We are in our Infectious Diseases sequence now. When we finished Central Nervous System, we also finished anatomy and histology. Now instead of anatomy lab, we have microbiology lab. Rather than memorizing origins and insertions of muscles, we're memorizing "bugs and drugs." I had been warned that Infectious Diseases is one of the hardest sequences of M1 year—that it is actually a second year medical school course. Nevertheless, I have not enjoyed a sequence as much I have enjoyed this one so far.

Class starts at 8:00 AM, which is rough if one goes to class, which I generally do. We start with microbiology, go to the clinical presentation, and end with the pharmacology. Then we go to microbiology lab, and possibly have histopathology in the afternoon. It is a lot of work and a lot of memorization. But it is the first time in medical school that I've felt like I'm learning information that will be directly applied to patient care.

This is also the first weekend that the UM Student Run Free Clinic will be operational since our original site was destroyed in an electrical fire. It took several months of fundraising and waiting, but we now have a new location. I'm a coordinator for the SRFC, and my responsibilities are largely related to patient follow-up, therefore I have been speaking with patients repeatedly who have been asking me when the clinic will reopen. It was so frustrating to tell patients over and over again that I didn't know when or where we would be reopening. Although I'm sure that there will be some difficulties as we switch to a new clinic location, I am relieved that we're going to be able to offer primary health care again.