Notable Achievements?
Yet another entry about stuff that I'm pretty sure is meaningless to any non-med student (or physician who also had to go through this once). But there have been some OMS-I milestones recently that I felt needed to be documented.
We wrapped up MSS last week and actually already got our "preliminary grades," which means they can only go up from here. After the past few major exams, we have waited a seriously long time to get grades back, particularly given that these exams are all on scantrons. Overall, I can say I'm happy with my performance, particularly given the amount of effort I put in. Basically, the things people told me before I started med school about how the people with the best grades will be the one who worked the hardest is completely true. Given that I am not working nearly as hard as many of my fellow classmates who are consumed by studying, I am more than happy with a solid B in this one.
The unfortunate downside of MSS being over is that now we've started Neuro 1 and even though we are only one day's worth of lectures in, I'm already overwhelmed by the amount of information we will be responsible for and recognize that I need to seriously step it up.
In other happy news, we had OSCEs and OMM Competancies today which are both now out of the way. This is fabulous b/c I always get way too worked up over any type of practical exam and basically had to dedicate my entire weekend and most of yesterday to preparing for these. I am pretty sure I got through the OMM unscathed, though one of my evaluators heard me making comments to my partner after we left the room and made some snide comment which I'm not sure how to interpret. Each time I think about it, I feel differently across a pretty broad spectrum of emotions, so I think it will stick with me for a while. Unfortunately mostly b/c I don't have the excess brain capacity to expend on something like this.
Regarding the OSCE, my partner and I, who I now consider a friend, both passed easily. The Clin Med course director was actually our evaluator and he only had positive, helpful comments at the end and was very clear with us that we had both passed (which I don't think they were officially supposed to do, but wasn't ever really in doubt). For the benefit of any non-medical people reading this, an OSCE is basically a full head-to-toe physical exam where we have to prove that we know all the techniques for using our equipment, do things properly, and can incorporate the right clinical terminology to express our findings. More than anything, the first OSCE is an exercise in memorization where we have to learn a script with around 50 specific verbalizations and then figure out the accompanying actions. My partner and I changed up the order of the exam quite a bit to make it more logical, but I think it was well worth it in the end b/c we both felt pretty confident going in that we would at least pass, even if mistakes were made. Conversations with some of our classmates beforehand made me think a lot of them weren't really in the same boat.
The other good thing about getting the OSCE out of the way is that not only do I not have to stress about it during Neuro (we were the very first group to go and initially felt screwed b/c our turnaround time was so fast to learn all of it), but that we are also now eligible to participate in a lot of the clinical volunteering opportunities where we are actually allowed to work with patients which I am pretty damn excited about.
Although I have a bit of a beer headache from out post-OSCE indulgence at Mellow Mushroom, I need to go and studying... something. But at least a giant weight has been lifted.
Many spanks,
BBC ;)
We wrapped up MSS last week and actually already got our "preliminary grades," which means they can only go up from here. After the past few major exams, we have waited a seriously long time to get grades back, particularly given that these exams are all on scantrons. Overall, I can say I'm happy with my performance, particularly given the amount of effort I put in. Basically, the things people told me before I started med school about how the people with the best grades will be the one who worked the hardest is completely true. Given that I am not working nearly as hard as many of my fellow classmates who are consumed by studying, I am more than happy with a solid B in this one.
The unfortunate downside of MSS being over is that now we've started Neuro 1 and even though we are only one day's worth of lectures in, I'm already overwhelmed by the amount of information we will be responsible for and recognize that I need to seriously step it up.
In other happy news, we had OSCEs and OMM Competancies today which are both now out of the way. This is fabulous b/c I always get way too worked up over any type of practical exam and basically had to dedicate my entire weekend and most of yesterday to preparing for these. I am pretty sure I got through the OMM unscathed, though one of my evaluators heard me making comments to my partner after we left the room and made some snide comment which I'm not sure how to interpret. Each time I think about it, I feel differently across a pretty broad spectrum of emotions, so I think it will stick with me for a while. Unfortunately mostly b/c I don't have the excess brain capacity to expend on something like this.
Regarding the OSCE, my partner and I, who I now consider a friend, both passed easily. The Clin Med course director was actually our evaluator and he only had positive, helpful comments at the end and was very clear with us that we had both passed (which I don't think they were officially supposed to do, but wasn't ever really in doubt). For the benefit of any non-medical people reading this, an OSCE is basically a full head-to-toe physical exam where we have to prove that we know all the techniques for using our equipment, do things properly, and can incorporate the right clinical terminology to express our findings. More than anything, the first OSCE is an exercise in memorization where we have to learn a script with around 50 specific verbalizations and then figure out the accompanying actions. My partner and I changed up the order of the exam quite a bit to make it more logical, but I think it was well worth it in the end b/c we both felt pretty confident going in that we would at least pass, even if mistakes were made. Conversations with some of our classmates beforehand made me think a lot of them weren't really in the same boat.
The other good thing about getting the OSCE out of the way is that not only do I not have to stress about it during Neuro (we were the very first group to go and initially felt screwed b/c our turnaround time was so fast to learn all of it), but that we are also now eligible to participate in a lot of the clinical volunteering opportunities where we are actually allowed to work with patients which I am pretty damn excited about.
Although I have a bit of a beer headache from out post-OSCE indulgence at Mellow Mushroom, I need to go and studying... something. But at least a giant weight has been lifted.
Many spanks,
BBC ;)