Day 145: Things are moving along

Today's inane image of the day:

MSG [Medical Student Government] got all of our white coats embroidered over the break! Now we look official. Thanks, MSG [really hard not to read that as monosodium glutamate...]!

Things this week have been relatively hectic...

Remediation
I took my remediation exam on Tuesday and... passed BFCP1! Woohoo! Interestingly, I thought studying for the remediation exam was more difficult than the original exam, primarily because all of the material was already at least familiar. It was hard to gauge what I actually still remember [S. aureus = gram positive cocci in clusters!] and what I only sort of remember [Turner syndrome = 45X -- for some reason this fact was more difficult for me to drill into my head]. Regardless, that hurdle has been surpassed and I was able to spend all of Wednesday not staring at books or lecture notes!

At the time that I realized I had to remediate, I was definitely frustrated with the idea that my entire winter break would be spent with this dark cloud over my head. Furthermore, the remediation exam is, in a way, a higher-stakes exam than the original because failure automatically requires course remediation over the summer and that is the last thing I want to be doing. But looking back, I do see the utility in the process and appreciate the extra push to review the material that I was weak on. I still wish I had passed the exam the first time around so I could have focused on all of my weak spots instead of just specific sections from one exam, but I guess that's what the summer is for.

Lovely company
Mike has been home since mid-December and it has been absolutely wonderful. Although the LDR thing has been rough, things have settled down a bit and I've adjusted [somewhat]. Of course I would much rather just have him around, but I can't change our current situation and in the end there are pros to the distance that I've come to appreciate. I plan on writing up an entry [at some point...] with tips for long distance relationships between medical and non-medical students.

Start of a new semester
We delved right into class again yesterday -- it felt like an eon had passed since we last had class, but it was nice to see everyone again and catch up. There were a couple of bumps with getting the semester started, but administration is right on top of smoothing things out.

I'm not sure I'm ready to delve into the extremely deep depths of Neuroscience yet...  but there's no turning back time at this point. Hopefully I'll get back into my studying [and regular blog updating] routine relatively quickly since I won't have any time to spare.

[Many of us discovered our unofficial transcripts and realized that last semester's courses totaled to 36 credits and this upcoming one is 40 credits... I'd say that this sounds about right.]

Day 87: ...but this rerun has an alternate ending

Today's inane image of the day:

I absolutely *love* when holiday cups reappear at coffee shops. Especially when they have corny statements on them like "When we're together snowmen come to life" [what is that supposed to mean, anyway?!]. Oh yeah, and that's Robbins behind my cup...

I will start by saying that as of this morning, I officially passed my BFCP2 Midterm exam.

Now, I'm sure you're going to ask me if I was making that last entry up... well, obviously not [I wouldn't lie about that!]. There were a lot of tears shed and self-doubt on Monday evening while I was recovering from the news.

But at the same time... I had hope that this status might change.

The last exam that I [still] failed, I missed the mark by 3 questions. Generally after BFCP exams, we go through our own exam packet and grade them against the key. Administration is still trying to come up with the best way to go about doing this... but for the first two exams, we all sat in our O'Dowd classroom with our packet [NOT our scantrons -- important point here!] and watched the screen as Dr. Sabina scrolled through the master exam packet. This was quite... painful. Furthermore, it tended to be inaccurate since I found that sometimes I forgot to circle in my packet the final answer I decided to fill in on my scantron.

After we grade our own exams and have an idea of our performance, we have an opportunity to challenge questions for numerous reasons. Sometimes we feel that the question isn't backed by a session objective, or that there were two correct answer choices. In the end, it's incredibly difficult to come up with a challenging but fair USMLE-styled question... so it makes sense that there will be some duds in the mix. This being said, I do want to say that the overwhelming majority of our exam questions are really well-written and fair.

The first examination set the standard that it was indeed possible to get points back using this question challenging method... so there were students who failed by 1 question and were relieved to discover that  they passed after the challenge period. By no means did we get a substantial number of points back, but for those of us straddling the border, every single question matters. Unfortunately, I only got 1 point back on the second exam, so it wasn't enough to bump me up.

But for Monday's exam, I missed the mark by 2 questions.

This time, to allow for more privacy in grading our exams, they changed the protocol again so that we each received a copy of our scantrons. Furthermore, an answer key (but without the questions!) was posted on Moodle so that we could grade our exams when we were ready. Being the somewhat impatient person I am, the moment I received my scantron, I sat down and started grading.

The first thing I noticed was that I got the second question [which, for some reason I distinctly remembered] incorrect... this seemed extremely odd since it was a very straightforward question. After asking a number of my classmates, we came to a consensus that there must have been a mistake in the answer key. With that, I went home with an inkling of hope that maybe, just maybe I'll get lucky this time and get back the 2 points that I needed.

Well, I confirmed this morning that 2 questions were mis-keyed and I had indeed earned enough correct answers to pass [2 more questions were then thrown out, so everyone gets points for those -- bringing me to a total of 2 questions over the number of questions I needed to pass the exam].

