Amy Nebenaus ’07

Classical Major 2007

When I began studying Classics at Wesleyan, I was fairly certain that I wanted to go to medical school. Although the more common path for such a goal would be a science heavy major, I had taken many science classes in high school and wanted to try something different. Classics certainly does not give one the same preparation for medical school that a biology or chemistry major does. Rather, it gave me a different, equally important preparation. In my Latin classes we would read a body of work and discuss it in terms of both language and literary content. The language discussion is more detail oriented, while the literary aspects involve the work as a whole. In the first year of medical school we learn how to take a medical history from a patient and do some aspects of the physical exam. It is crucial to get as many details as possible from the patient about his or her current concern, but we also take an account of the person's life in general. Afterwards, we will discuss the case with doctors who have completed their training. Talking about the details of a patient's history is like analyzing the usage of one word in the entirety of the Aeneid. The word would be meaningless without the rest of the text, however, and a patient is not just their symptoms, but a mosaic composed of many pieces. Not only did I practice this thinking throughout my study of Classics, but I also discussed my thoughts with students and professors in small seminar classes. This is not always something science majors get to do in college, and doing it through the venue of Classics has prepared me even better for some aspects of medical school than my fellow classmates.