Category: Med school: 1st year

Neuro Block 1

Hey guys!

I’ve had a lot of really exciting things happen in my life recently. But also some very stressful ones. Today’s post is going to be similar to my GI and endo/repro posts. Neuro is technically 5 weeks long, but it is spanned over 6 weeks as we have spring break woven in there.

I’m definitely feeling the buildup of stress and burnout this semester. I was able to do okay for most of the first semester except when it came to renal. Ya’ll already know how I feel about that renal course. If not, you can check that post out. But coming back this semester has been much harder to deal with that.

My current pitfalls:

Medical school is great at breaking down all of those protective barriers you’ve built for yourself. Those insecurities that you could somewhat deal with before? Those walls have been smashed down. That insecurity will find a way to bubble back up and hit you at some point. And it doesn’t matter what that insecurity is.

Like take mine: apparently mine is feeling inadequate or not good enough. This is something I’ve struggled with for a very long time. According to our on-campus counselor, I probably developed this back when I was a preschooler. So like, it’s not going anywhere. (Not like ya’ll really cared to know that.)

I was really good at not letting this get to me. I learned to build up my walls last year and learned so many different ways to cope and realistically look at life’s problems without it completely deteriorating how far I had come. But the stress from medical school (for me at least) has slowly started chipping away each layer of that wall. Brick by brick. They each chipped, cracked, and slowly crumbled.

Until the next thing I know, this insecurity is bubbling up into almost every aspect of my life and affecting every thing I do. Now, I’m not saying that my fortress is completely torn down. But, it’s pretty sad looking right now. Not very impressive.

God damn insecurities. I don’t have time for you.

But they don’t care. They do what they want.

So currently, life’s been a bit rough in that aspect for me. My grades feel like they have been slipping and I’m back at not being happy with most of my performances. I try to tell myself that passing is good, or doing close to the average or slightly above average is good; even if it isn’t what I personally want. But sometimes that can be difficult to accept within yourself.

And because of this, my brain isn’t interested in putting it in a box and shelving it away. It wants to think about it more frequently. And because of that, I personally am having a hard time getting motivated to do things. Or at least to make my study time productive.

Some positives:

I also know that my blog has been a bit on the negative side lately. I would apologize, but this is a real emotion that people deal with and then try to hide. Everyone pretends that everything is okay and picture perfect.

It’s not.

But! I have had some good news on my end. In case ya’ll didn’t know, I was lucky enough to become a Student Ambassador at my school earlier in the year. As a first year, most of the spots to tour and do lunch panels and help the school with their public face went to the second years. They had the experience. But now, with the second years getting ready to study for boards and going off to do other things for third year, this means more opportunities for me and my classmates!

If you have ever interviewed at KCU, you will have run into one of our many SA’s. We help give tours, do lunch panels, and answer all your burning questions. We are also the face of the school to our community. This entails more things, but overall the biggest time you see us is when we represent the school to new and incoming students.

I absolutely adored both of my SA’s when I interviewed. I also knew that if I went to KCU this was something I wanted to do. Not to mention, it reminds me of how far I’ve come (but just how actually recently it was) that I was in your shoes interviewing.

I also recently became our school’s MAOPS president. WOO!!!!! Cue the confetti and champagne! This club is the biggest student club on campus, and it is also tied to the MAOPS organization that represents all Missouri DO physicians at the state level. I’m pretty pumped to take over this year. Apparently I even get recognized at Capitol Hill? Will let you know how that goes.

Lastly, I’m looking to do a medical mission trip this summer. I’m terrified but excited all at the same time. I’m looking at either going though KCU or another program. So my two options currently are to Kenya or India. Not sure yet where I’m going or if it will come to fruition, but that is the hopes! I’m so nervous, but also excited to start using and working on my skills that I’ve learned in first year. Not to mention, I know the programs I might be participating in need the extra hands. Let’s see if this hope turns into a reality for this summer.

