<p>I hope mom got some decent pictures curm! DS has his white coat ceremony tomorrow. I have my camera ready to go. </p>
<p>DS gave us a tour of his new home today. Dorm is okay, nothing special. He is right across the street from the medical centers. He gave us a tour of the medical school and we briefly saw the lobby of the hospital. He is grinning from ear to ear and is quite happy. I know it has only been a week since I last saw him, but I swear he has changed in those 7 days.</p>
<p>Well, the 2 almost irt iphone shots were grainy and out of focus. They were still great.
They had a pro there and I have a good shot on the way.</p>
<p>^^^ I always thought White coat ceremonies were after a year or two of medical school, not during the first couple of weeks of school?</p>
<p>They’re usually held at the beginning of 1st year. A few schools hold theirs at the end of the first year or second year. And some schools (like mine) have one at the beginning of med school and another one at the beginning of third year.</p>
<p>I’m not a huge fan of them as I think they are somewhat pretentious. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to give med students white coats since it helps identify them as a healthcare provider in the hospital. But, there’s no need to have a grand ceremony for it.</p>
<p>UTSW holds theirs in October on the Saturday after the Friday of the first exams of first year…Ive always thought the timing was interesting. ;)</p>
<p>The report was that it was a pretty good day of orientation. Some of it was pretty dry, some pretty rudimentary, some excellent. She has (according to her) a great class. Making new friends and reacquainting herself with some kids from the interview trail (she met several along the way, I think a couple more than once). She also has two girls who are friends of friends and that is always a nice way to start a relationship. Kinda like being “vetted”. </p>
<p>Saturday morning is CPR training then a BBQ. Being from Texas and going to UG in Memphis, she can’t wait to see what passes for a BBQ. ;)</p>
<p>Next week is all pretty much “bonding” with her classmates (some head to the Appalachian Trail, some to the hospital, and some to a service project).</p>
<p>DD says the schedule is different every day, but mainly they are all about anatomy, perhaps an hour lecture, then dissection for up to 8 hours a day. Their cadaver is big enough that she is tough to turn over, very interesting, but exhausting. Her UG anatomy gives her a tiny leg up of familiarity, but this is so much farther in depth that the advantage lasts for about 15 minutes on any body part…but then that is 15 more minutes of homework time for something else each day!</p>
<p>Well I guess this is the end of this year long trip for me. What a year it has been! I go back and look at all of these posts and watch how this whole process went down and now look at where we are. Everyone is in med school and getting settled and from all accounts, happy with how it all turned out. </p>
<p>DS had his White Coat ceremony yesterday. It was nice (but a bit hokey in a few places). But DS was just grinning. He was happy to show us around, introduce us to his new friends, let us see his new home. </p>
<p>He truly is excited about this next phase in his life. For him the white coat ceremony wasn’t about getting a white coat, but more of a symbol that he finally reached one of his goals. He finally is in med school.</p>
<p>As a mom, I couldn’t have been more prouder. It was a bit of a bittersweet day for me. Glad to see him happy but a bit sad because he is all grown up now. He is truly on his own, making his own way into this world. As an undergrad he was still protected but as a med student, mommy won’t be able to do that anymore. This is his life now and he will be his own master of his own life. </p>
<p>I am so, so proud of him. Proud of the man he has grown up to be. Not just because he is a med student either. I am proud of him for so many other reasons. I would be proud of him if he had done something other than medicine. He has grown up to be a man that I am so pleased to say is my son. I wish him the very best as he starts his new life.</p>
<p>So for me, more so than graduation, yesterday’s ceremony was a testament to who he has become. I am glad I came. Glad to see him happy. Glad to see him settling. Glad to see him making so many new friends. </p>
<p>Today we are spending the day together with other DS. Yesterday I got to play mom and take him to the stores and get things for his new place. I guess having mom around is still handy! </p>
<p>So for everyone here on this forum, good luck with med school! For those of you in the 2010-2011 group, I wish you luck through this whole process. A year from now, I look forward to reading your posts about your first day of med school.</p>
<p>Great post. </p>
<p>Now for a rambling , dis-jointed word to our parent posters, brought to you from the darker side of my admittedly twisted noggin’. </p>
<p>I told my daughter that as much as this is a beginning, it is also an ending. I feel, as a parent, much more disconnected to this new process…and rightly so. I mean… I know absolutely nothing of what is to come. </p>
<p>She distanced herself from me scholastically in math and science in early high school but hey…I still had her in world overview and words. 
