Officially Accepted to Grad School

So far, this week has been way intense. We are having double seminars every day again, and double reading too. Sigh. But the seminars have continued to be good on the whole. Yesterday we covered neurodegenerative diseases, and today we did inflammation and infection in the central nervous system. We also had a neuroanatomy session instead of FCM, which is both good and bad. It's good because it was more useful and interesting than an FCM seminar would have been, but it's bad because we had to read forty pages of neuroanatomy on top of all the reading for the other two seminars. Double sigh. My PBL learning objective for Wednesday is about the pathophysiology of tremors.

Clinic this afternoon was really busy. I saw five patients instead of the usual four. I don't know if my preceptor's secretary is scheduling certain patients this way on purpose, but it's uncanny how often I see a patient whose condition is related to whatever we're studying in school at the time. We're covering movement disorders like Parkinson's Disease and multiple sclerosis this week, and what do you know, I had an MS patient in clinic today. I did a neuro exam on the patient, not only because I need to practice doing the neuro exam, but also because there were actually some abnormal findings, mainly cerebellar (having to do with walking and balance). This morning, I also practiced doing some of the mini-mental status exam on one of the first years who had said he was worried about his mental faculties. He is not demented, at least as far as I got in testing him. ;-)

Finally, I am proud to say that I have officially been accepted to the Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies. They sent me an official acceptance letter and everything. It's pretty funny actually, especially the second paragraph:

Dear CCLCMer,

Your credentials for admission to graduate study in the MS/MD program offered through the Clinical Research Scholars Program and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine have been reviewed. I am pleased to inform you that you have been retroactively admitted to this program with full standing for the term beginning August 27, 2007.

I regret that it will not be possible to provide you with an assistantship or fellowship. We have many more applicants for such appointments than we can provide, and our inability to offer you financial aid is no reflection on your promise as a graduate student.

I can't really complain about not getting financial aid. First of all, I didn't even know that I could apply for an assistantship, never mind actually applying for one. Second of all, I'm not actually paying for this MS because the grad classes are included in our med school tuition, so it would be pretty funny if the grad school started giving me financial aid too. All in all, I guess I just should be glad the grad school didn't decide that the med school had made a mistake two years ago when the med school admitted me! :-P