Medical School Theme Song Filter

April 3, 2008 6:31 PM

For all you current and former medical school students out there: what one song defined your experience in medical school - especially year one. I'm looking for the song that has meaning but also a bit of tongue-in-cheek built in. It's the song you came up with on the back side of a marathon study session (while delirious). Does such a song exist?
posted by stuboo to media & arts (11 comments total)

Never went to med school...but I think Billy Joel's Pressure fits the bill :)
posted by legotech at 7:08 PM on April 3

This here--youtube video, but it is basically how it is right now.
posted by uncballzer at 7:22 PM on April 3

Warren Zevon: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
posted by neuron at 7:36 PM on April 3

Never did med school, but the song that made my law school classmates drunkenly thrust their lighters in the air and sway was "Touch of Grey," by The Grateful Dead. Specifically the "I will get by-y-y/I will survive," part.

A librarian buddy reports that for her graduate program, it was "A Fire Is Burning," by Oyster Band. The essential lyrics there, I think, were: "We were young together/ we were on the ball/ We did not believe in/ the writing on the wall/ We did our best work in the dark/ we did our thinking on the run/ We would hang together/ or they'd hang us one by one."
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 7:58 PM on April 3

I'm not a med student or doctor (yet!), but the one song that comes to mind (but maybe more for internship/residency) is Am I Awake by They Might Be Giants.. It was used for the theme song for a show on TLC about residents called Resident Life.
posted by majikstreet at 3:23 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Again - not med school, but nursing school which is insane in it's own lovely way - these were the trendy parody songs at the time:

Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin(mp3), is by a couple of singing junior doctors in the UK. Their pharmacology song (mp3) helped us through a grueling term. Diagnosis Wenchebach is what a lot of health care folks think of instead of Sexy Back.
posted by dog food sugar at 4:22 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]

I also meant to mention Finals Countdown. (YTube)
posted by dog food sugar at 4:44 AM on April 4

Nothing like Weird Al's Like a Surgeon!
posted by bitteroldman at 5:05 AM on April 4

My first year of law school song was "This Year" by the Mountain Goats due to the lyrics "I'm going to make it through this year if it kills me."
posted by mcroft at 6:26 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Another not-a-doctor, but finding weird resonance between architecture school and Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues just for "I ain't seen the sunshine since...I don't know when".

(go team self-pitying professions!)
posted by carbide at 12:04 PM on April 4

Thanks, Hive. These are great.
posted by stuboo at 9:26 AM on April 9