Ladies & Gentlemen, pardon the interruption…

I know it’s been nearly a month since my last post. In truth, I kind of forgot about this blog (sorry!) I got caught up in school
and life developments and writing fell by the wayside. So… now to fill you all in on nearly a month’s worth of stuff in as succinct a form as I can…

For starters, I’m repeating Anatomy this term. Last term I got taken on the midterm exam, had a veritable panic attack and subsequent cerebral shut down. In my state of reduced functioning, I missed the pass mark on the midterm by a few points and consequently was advised (in truth, more “forced”) to decel. It will take me an extra term to graduate, but that’s certainly preferable to failing Anatomy and getting dismissed from the school.

I’ve been keeping myself busy with involvement in several clubs and tutoring Biochemistry… This of course, is all secondary to spending much more time with Anatomy.

One of the advantages to taking only Anatomy this term is that I now have enough time to do what I didn’t do last term, namely go into the wet lab more often and spend more time doing the Gray’s Anatomy Review questions. All first termers at SGU are advised to do these questions at least twice through before both the midterm and final, not least because the head of our Anatomy department wrote the book! Last term, I had difficulty juggling Anatomy/Histology/Biochemistry and so doing these questions several times over fell by the wayside. Wet lab, too. Given that my last name starts with a “B”, my group activities like Histology lab and Biochem small group were first thing in the morning. Those would finish up by 10 AM and if I went to the wet lab after that it would usually be so crowded I would waste my time and not see a damn thing. This term, without the commitment to those small groups, I can go into the wet lab early in the morning when there’s no one there and really take my time and look things over carefully.

On that point… it’s a very humbling experience to be alone in the wet lab with a bunch of cadavers. It’s the realization that a member of the formerly living made the altruistic choice to donate his or her body to us medical students. I’m not sure how I’d feel about a bunch of bumbling first term medical students rooting around my viscera, but all the same given that others have so kindly donated their bodies for us to use I feel compelled to do the same when it’s my time to go.

On the point of death….
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Two weeks ago, my ex-girlfriend passed away from acute promyelocytic leukemia. It came out of nowhere, ravaged her body, shut down her major organs, and caused cerebral hemorrhaging. Her parents ultimately decided to take her off the respirator because she wouldn’t have wanted to survive, not live mind you, SURVIVE, as an empty shell of herself. I’d dated her for almost three years prior to this point, and we’d broken up last August. She told me that she didn’t see our relationship “going anywhere” and that she didn’t want to “wait for me to finish medical school”. I understand her reasoning, and for the record, I’m not angry or spiteful or anything about it… I came to terms with our breakup. It’s the fact that someone can be wrenched from this earth with such fury and violence and tradecraft fails to stop this process… and I’m not one to betray emotionality or powerlessness. Too often medicine professes to “have all the answers” and when it fails, you start wondering about the path you’ve chosen. Doctors are cited as being too coldly rational when the family of the suffering is an emotional wreck but I’ll tell you the only way to function in such a situation is to be emotionally distant. Emotions mess with rational decision making. It takes real skill to be coldly rational and personally tactful simultaneously, and that’s a skill very few physicians possess.

Of course I was a wreck when I found out this news. Thank God, though, for the SGU community – several close friends helped me through this difficult period and I’ve managed to make my peace. Her funeral was last Saturday and although I couldn’t physically be there a condolence letter I had written her parents was displayed…. so at the very least I was there in spirit.

Hurdles

Exams are done and there is merely one more hurdle between me and getting off this rock: the PMSCE. It is an MCAT-like exam testing the cumulative body of knowledge we’ve learned over the term. 28 questions in each subject of Anatomy, Biochem, Physio, Ab Psych, 10 questions in Molecular Biology, one Verbal Reasoning section, and two essays. Pass mark is a 70% or better.

Former CFP students say that this exam is more of a formality than anything else and say that it’s quite easy, but should still be “studied” for – as in giving all your notes a quick flip through will be sufficient.

It’s just a matter of getting over this one more hurdle… then I’m home free…

Image courtesy of: http://www.newsthinking.com/wp-content/uploads/2002/01/ten-hurdles.jpg

The long and winding road…

Is pretty much all that needs to be said when it comes to finals week and wanting to get the hell off this godforsaken rock. I miss my girlfriend, I miss my family, I miss the comfort of my own bed and the familiarity of my house. I long for that letter saying I’ve made the cut and I can finally start my journey to becoming an M.D.

Just one more week, is all….

