half hearted trumpet call...boards!
A month. A whole month of studying. Really studying. Not like back in high school when I would sort at glance of notes, half heartedly, half paying attention, not really worried one bit about the exam the next day. I was smart after all, whole needs studying when you’re smart? Ha. Studying is for the dumb kids…
Or something like that.
I never thought I would be capable of 12 hour study days. And I mean 12 hours of really, actually studying. Getting up, making coffee, opening a book, reading, memorizing, practice questions, reading, flash cards, more practice questions. On and on like that, with maybe a gym break, maybe a lunch break while listening to Pathology recordings. Dinner made with a pile of drug names in one hand and a stirring spoon in the other. My brain cells never knew what they were made of before this month.
So now, a month later, I’m sure I know more (though I have to admit it doesn’t really feel like it at this particular moment), I am officially done with Step 1 of my medical board exams. I would have predicted saying that statement and it being somehow relieving, somehow gratifying, like a weight off my shoulders, like a momentous accomplishment, like a triumphant trumpet chorus greeting a soldier returning bloody but victorious from battle. But I just sort of feel exhausted. Maybe all my cells were being powered by fear and adrenaline and now released from their ordeal they have allowed themselves to relax and found that they are nothing but goo. Perhaps the fact that I don’t know my score sort of leaves this all hanging in the air a bit, like a romance that is over but without any closure, without the last scene that lets you know where everyone stands, and if the scars were worth it in the end.
Anyhow 6 weeks from now I will have a numerical evaluation of myself as a medical student arriving in the mail. Until then I shall try to put it out of my mind.
I am hopefully off to Hawaii on Sunday barring any being able to avert plane planning disaster with the bankruptcy of ATA. I shall hopefully be returning rejuvenated, with lots of pictures, and ready to start this journal back up to tell all the hopefully exciting stories from my first rotation - which I am slightly excited and slightly apprehensive to announce is OB/GYN. Lots of vaginas and babies in my future!