The iPocalypse: The Best Months I Ever Spent NOT Doing on Medicine

It is February 25. I'm on stage with my classmates hugging and cheering to what feels like a never ending high. I am holding and waving around the number "1", standing next to someone that is holding the "2" "0"...and "4" respectively. All together we just spelled "2-0-1-4" as the whole group involved in the show is singing the concluding notes to our epic 80s and bohemian rhapsody finale number (that I co-wrote). Everybody is congratulating everyone else and everyone is pointing at everyone else. There is a lot of "you" "no... you" going on. Someone says that it feels like graduation...and whoever that was...was oddly right. Our families and the faculty are smiling in the audience and, for one of the first times in medical school, I'm filled with this beaming sense of class and school pride. But, this excitement and resounding sense of accomplishment and pride isn't for medicine, and it isn't for school, it is to celebrate the end of what has become a tradition here for something like 50 years: The Second Year Show....OUR second year show.

I knew from day 1 that participating in the show was something I had to be involved in. Whether it was because I had fun writing last year's spoof video for second look weekend (and well, the fact that it was well received and picked up by a few blogs didn't hurt), or because I felt at a standstill in med school and knew I could use the creative outlet, it did not take any convincing to get me on the writing committee in September. In our first few meetings, we came up with things not to do and things we definitely HAD to do. We decided that we: wanted to have a shorter show (the previous show was 3 hrs), a nicer show (the previous show was just mean, and perhaps had something to do with certain faculty members not attending ours), and a show that outsiders could understand (family members and significant others attend and it just isn't fun to them if they have to sit there and not laugh...ever). From there, we then tried to come up with themes and plots that we could write scripts on. Our ideas ranged from award shows to murder mysteries to "a year in the life", but it seemed like there was always this concept of the IPad (as we all just got them in the September) and "the Yale system" (the token phrase to describe the educational philosophy here) that kept coming up over and over. Yet, no matter how many times we talked about it, we were still having trouble really agreeing on what we liked best as a group...and we didn't want to rush it. I mean...it had to be perfect...right?

Then, in October, our Dean of Education handed the writers a perfect present. He attempted via email to institute a policy of mandatory small groups (workshops), in a school where nothing is mandatory (as it is against "the system"--yes the one I was talking about). Well, this was just perfect...and it immediately became the basis of our plot (but, as to not so much villianize him, in keeping with the be nice theme, we allowed him to be under the influence of an outside consultant/advisor). Using this gift (and actually knowing full well that by the time our show took place we could have mandatory workshops instated and our jokes could be moot points), we decided to focus our story on four protagonists (these were medical student stereotypes- a gunner, a global health/save the world type, a partier/gunner, and a science nerd/md/phd) and follow them on their path through Yale as the system changed from mandatory workshops to grades to matching them into their specialties based on their grades (ahhhh!). Obviously, it was completely fictional, but it allowed us a perfect flexible story for faculty cameos, for videos to be interspersed, for song and dance, and for the audience to understand even if they didn't go to Yale (Gunners seemed pretty universal, for example).

From there, we storyboarded. Each of us would go home and write a scene/song/video that we were particularly passionate about and then we would argue for it at the next meeting. Two videos that I really wanted to somehow fit in were the Real Housewives of New Haven and "The MD/PHD Don't Give a Shit" (based on the youtube honebadger video). Since we had decided ahead of time that we wanted the videos to have a lead in and not to come out of the blue, the housewives video, in particular, was a lot of effort to fit in. One way it was written to fit was that the housewives became faculty members (one was our Dean of Students, for example), and another way was that I wrote a scene completely based on the global health girl becoming a member of the housewives (like this was her nightmare). In this scene, she showcased a clip of the show on a fictional dr. oz/phil type show (that allowed us to use one of our more...expressive professors to impersonate here), like these reality show starlets do in real life, on press tours. In this way, we were able to use the video in a creative way, but also use faculty cameos, keep the story going, and actually do some creative scene changes. Sometimes our ideas would stay, sometimes they wouldn't, but ultimately, it was a collaborative effort, and ultimately, when we opened the script to the actors and the whole class in January, a bunch more really great changes were made. For example, with the musical director, I collaborated and changed both the act 2 openers and closers (with rewritten lyrics and even raps) within about a month and a half of show time. Though that was a bit nerve wracking, they were much more high-energy, and much more fun for the show, in the long run.

Besides writers, there were committees for publicity, dance, music, set design, producers, stage managers, directors, tech, crew, costumes, make-up, and actors, of course. A lot of that work was really hard to see until the week before (as rehearsals had been split up and individual until then), but when we had little to no class and had hours and hours of tech and dress rehearsals, we finally saw all the work everyone else was putting in and slowly began to see it all coming together. It was amazing what talent a bunch of medical students had for show business (and I am not just saying that). Our main videographer edited and filmed our 7+ videos even better than most professionals (Check out some of them here: http://www.youtube.com/user/YSM2014). The band rocked and rocked hard (drums,  guitar, bass, keys), learning and making changes at the drop of a hat. We even had someone play Sax!! Additionally, our tech director had previous stage experience, and the transitions, lighting, and cues ran so smoothly that I forgot we weren't at a real theater. In fact, it made me forgive him for just how long those damned tech rehearsals were. Well....maybe.


Ultimately the show, both nights, was amazing. We played the music live and sang live which was a first for the show in many years, if ever. For me, I played our teacher for PCC (which is how we learn clinical). She is a pretty ballsy, strong woman from Brooklyn who kind of has a take no prisoners attitude. I was playing her in this all leather (off duty sort of) get-up, with a blonde wig and an accent, and with a lot of physical comedy. It was a hard sell...and I had to do some extra rehearsing...which didn't always mesh well with me, especially as I was sick at the time. I used to act a lot as a kid, but I gave it up for swimming around 10 years old, so I was a bit worried that I lost it in there somewhere. However, the first night of the show my mom sat next to the professor I imitated from the stage and I was able to see both of their faces while I did the role, including watching them both laugh, and that's something I'll never forget. Afterwards, I was told by Dr. Bia herself just how much she liked it and ....well...that was enough to make it all worth it for me. The fact that the Dean of Students told me that in all the shows she's seen I was the best person who has ever played that professor (and she has been a teacher for years and years--a compliment the dean promised was not just "blowing smoke") was just icing on the already amazing cake.

I will always remember: My siblings surprising me and coming to the show. Seeing 20 boys in my class strip and dance on stage to " I'm sexy and I know it"...in speedos... in front of the faculty. Watching another friend "wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle" as an iPad. Billy "defying gravity" in a sports bra, or well doing ballet while people tried to...seriously sing in front of him. "Memories......All alone in the moonlight......"(I don't know the rest of the words)....


The next day I woke up and was tired and confused. I had nothing to go to, no more lines to write or to memorize. To the 30 or so people in my class that did not participate, I have a feeling, some day, they will look back and regret it, because if I look back on these past few months of writing and editing and acting and planning, I don't regret even a second....and there have been lots of them that weren't spent on science.

I have to do real med school now, including studying for Step 1. Is it bad that i just dont wanna?!