By the end of college she had me womped in some of that, too. All I have left in my bag of tricks is age… and cunning. </p>
<p>Am I sad about this? For her? Hardly. It was my goal for her to womp me: to teach her everything I know as her starting point, and to let her find her way from there. I’m a lot closer to that as an absolute than I care to admit and from that fact comes some miserly melancholy, some resignation to a personal and illogical and indefensible parental sadness that I’m separated more from her this week than last week… or any week before. And, of course, some non-judgmental recognition that I’m a greedy selfish ■■■■■■■. (She can tell it to the shrink. It’ll give them something to talk about. ;))</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking back on my un-educated parents, well… High School-educated parents (and that’s only if you consider a "Good Enough Diploma as High School). I wonder if their distance from me in college wasn’t as much them pushing the wolf cub out of the den so they could get back to their wolf lives (as I was fond of believing that I was , in fact, raised by wolves) but simply that they had little else to offer me in the areas that interested me. </p>
<p>My kid allowed me more time in grade than I allowed my parents. I’d like to think that was because I had something more and valuable to tell her …but it may have just been a kindness. Either way, it worked for us. </p>
<p>And now we are here. White Coat.</p>
<p>I know what ya’ll mean about distance. DD and I have always been close, on her terms, not helicopter. This past year of only working, not doing school, meant she had a great deal more free time than before for random phone consultations regarding anything that crossed her mind…or IM chats when she was at work about some little detail or life. Generally nothing major, but it was fun, with her living abroad to have a sense of her daily life.</p>
<p>Now I can tell how very overwhelmingly busy she is. No matter what time of day, if she does call, we will drop everything or wake up to chat. I love hearing the anatomy stories. She volunteered in a local low income clinic this week, diagnosed a stroke in a patient and generally got some solid patient first contact experience. It is wonderful to hear, but yeah, it is sad to know she will simply be too busy to be in touch very often.</p>
<p>I, too, have wanted my kids to take my knowledge of the world as their starting point. Having a period in time this summer when all of them were off this continent, I realised how well we have accomplished that. They know so much more than I did at their age. And they are exploring the world and their options so much more thoroughly. As Martha says, “it’s a good thing”</p>
<p>mom2boys, Curm and Somemom…How sweet!!! Congrats to your kiddos and of course to you all.</p>
<p>First day of class Monday and my kid was out this evening with ne’er-do-wells and internet hooligans. Tsk. Tsk. </p>
<p><<<<<<<Look at the post count. All 7’s. Show me da money!!!</p>
<p>“Hooligans” – PLURAL?!</p>
<p>Poetic license.</p>
<p>And a futile attempt at internet anonymity. There’s some embarrassing crap out there. ;)</p>
<p>Whew. I thought there was another hooligan out there somewhere.</p>
<p>DD already has three mid terms exams today! Anatomy written & practical & something else. It feels like we just dropped her off and already major exams, they are jammin’</p>
<p>First assessment was this weekend (we can take them anytime between noon of Friday and Sunday), and it went very well. A big relief. I really like my class, they know how to have a good time, and it’s made adjusting to the workload easier.</p>
<p>That is great news, steeler. On both counts.</p>
<p>Just learned a bit more from DD, she is at a satellite campus, her school spreads the first years around with about 120 at the main campus and 20 or so at each of several alternate locations.</p>
<p>The exams she took were a FINAL exam, the main campus people will take that same exam in January. Her group essentially did a block schedule of anatomy all day every day for 3 weeks! Intense, but you certainly can immerse yourself!</p>