Because I barely scraped by this time, I remain determined to make progress for the last exam of the semester. I have been a lot better about studying after school and unplugging myself from technology so I can concentrate. Furthermore, I have been printing all of my lecture notes and writing out notecards to help with memorizing facts. As someone with an engineering degree, this rote memorization thing has really been the hardest thing for me to get used to... but I'm learning.

Anyway, time to get back to the books [with a much more enthusiasm]...

Today's medical school fact of the day: "Bilirubin is a potentially toxic waste product derived from heme degradation." -- Dr. Sabina's lecture slides

Day 85: This feels a lot like a rerun

Today's inane image of the day:

The wall of Starbucks that I tend to stare at when I'm sick of staring at my lecture notes. I never realized how calming the act of looking at this wall was until after I snapped this photo.

There's not much more I need to say aside from I'm disappointed. There's no one to blame except myself and there's nowhere to go except forward. I could shower you with really optimistic quotes about learning from one's mistakes or something like that, but I just don't have the energy.

Do not despair -- I am not giving up.

Today's medical school fact of the day: Medical school is difficult [ha! as if you didn't already figure that one out!].

P.S. Thank you dedicated commenters! You really help keep me going.

[Edit: If you ever find a typo/spelling error, please let me know! Those drive me nuts...]

Day 59: Failure is success if we learn from it**

Today's inane image of the day:

Couldn't say no to a photo of more fall colors!

I apologize for the long hiatus -- examinations this time around were brutal. At this point, I recognize that I was not studying as effectively, nor was I studying the right material, so it was kind of a lose-lose on all fronts. Furthermore, I hate to admit it, but I am still trying to figure out a good way to learn everything.

If you haven't inferred by now, I did very poorly on my BFCP1 Final Exam. While it came as a huge blow to my ego yesterday when I received my score, I knew in the back of my mind what the outcome would be after I walked out of the room on Monday.

After blowing off some steam at the gym, I took care of laptop problems [R, our computer guy, is awesome!], ended up running into Dean Folberg and having an impromptu meeting with him [2 months in, and I still think Dean Folberg is an inspiration], and topped off my day with a uplifting visit from a friend. I'm not sure if there's a delayed reaction coming, but I definitely took the exam news extremely well and have just been focused on moving forward with a new study style.

If you're a current medical student -- how do you study? I have seen many different ways, but I just thought I'd put it out there.

Before I end, I did want to put it out there that I am not sure how I feel about being an engineer prior to medical school [prior to this, I discuss it here]. I am starting to see that there were a lot of basic science courses that I should have taken to help me through this process, but never ended up doing because I had more than enough engineering classes to take in order to graduate. Furthermore, I feel like I was slightly spoiled by the problem solving aspect of engineering -- our exams only required memorization of a formula at most... so memorizing a whole textbook in 4 weeks is proving to be a transition.

Anyway, my updates may be a bit sporadic this week because 1. I need to study, 2. Mike is coming into town, 3. my best friend is coming into town 4. our class President is hosting a dinner for us, 5. I need to catch up on the rest of life [e.g. cleaning...].

Today's medical school fact of the day: The name of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in humans is the human leukocyte antigen (HLA). - Immunology lecture slides

** Quote in title from Malcolm Forbes

Day 55: Fall beauty and study, study, study

Today's inane images of the day:

Yesterday before heading to volunteer for the interview day, I saw this beautiful scene and just had to capture it. [If for some reason I can't pass medical school, can I just be OUWB's official photographer?!]

This is my pink and blue version of an Embryology slide's concept map. Note the cute little bubbles. 

Usually, I would not classify fall as my favorite season just because I associate a lot more happier things with the summertime [i.e. my birthday, vacation time, sunny weather, etc.] -- but this year, I might be swayed by how gorgeous it has been around here! Plus, now that I've discovered that I live in such close proximity to the Franklin Cider Mill... I plan on going there very often for a hot cup of cider and fresh donuts. Mmmm, my mouth is already watering at the thought.

Other than hanging out with some awesome interviewees yesterday [I enjoyed all of your company and hope to see some of you here at OUWB come Fall 2012!], my days have been filled with lecture slides and really long words. I am a lot less panicked this time around for the exam, but some part of me wonders if I should be [more panicked]. On the Saturday prior to my BFCP1 midterm [BFCP = Biomedical Foundations of Clinical Practice], I was pretty much freaking out [hence my abnormally high caffeine intake that weekend]. But this time... I don't know. Hopefully this is a good sign.

The only thing that really concerns me is that we have a PMH [PMH = Promotion and Maintenance of Health] exam only a few hours after our BFCP1 one. In all honesty, I haven't really been being as diligent as I should with keeping up in PMH...

Alas, a positive attitude goes a long way and I'm going to try to keep seeing every glass as half-full. I'll keep you updated!

Today's medical school fact of the day: "The syncytiotrophoblast [yes, Blogger, I do have the correctly spelled!] is the layer that produces hCG." - Embryology lecture slides