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Lesson Plans
The members of the Class of 2010 sing and dance their way to an imaginary island and back during their Second Year Show.

Whether rapping their way through anatomy class or exploring an imaginary island, the Class of 2010 proved that HMS students have brains and talent in their production of the 101st annual Second Year Show. Directed by Andrew Chao and Camille Powe, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Medical School cleverly skewered the class’s experience as guinea pigs of the new integrated curriculum—with song, dance, and witty dialogue.

The show unfolded as a collection of earnest first years—an overeager pediatrics student, an awkward social medicine groupie, a geeky Health Sciences and Technology student, an insensitive cultural competence advocate, and a dental student with bad breath—arrive on campus and introduce themselves with “Our First Day,” sung to the tune of the Sesame Street theme song (It’s our first day / Off to learn the Harvard way / On our way, to where we fight disease). Soon, however, the students become plagued by self-doubt as they learn one of them has been admitted to HMS by mistake.

The opening act focused on the students’ journey through their first year, complete with the usual merciless send-ups of favorite preclinical instructors. “Heart Attack,” a spoof of Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack,” let muscle-bound surgery professor Dana Stearns show off his biceps while performing CPR. Perky biology instructor Jen Stanford summarized the “Key Points” of the show at various intervals. And anti-tobacco crusader Allan Brandt (here, a chain smoker) transported the first years to a make-believe island where social medicine superstars Paul Farmer ’90 and Jim Kim ’86 were camped out with Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie, there to adopt her 17th child.

The show’s theme loosely followed Robert Fulghum’s book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by highlighting life lessons applicable to both kindergarten and medical school, such as apologizing when you hurt someone. The show was infused with bits of comedic inspiration, including a suspiciously sniffling Big Bird—recently returned from Southeast Asia—and a series of amusing “training films” about the patient–doctor relationship.

The most memorable feature of the show, though, was the Class of 2010 itself. As the Health Sciences and Technology student, for example, Marc Walker used impeccable comic timing to deliver such lines as, “I can’t wait to meet a patient. And then maybe when I finish my PhD, I’d like to meet another one.” And Ashley Orynrich, as the dental student with halitosis, gave a sultry rendition of “It’s Not that Easy Lovin’ Teeth,” set to the tune of Kermit the Frog’s “Bein’ Green.”

And who was the mistake? No one, of course, because HMS faculty would never make a mistake. They were simply trying to teach the students an “integrated life lesson.”

Photo caption: Alexis Moore and Dan Drzymalski get into the swing of things during the Dance Off of Doom.

Photo: Steve Gilbert