Pick me, pick me, pick me!!!

Whoa. I feel old. I’ve always felt that even though it’s been more than 10 years since I’ve left elementary school, it seems just like yesterday. In fact, most days I don’t feel like an ‘adult’ even though I’ve long since passed that age where I can be called a teenager. Most days (and especially when we’re talking to “real doctors”) I feel like a fraud…like I’m acting that I’m all grown up when in fact I’m just a kid playing dress up in their parent’s clothes. So it was a strange feeling to be back in an school today where the ‘real kids’ are (aka not the 20-somethings who still watch cartoons, drink juice boxes and wear colourful rain boots).

You see we are currently in our last week of lectures for 1st year med (Woot!! And wow did time fly by), which is on skin. Or if you want to be more professional, “dermatology.” It’s one week of intensive, and I mean intensive lectures on rashes, bumps and weird skin disorders that make me feel really itchy and eww. I think I’m more grossed out by most of this stuff than say watching a cardiac surgery where they have to saw open a person’s chest. Yeah, I’m weird that way. Anyways, so this week has been extremely condensed and INTENSE! As a guy in our class said, it’s been like:

Doctor-Lecturer
[slide with random rash] Absorb. [30 seconds…next slide with a million different diseases] Absorb. [30 seconds…next slide with another random rash] Absorb [rinse, recycle, repeat]
Class
[EVERYONE'S eyes are glazed over, mouths hanging open]

Hey docs! We’re med students, not sponges or miracle workers. Too many rashes! Gah!! They all look the same!!!

Anyways…I’m totally digressing...so our block assignment for this section was to go to elementary schools around the city and talk to kids about sun safety. You know, sun = bad, sunscreen = good. High SPF?? Even better! My group had four people. Me, Doodles, and two other guys. So today we went to the school where we were supposed to talk to these grade 4 kids in the afternoon. First impressions on being back in an elementary school? Weird…very weird because as I said, if felt just like yesterday when I was 10.

After setting up, their teacher brings the kids in. Boy were the small! I wasn’t that small was I? At 9?? Then again I was a giant (I just stopped growing when I was 11. So in other words, I am currently short). We start the presentation and the kids are pretty excited. Oooo pick me!! Hands up everywhere. Ahh, if only WE were so enthusiastic during lectures. All in all I think we did a pretty good job. The kids answered lots of questions. Most of them were repeated but hey they’re not rocket scientists right? Although there was this one kid who seemed quite bright. He answered with some unexpected stuff. Like why is the sun bad – Heat stroke. And what does it do for your eyes – glaucoma! GLAUCOMA!! I think he was also one of the ones who said he wanted to be a doctor [actually, only 2 or 3 kids put up their hands when asked if they wanted to be a doctor when they grew up. Isn’t this a cool profession anymore or has our secret identities as nerds been discovered?]. And at the end when their teacher asked if they had any questions, he actually asked one where we couldn’t really answer – can burning yourself from the stove give you skin cancer like a sunburn? Really I had never thought about this. Note to self, good research question for future, hahaha. Most of the kids were more, um, simple. Like one boy put up his hand just to tell one of the guys that his cousin was too named *John*. Another one went up to the other guy in our group to tell him that he had the same name, and that he wanted to be a travel agent so that he could travel places for free. Very cute. Their teacher then asked us what kind of doctors we wanted to be. I didn’t want to scare them by saying ICU doc (like how was I supposed to explain that? Where all the REALLY sick people go and sometimes uh, die? They're 9 people, 9!), so I said a cardiologist. Then one kid asked if that meant I was going to cut people open and take out their hearts. Um, yes…

So all in all a good session. We had a good group. Lots of different personalities, which is useful in this case. One guy used to be a teacher so he worked really well with the kids. Also, another lesson learned is that if you tell kids that you’re going to show something scary or gross, they’re going to want to see it more. We had this picture of a basal cell carcinoma which was pretty disgusting so we pre-warned them, but the kids got super excited and ‘eww, eww, what’s that, oh eww!’ when they saw it, while jumping around to get a better look. Although there was this one boy who was scared and closed his eyes, and thank goodness *John* recognized this and went to comfort/shield him. Yup, so fun day. I hope they actually learned stuff and weren’t only excited because we gave them candy. Yay for bribing!! And yea I feel old. Now excuse me because I have to go feed my 15 cats then rub some ointment on my corns & bunions, while watching me shows....kidding!