When it doesn’t occur in an explosion, change often happens in such small increments that we don’t notice it happening. Medical school changed me in both ways. The start of school launched me into a new world of academia. I was pushed to study more efficiently and more than I ever had. I adapted to a new lifestyle. These changes were dramatic but expected. Starting a new job, which is how I view school, is usually that way. However, looking back at my first year of medical school (so far), I changed in unexpected ways that were not obvious in the moment.

Not so long ago I was learning brain anatomy. The topic was interesting and boring at the same time. The individual pieces of information were simple, however, woven together into pathways and functional groups these bits of the brain were quite complex and somewhat indeterminate. As I was considering several parts of the brain involved in forming memories, I found my mind wandering beyond the curriculum. Memory is an interesting thing.

My sister has always had a good memory. She can read a document 3 times and recite in perfectly; this worked well during her acting career. She always remembers things I’ve long forgotten from when we were kids. My memory has never been like hers. As a high school student, I thought that memory was an innate quality. I thought memory wasn’t something that could be trained and changed. I took that belief to college where I worked hard. I’ve always known that most things can be achieved if I work hard enough. Since college and until now, I haven’t thought too much about memory.

Medical school has made me reconsider memory. As I thought about the corticospinal pathway carrying motor signals from the brain and brainstem to the body and the anterolateral pathway carrying temperature and pain signals in a chain of neurons up to the brain, I realized that these things were complicated. But, they didn’t seem as complicated as they would have back in August when I started medical school.

These days, I find myself reading words I can’t pronounce and remembering them. I find myself reading dense documents about the presentation of a disease or the features of a drug and remembering more than I did when I read comparable materials in October.

As I was studying what parts of the brain are responsible for different aspects of memory—working, long-term, emotional—I realized that I have trained my memory since starting medical school. And, while my brain’s approach to remembering is still different from that of my sister’s, memory formation is dynamic. The brain is plastic just like the rest of life. Considering this, I’m curious to see how much my brain will change by the time I reach the end of medical school. Residency. And beyond. 

But, first, time to finish the last 4 weeks of my first year of medical school – hours that will be spent learning many aspects of the central nervous system beyond memory and brain structure.