Liz's Medical School Journey

Every student in the country is in “counting” mode right now (and I don’t mean advent or Chanukah).  It’s that time when we all start to think in “papers,” “exams,” “school days” until Christmas vacation.  For me, it’s: 4 days, 3 nights, 2 exams, and 1 flight until school will be on the side-lines for 2 whole weeks.  Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but these days even a 3-day weekend or a single morning when I can sleep-in until 8am, feels luxurious.  So I am sure to savour this vacation like fine dark chocolate!

It’s hard to believe that medical school flies by so fast, and yet is packed full of new things.  I am starting to think more about spring semester, and I am excited and quite nervous at the same time.  I cannot wait for Physical Diagnosis (Part II) which allow me to be with patients for a full day each week.  And of course my mind has started to wonder about… THE BOARDS!  Every second  year medical students takes a huge standardized test, the National Board Exam Step 1.  Last week I registered and paid for it (gulp, $505), but I am assured by the school that I don’t need to start worrying about it yet.  That’s easier said than done. At the moment I’m still trying to simply envision that it will be humanly possible for me to prepare to take an 8-hour, 336 question exam about everything I’ve learned in medical school so far.  The exam is brought to us by the same people that make the MCAT… and the SAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSTAT, to name a few.  Does it seem scary enough yet?  A friend loaned me her relaxation CDs to soothe my anxiety.

Anyways, I know next semester will be hard, but I’m so excited because it means more contact with patients is coming soon. Patients are the part of medicine that I’ve truly been waiting for.  I hope it will also mean that I’ll have more colorful and poetic stories about my days, rather than talking about waves of exams and constantly studying my brains out!

Speaking of studying my brains out… Genetics and the Muscoloskeletal system have been fun, especially Genetics.  I can’t wait to make a genetic tree of cancer on my grandfather’s side of the family.  I know we must have some oncogene mutation in our gene-pool, and I wonder if I could figure out where it came from and how it is genetically passed.  And of course I’ll be bringing my medical toys with me to examine my grandparents again.  I just can’t get enough of my grandmother’s heartbeat- it’s quite irregular and musical.  Plus taking all my medical toys on the airplane makes going through security much more fun.

I have resisted writing this entry.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say about the last couple weeks.  Of course many good things happened, including Thanksgiving vacation.  But this year, I will refer to my Thanksgiving as “Angst-giving.”  I had my final Hematology-Oncology examination Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving, and to be brief… it went terribly!  I knew it immediately because I ran out of time, and I have never run out of time on any medical school exam before.

I felt horribly during the whole vacation.  I tried to reason with myself.  I didn’t do so poorly on the midterm, so I could even fail it and still pass the class.  The exam was difficult and all my classmates were complaining about it, so I probably was overreacting.  I had never failed a class before in my life, so it was probably unlikely at this point.  There was nothing I could do about it at that point, so why worry so much?  After all, what was the worst that could happen?  The worst: I could fail… and then float into the realm of mysterious consequences (because I wasn’t sure what would happen exactly).

Well, I failed.  It was crushing news because I had nearly talked myself out of my angst.  I can’t begin to explain the feeling to those who have not experienced something similar.  People not in medical school can’t understand how painful it is, and people in medical school (who have never failed anything) probably imagine it to be like death.  I felt sad, and surprisingly  angry.  I attended every lecture, read the entire syllabus, and made flash cards.  I tried to be a good student, but still I wasn’t good enough to pass the exam.

At first, I felt like going directly home where I could hide from everybody I knew.  But, I decided that it would be too depressing to be home-alone, most likely crying by myself.  After all, my life wasn’t ending and there are much worse things that can happen, so I needed to have strength to accept it and move on.  I went to a coffee shop where I tried to study in public (while my mind kept wandering off to what the consequences would be).

Yesterday I met with a dean at the medical school, and although I knew the school wouldn’t kick me out for failing one exam, it was nice to hear it from her.  She was reassuring that this happens fairly often, that it won’t make me a worse doctor, and that I should stop beating myself up about it (right now)!  I will have to retake the exam in the summer.  If I pass, it won’t go on my transcript, and I don’t need to pay extra for the make-up exam.

Additionally, I was able to discuss more about the Board exam, and the third year rotation schedule which begins June 28.   I realized that May and June 2010 are going to be extremely challenging months for me.  So I am thinking about requesting the first rotation block off.  This way my husband and I can reconnect and take a summer vacation together, rather than jump into third year right away.

One positive thing that will come out of all this: I will learn Hematology/ Oncology really well!  Perhaps I’ll become a Hematologist or Oncologist someday, and when people asked me, “Why did you choose that?”  I can tell them how failure turned into expertise.

And of course I am trying to put this all behind me so I can focus on my new classes, Genetics and Musculoskeletal Pathophysiology.  Just two more weeks until more exams and the much desired Christmas vacation.  I really need it right now.  I was almost 3/8th a doctor before I failed a class.  This week was like a small step backward, so after some minor adjustments that leaves me about 1/3 a doctor.  That almost sounds as good as 3/8th.  I’m still moving forward one step at a time.