A theory as to why we don't study bipolar...

A classmate and I were discussing how interesting it is that we don't have a formal lecture on "bipolar disorder" in our neurosceince and human behavior class (neuro+psych), particularly considering the apparent incidence of mania in med students (oh, it's so true!).

He pointed out that it would be a waste of time, since the lecturer would just hold up a mirror facing the class for 45 minutes, while someone in the front row wrote down notes furiously and someone else asked repeatedly for clarification.

Yeah, we've got a week and a half left of our first year of med school - and my pbl facilitator assures me that spending all weekend cleaning and building shelving before my osce (observed skills & clinical exam) is not in fact mania... it's a "defense mechanism" for not wanting to study... supression/ repression/ denial, or all of the above. ;-)

Regardless, my osce was pretty painful... if I had to write some bad poetry about it, "osce" would rhythm with "tragedy" somehow (I said it was bad poetry). I didn't forget anything (that I can remember), but I took too long with my history-taking and thus did not finish the physical exam in under an hour. Talking with other people who either had the same "patient," or saw that the room I was in always had the last student coming out, I figured out that I wasn't the only one who had to deal with the excrutiatingly slow patient. It's frustrating, but so far I have not received the "you've failed your osce" email, so at least it looks like I'm done with this class for good. Yeah! :)