Pre-Neuro Test 1:

Okay ya’ll. They really like to mess with our schedule. Given how they took the concerns of last year’s students into play, they rearranged our first year schedules to give us more of a summer and try to cut back on some of the “free days” they had. However, it definitely isn’t working out they way they initially wanted. At least not from a student’s perspective. I do know that given how things went this year, they are changing things for next year again. It may not completely make sense to the incoming first years, but knowing where my class brought up our concerns, they are trying to make it more manageable. Especially since we’ve had more than one unit now that time was taken away and it did not work out to our benefit.

I do not however understand why they are re-arranging when some of the classes are. Ya’ll better get ready for a tough first semester next year. Well, who knows. Maybe with them rearranging things it’ll make it easier in the end.

And if you read my last post on endo/repro, you know they snuck in an OS CPA and midterm exam that took away from our studying for that block. This time, we have a PCM exam snuck into our schedule for tomorrow. We have our first neuro exam and practical this coming Friday. And I’m only bitching about that because our schedule so far has been pretty packed.

We had 14 neuro lectures in our first week (this past week), and had 3 days of packed afternoons filled with anatomy labs, OS lab, and a PCM lab. I think we had a PCM lecture as well stuffed in there, but really, that was a lot of neuro. I’m definitely not all caught up yet and I’m having to take a hot minute to try to learn all the PCM I’ve ignored all semester…

Oops.

We then get slapped with another 6 lectures next week. And just like last week, our Monday-Wednesday afternoons are packed with labs. Not really sure when we are supposed to learn all this information, or sleep. Or both. Because we definitely don’t have time to actually learn anything.

Here’s to hoping they re-arrange the schedule to add more time to neuro next year for the incoming first years. I feel like I’m not really learning or at least learning it well right now.

Just know that KCU has a reputation for having a hard curriculum. You will get your ass kicked at times. And right now, this is one of those times for us!

Will check in later. Maybe. We will see.

Post-Neuro Exam 1:

Welp.

I mean, I kind of just accepted my fate the night before. The feeling I was getting while on campus was that most students were in the same boat as I was feeling. Overall, the content wasn’t necessarily hard. If we had some more time to actually learn it, I think it would have been doable. However, since we had an entire head/neck course (which is what constituted our first Neuro exam) in less than 2 weeks, it really wasn’t that doable.

In all honesty; I failed.

And no, I’m not ashamed to admit that here. Why? Because like I said, most of the classmates that I spoke to also failed. Or just barely passed.  We don’t have our averages back yet, but I’m pretty sure this average is going to be going down in the books.

And really I’m okay with that. I know I put everything into this test block that I could given the scheduling and hurdles that were thrown at me. At the end of the day, I was still gunna go home to a cat that mildly accepts me and gives me love, and a nice bottle of wine in my fridge.

The practical however I was hoping to do better. But just like with the written exam a few hours before, I didn’t have a good feeling about it. Who puts 10 some questions of embryo on an anatomy lab practical? Really?

Still a tad bit salty about that one. But ya know, I’m sure that average won’t be swimming either. So we will see.

Exam Breakdown:

So, out of 20 some lectures and 6 some anatomy labs, we ended up with 95 total written exam questions and 60 anatomy lab questions.

I’ll start with anatomy lab this time:

  • 2 histology questions (Yes I punted these hard).
  • 10 some embryo questions (I lost count honestly).
  • The rest were actual anatomy structures. Some were straight name this and some were slightly second order. The remainder of these were tagged either on bones, models, or the bodies.

The written exam this time around was mostly all anatomy. There was also embryo and histology on this exam.

  • 71 anatomy questions
  • 20 embryo questions
  • 4 histology questions

And yeah. That’s about it.

