!!

CCLCM Student said...

Apparently not.