- Took (and passed!) the equivalent of around 20 semester-long science classes.
- Took (and probably...hopefully...can't know soon enough if I passed) the longest and reportedly hardest of my boards exams, the infamous USMLE Step 1. (Yes, they can't just give us one exam, with a catchy name like "the bar" or something; we get to take 3 "baby" steps!) The actual test consisted of 8 hours of misery and over three hundred multi-choice and multi-media questions... To give you just a preview of what my studying looked like: I did over 2,000 practice questions and read the 400 page prep book approximately three times. I also watched about 70 hours of videos explaining pathology. In the last three weeks I was studying 8-10 hours per day and still didn't feel like I was accomplishing enough. Laying it out like I just did makes it seem like I did a lot - but believe me I am not being overly modest or something when I tell you that at least half my classmates studied much harder than I did. The importance of this score is that it basically determines your residency placement - either whether or not you can get a competitive residency or maybe if you would be able to get into the top programs in your specialty choice, even if it's not considered "competitive."
- After 19 years of dedicated classroom learning, I am leaving the classroom behind. Do you think my butt will start to look different?
- I am now going to live in the same location for two years in a row for the first time since going to college. Is this what growing up feels like? Sitting in air conditioning instead of moving boxes in 100 degree heat... If so, this adulthood thing is growing on me.
- My brother got married! I now have a new and wonderful sister-in-law. I am so happy they live in the same city as me so I get to hang out with non-medical students every once in a while. I would probably go insane if it wasn't for them and my weekly session watching Dance Moms with a good friend.
- I failed to blog... I guess my life just seemed insanely boring/depressing and I just didn't feel like blogging about my giant never-ending to-do list. But I am starting back up because now I get to do exciting things like: talk to people! walk around all day! do procedures! look things up that might actually help someone!
- I received a pager! I can't figure out how to use it and someone had to tell me that my pager number was on the back, but knowing how to work it doesn't matter right? I have a pager! Page me maybe...?
Well, if I haven't lost all my faithful readers (aka my family and a few friends when I bug you), hopefully you are in for a treat this year. I get to interact with people! While the hours will be long and there will still be plenty of tests and studying to keep me busy, I am finally getting to the part of my training that hopefully will make all this worth it!
Let me try to explain my schedule to you. I'm starting off with surgery! I will also be explaining things as I go along so hopefully this will make more sense later. Third year is the year where we're supposed to be exposed to the most things and make a decision about what specialty we would like to pursue.
- Surgery (12 weeks total) - big test called a "shelf" at the end
- Surgical subspecialty (4 weeks) - Anesthesia! (pretty excited because the hours are beautiful - I'll tell you more about it in a post soon)
- General Surgery (4 weeks) - Endocrine/Oncology
- Musculoskeletal (4 weeks)
- "Wild Card" (12 weeks)
- Elective - Radiology
- Neurology
- Psychiatry
- OB/GYN (6 weeks) - shelf at the end
- Pediatrics (6 weeks) - shelf at the end
- Medicine (12 weeks total) - shelf at the end
- Cardiology
- Ambulatory (fancy word for "outpatient")
- General hospital floor
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