Tid-Bits for this section:
  1. You need to stay on top of the lecture material. Most people only had time for 1 pass. I chose to not actually look at all of the lectures (I think I didn’t look at 2 embryo and a histology lecture at all) so I could spend a bit more time learning all the dense anatomy on some of the other lectures. But just know, you won’t have time to get in 3 passes. You might get 2 at best on some  of the material. Try your best. Make use of your time.
  2. They will ask a lot of “if you get stabbed, puncture wound,” etc questions on this exam. There was also a fair amount of clinical questions, so make sure you look at your objectives to see what specific clinical diseases/scenarios they want you to know. They may put more in their slide set just because it’s “cool” or they really enjoy teaching it. But if it isn’t covered under an objective, it’s not fair game for a test question.
  3. You need to use your lab time wisely. Part of that is making sure you’ve at least watched one of the lectures from that morning. The likelihood of you looking for structures in the body based off of what you’ve learned earlier in the day while in lab is high. Quiz each other while you are dissecting. Go to other bodies and start seeing what those structures look like. Use that time. You have 2 hours where you have to be there, which means 2 hours out of your studying time.
  4. Blue link slides for testing your anatomy. Our professors did post several of this review links on blackboard for us. But, you also have access through KCU anyway I believe. If you have a different anatomy slide set that you’ve been using all year, use that. Stay on top of this anatomy.
  5. Man, don’t punt embryo on this exam. I was okay with not knowing all of it for the written. But I’m annoyed at how much showed up on the practical. A lot of it happened to be pharyngeal arch derivatives and grooves. But there was definitely information pulled for all 4 of those embryo lectures given showed up.
  6. The rest of the links that were recommended or sent to me involved some sort of anatomy resource off of the KCU intranet that we have access to. Acland’s, Thieme’s, and the Human Anatomy Resource link that KCU offers. I again didn’t have time for all of this, but if you have a chance to look at at least one resource to quiz yourself, do it.
  7. If you like making Anki cards and can stay on top of them, here is a tip from a girl in my anatomy group: When previewing the night before, make your cards. Edit them while you are in class going over the material to make sure they are correct. Review them that night. As Anki builds with time, this pile can get a little overwhelming though. But if this is how you enjoy learning the material, this apparently worked well for her.
  8. I used Teachmeanatomy.com for some high yield concepts at first. But honestly, I used a fair amount of youtube and Moore’s textbook itself to try to teach myself some of this material. A fair amount of content I didn’t quite get right away with just the slides and I personally needed to use our textbook to figure it out or look at a bigger version of a picture in the slides.

Lastly! 

Roll with the punches on this one. It’s going to be rough. At the end of the day, you just have to hope for the best when walking in to take this exam. There really wasn’t a good way to prepare for this beast. If you are getting the feeling that everyone else in your class is struggling, don’t be upset if you are as well.

Something our class has had to remind ourselves with this block: they can’t fail all of us. 

And in this case, it applies. It’s not that we wanted to do poorly, it is just how the cards seemed to land.

Update: Our class average for the written was 72% and a 73% for the practical. Which honestly, is better than I was expecting but not too far off from what E and I predicted.

What App’s I use

Hello Medhatters!

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I figured I’d give a break from my normal types of posts today. Instead I’ll list/discuss the apps that I like to use that I have on my different electronics that I’ve found helpful in medical school. Enjoy!

Just a quick disclaimer:

None of these are affiliate links or me promoting them for monetary gain. The reality is 1) I have no clue how to do that and it takes too much brain power and time to figure that out and 2) I'm too small of a blog for anyone to care for that.
So really this is just a for your information on what I've found helps me!
Phone Apps:

– Mail app. This comes on my iPhone and I’ve added BOTH my school email and my gmail on it. My school sends out several emails a day; some of them not very important, some that I can wait till later to deal with, and some that are very much a RIGHT NOW kind of vibe that need to be answered or looked at. It helps to have this active on both my phone and iPad so I can see any important emails right away.

–Calendar. This one also comes on my iPhone. The school’s calendar is constantly updated (as long as you put in the right calendar for your class). Since things can change last minute, and really I’m always looking at this to see when I need to be on campus or what lectures I need to make a list of; it is important to have it in a spot you will be able to get at easily.

–Forest. I believe I’ve mentioned this one before, but both Forest or Flora do the same thing. The Forest app locks your phone for a designated amount of time. During that time it will grow a tree. The longer the timer you set, the bigger/more intricate looking-ish the tree! Flora does something similar but with a flower. Plus, after so many trees that you “make” via not using your phone, the app will plant a tree. (Limit of 3 real trees planted per person though; they have lives too people).

–Minimalist List. I recently started using this. But I needed a list that I could easily cross off or add/modify on my phone. I found that the notes sections/task app that comes with my iPhone just isn’t cutting it. Let’s be honest: I keep hitting ignore on those reminders. It also cuts down the amount of random papers I have of making to-do lists for my study tasks. Plus, I like how sleek and minimal the app is!