Image courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/The_Long_Road_Ahead.jpg

I never thought I’d go this far, without a star to cross the seas…

… So far from shores I left behind, still far from shores I’ve yet to reach… (VNV Nation, Homeward)

Tonight is a very good night. A little beer+ some jazz music + noise-cancelling headphones = zen… which is funny, because this morning was hairy, by comparison. We had our anatomy final this morning, and it was nothing like any of us were expecting. For those who don’t know, our anatomy course was divided into halves (pre- and post- midterm) and each half was divided in two again by a quiz. The first post-midterm half (up until the second quiz) covered the digestive and genitourinary systems, while the second post-midterm half covered the brain, CNS, PNS, ANS, and spinal cord. One of my CFP-mates asked the course director what the final exam would be weighted more heavily towards and the course director told him that the final would consist of mostly neuroanatomy and would test very little of the pre-quiz-2 material. In the course director’s words “It’ll be something of a 90-10 split between neuroanatomy and pre-quiz-2 material.”

Such was not the case. The exam was more like 60% neuroanatomy and 40% pre-quiz-2 material, which knocked a lot people (myself included) for a loop. I swear that if I end up not making the cut because of this one final I’m going to flip. It means, therefore, that I must work extremely hard these next few days and ensure that the rest of my finals go well so as to offset a possible bad final grade (I’ve been trying to convince myself all night that I did OK, but that remains to be seen).

The remainder of our final exam period goes like this: next Wednesday is Biochemistry, next Thursday is Abnormal Psychology, and next Friday is Physiology. Biochem and Physio are the two exams that I’m worried about because it’s a lot of detail-rich material. I’m not so worried about Ab Psych because the professor for Ab Psych is a saint and makes sure that we understand everything (plus, it was a component of my major in college so I’ve got a soft spot for it in my heart). And the following Monday, the 9th, is the PMSCE, which is SGU’s home-cooked version of the MCAT (AKA a cumulative exam). I have a problem with the fact that passing this damn thing is a requirement, because those of us in CFP have already taken the MCAT to get here so I feel like it’s a sucker punch to make us prove ourselves again. I hear from former CFP-ers that the PMSCE is a “joke”…. and I’m not sure if I believe them.

In spite of all this hullabaloo surrounding exams and my impending departure from the island (I joked with a friend earlier today that I’ll shed tears of joy when I see the door of that Caribbean Airlines airplane) I’ve still found time to enjoy the small things. For instance, SGU has recently acquired several brand new shuttle buses. This is great because the suspensions on the old buses suck whereas the new ones have a really smooth ride. Being on one of the new ones is a treat (no joke, being on this rock for so long has made something as trivial as a new bus a major event), although for the life of me I can’t understand why they only have three of them…

And I’d also like to say that I feel for some of my professors. The professor teaching us biochem, though he wasn’t with us for part of the semester, got a little bit emotional in his “farewell” speech. Granted we’ll see him again in first term but if I was in his shoes I’d get a little bit emotional too.

I don’t know about you, but I love rambling entries where I’m just talking about whatever is on my mind. It’s therapeutic.

Image courtesy of http://193.105.21.101/image?id=5014&hsearch=sailship

The ride…

It’s a sexy, seductive image… imagining yourself in that white coat… Until your dream is tempered by the harsh reality of your situation: Limbo. T minus 31 days until I’m home, and a lot of trials between me and the door of that Caribbean Airways airplane.

In brief:

– Biochemistry Quiz Monday

– Anatomy Final the 29th

– Physio, Biochem, Ab Psych finals upcoming

– PMSCE upcoming.

The plan? The only way out of hell is through, so I might as well hunker down, hang on, and finish this crazy ride.

Five weeks from today….

… Is the end of this program.

Standing between me and the end? One exam, one quiz, final exams, and the PMSCE. In a nutshell: it’s kind of a lot of testing in such a short period of time.

I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to stay focused. Yeah, I know, this is analogous to a “life-or-death” situation because it would really suck to not make the cut, but the truth is that I’m homesick. I’m longing for both my girlfriend and my creature comforts of home. I guess I’m getting fed up with this country: not the people, the people are nice, but the slowness of things and the pace of life here and the various inefficiencies one encounters on a day-to-day basis. I know that I just need to buckle down and suck it up, but I’ve been finding it difficult to get motivated to study. Maybe its because I’m studying biochemistry kind of late at night when biochem requires a fresh mind and full focus?

I might call it a night in a bit… After flipping through biochem.