Friday, May 27, 2011

Our Own Little Strange Acoustic Flash Mob Bette Midler Style

Okay so maybe the title was a little long and self-indulgent, and maybe I should be studying for my mock full length USMLE exam tomorrow morning, but...meh...the canker sores in my mouth and recent surge in nocturnal teeth grinding tells me I could probably use a night off.

Besides, how can I study for the USMLE when I am still buzzing with school-girl-giddiness from our little strange home grown acoustic flash mob (if that is what you'd call it) performance we pulled off today?!? 

To set the stage, it was our last anatomy class*, designed as mostly a review session. Prior to class we rehearsed about 5 times with a handful of people who agreed to be a part of it. All of us were absolutely vibrating in our seats for the whole session, anxious for the cue to start. We told the other faculty and Dean that it was going to happen at noon and they gathered outside in the hall. We had already distributed little flags with a picture of his face on them (see photo below) and sheet music.

Anyway, I'll let you watch for yourself...it starts a bit rough but I figure we pulled it together nicely by the end.




He was definitely surprised, and even a little teary, I think. I've probably watched the video about 30 times and just can't get the grin off my face. It was an absolute blast and I think an appropriate send off. He's a tough Prof, but very good. He has worked hard to design a very clinically relevant anatomy program, and it shows. I am actually going to miss anatomy. Little bit.


The photo we mounted on little sticks.
Now I am going to have to start brainstorming. Grad is only two years away! We put that together with one 30 min rehearsal---we could have a three ring bloody circus by 2013 if we get cracking!!

--

*Usually the class consists of our prof lining us up and drilling us for half an hour, in small groups of about 20. We've had this class every week for the past two years. Yeah, two years of anatomy. He's a very, shall we say, intimidating, gruff man, with an impressive CV about as thick as your arm (if you have thick arms) and a very short fuse for wrong answers. He's the one that tells us to die or hang yourself or jump off a bridge if you say that the facial nerve is the sensory nerve of the face (it's the trigeminal) or something along those lines.

7 comments:

Kaplan said...

Good news: if you were taking the actual exam tomorrow, you would want to take the night off. Research has shown that last-minute reviewing actually decreases the ability to remember things reviewed earlier. It's called “retroactive interference”. Best of luck tomorrow!

OMDG said...

Aw!! That was so awesome of you guys! He looked really touched.

Anonymous said...

It's a good thing you guys are all going to have day jobs, haha. Looks fun!

NPO said...

Fun. Good way to say goodbye and better to embarrass those tough professors at the end of the course instead of the beginning.

PGYx said...

Love it! I grinned the whole time, too. What a sweet and touching way to show him your gratitude for his teaching efforts!

It's funny how it was super cool as a group activity but it would have been super creepy if only one of you had done it. ;-)

Enjoy your night off! You certainly deserve it.

Cartoon Characters said...

I actually had a little tear in my eye...that was so sweet!

Albinoblackbear said...

Kaplan: I've always been curious about the science behind to study the night before or not. I'll have to do some searching on "retroactive interference" now! Thanks for the luck! :)

OMDG: Yeah, I think he really was. I am really glad we went for it. Had a bit of a panic attack at 2300h the night before wondering if we should go through with it.

ER: Hahah, ouch.

NPO: Hah, agreed. Well I think he was more on the 'moved' side of embarrassed...I hope!

PGY: I didn't think about how creepy one person singing the line "did you ever know that you're my hero" would be until you mentioned it! Hahaha but yeah, definitely better to have a larger group for that. We had fun doing it, I've been silently chuckling to myself for 2 days now.

CC: Our histology prof was actually crying (not from laughing) which completely blew me away...she's like this tough pathologist from Mozambique so I was quite taken aback by her reaction!