–Headspace. I’ve most definitely tried this app and I know a lot of students on campus use this. If anything, they use the quick 3-10 minute courses. They also have sleep sounds: great to help you relax enough to fall asleep when stressed. Apparently at the beginning of the year when I wasn’t paying attention KCU was able to get you at least the sleepcasts they have for free. Otherwise, you do need to pay for access for this.

–Reef Iclicker. I need this for class. This is how they take attendance in labs and for some lectures, and how we answer in class polls. I have it on my iPad but my phone fits in my pocket easier and is always on me. If you were in the COB this is the same exact program you used for in class questions/quizzes.

–Groupme. My class uses this one to talk to each other. And without the school being able to access the account. Its more or less a giant group text of all the people in my class with the ability to have an open outlet if frustrated, want to give friendly reminders, etc.

–Pandora. This is on all of my electronics. I turn on the Lindsey Stirling playlist and study to this. Its mostly instrumental (on my set one anyways) but not just piano, which means I won’t be tempted to potentially fall asleep. Sidenote: I use the spa channel or classical music to fall asleep at night which is why I can’t really listen to it while studying. And since I also have it preset to have some Irish jig on this channel, I get a happy dance break in-between!

Ipad:

I also have calendar, mail app, and pandora on here. I DO NOT allow text messages or phone calls to reach my iPad. It is a nightmare if you forget to turn it off during exam time. You will automatically fail if it goes off and makes noise, or causes the exemplify app to think you are exiting out to cheat. Really, you can leave it on your phone or computer. You don’t also need it on your iPad and risk your future in medial school.

–OneNote. I’ve posted this before somewhere on this blog. But personally I like using OneNote to take class notes in. Other people use notability. To each their own. I like the ability to have an enormous amount of room to draw/type/import other documents into the same page when I’m taking notes. Again, the downside is if it is a file over 50 MB or something like that it doesn’t import and you have to split it.

–Inkling. This is an ebook platform. We use a fair amount of Mosby series books that go through here. E will usually buy the book itself, and give me the e-code so I can sue it on my iPad. There are a few other similar apps like this depending on which publisher is responsible for the book we are using (such as Kindle, iBooks, etc). Otherwise, I use the PDF version on my computer.

–Examplify. Again, I’ve discussed this somewhere on my blog. We need this to take quizzes and exams through the school. Call it a necessary evil if you will. The recently changed how it looks and boy does it mess me up at times during the reviews.

–Blackboard. Okay. So, I actually hate the blackboard app. I prefer to just login from the webpage. But I do know some people who prefer the app. I’m only putting it on here because blackboard is usually always open on my iPad or computer to watch lectures, download notes, look at grades, etc.

Computer:

I wouldn’t necessarily call these apps. More of what I usually have open on here!

–Blackboard. Always. I can stream lectures better on my laptop because I can fast forward and my computer handles the larger files better.

–Word or a google doc. This is how I sometimes like to fill out objectives. Some classes I find it helpful to go through objectives and see what they want. Others I don’t. Otherwise, everything is just on OneNote.

–Pandora is open in one of these tabs. When I’m not listening to a lecture, I have pandora on playing Lindsey Stirling!

–OneNote. This app uses the internet to save and sync your notes. If I feel like I will be typing more than using the pens, I will use my computer version. Otherwise, I don’t have a computer touch screen, and I will use my iPad.

–Some sort of additional learning tool such as: Teach me anatomy/physiology, youtube, etc., is usually open in a tab if I have and questions and need to source something else. Especially if I forget a book or am still not getting the concept from the book itself. I know I’ve put a lot of different types of websites on here throughout my medical school and COB year(s). For the first part of neuro, I really liked Teach me anatomy. Right now in my second test, I’m really feeling youtube. There are loads of resources to try or see what works.

-Any PDF book that I need that isn’t through one of the many apps on my iPad to view. I also have some books in iBooks as well that I might be able to pull up on my laptop.

And that’s about it. Hopefully this is helpful for some of you deciding on which apps/study materials to use!