Tag: KCU-COM 2022

Endocrine/Reproduction Block

Hello MedHatters!

And welcome back to another post detailing a medical school systems block. I quite liked how I set up my last block post in GI, where I had my thoughts throughout my course posted here and then dived into the nitty gritty details of the block itself. After a while me just blabbing about the course itself isn’t very interesting!

Strap on in. Like usual, I like to talk.

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PRe-Midterm thoughts:

Okay. I’m motivated right now from not doing as well as I would have liked in GI. I mean, I’m really upset about my GI performance, but I’m hoping I can use this as a motivator to propel me into this block. A girl can at least try to be positive! Especially since I’m a known pessimist.

Let me have my shot at attempting to be positive here people…

I have my sights set on doing an honor’s track (peds specifically). But in order to be considered for this track next year I have to have at least a 3.4 GPA. I’m only a few tenths off, but I know it’ll be harder to get it up than to bring it down.

I know I don’t need the honors track: plenty of people who don’t do fantastic in their grades get awesome residencies. Especially since a lot of schools are deviating away from actual GPA points and operate off of pass/fail. But I really want to do the honors track. It would allow me more exposure to pediatric rotations in my 3rd and 4th year that would not only prepare me more for a residency in peds, but also help me determine if there is a different subspecialty I might be interested in.

Anywho, it’s a Sunday night and I have been dragging for the past few days. My burnout is very very real right now. I’m starting to short-circuit essentially. Forgetting peoples names. Can’t remember what I’m saying in the middle of my sentences anymore. That thought I just had? It flew out the other ear the second I thought I had latched onto it.

Honestly to the point that 2 people told me I look exhausted/need more coffee. And not coming from a friend. From strangers. Apparently it’s that obvious people.

I was hoping that by taking Friday night off I would be better Saturday. But then I ended up spending 6 hours at the hair dressers (was not anticipating that) and it turns out trying to get beautiful is more exhausting then I thought!

And well, earlier today E and I decided to buy a fancy schmancy espresso maker so ya know I spent my whole morning trying to figure that shit out instead of studying.

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It was delicious BTW.

Oh yea, and I’m writing this instead of studying. But hey, the thyroid isn’t stimulating okay? (Insert really corny med school joke about TSH here).

Let’s see how much I can bust out in a few hours. Wish me luck. Imma need it.

[The next day]:

Okay. I tried going to class this morning. But turns out, at least for this block, I need to read before watching the lecture. There is just too much happening with complex concepts. Not to mention one of the physiology professors (love her sassiness), tends to fly through about halfway through her lecture in order to finish on time.

And I just.

It’s a lot.

So, Imma try to read a bit and finish catching up from Friday’s material and today.

It’s been a super hectic Monday so far. We had class for 4 hours today (ugh, feel like I didn’t retain anything). I had to split my lunch hour between my advisee lunch and making an appearance at a club table since I’m hoping to run for president in a few months! I had to start pulling more weight if I want that. I additionally had a meeting with the learning specialist to help me try to figure out where to improve. Turns out its not my study methods that are the problem: it’s my motivation and burnout that is getting in the way. Apparently no amount of self care is going to get me motivated enough to learn this?

Oh, and then had lab for an hour today.

I really hate it when we have afternoon things. I freak out that I won’t make it to my afternoon required labs on time or feel that I need to prep more in the time before I go. OR, I just decide to not do anything and then literally play on my phone until I have to go. So basically, I waste the valuable study time.

Anyways, hoping to get in a bit of studying here before I head back to campus. There is a talk about surgery rotation given by a physician tonight and I really would like the insight!

Wish me luck ya’ll. I got a final at the end of this week and lots to cram in my brain before then.

Post Midterm Thoughts, Pre-Final Thoughts:

Ah, well. I clearly need to change my study habits or find some motivation. It’s weird because I’ve developed this sort of weird sense of confidence in what I do know. So going into the test for both my GI final and my endo/repro midterm I was like on top of the world. Only to see my score be not great. Which sucked this time, because my class did fantastic. Yay classmates! But it also means I don’t get to ride a curve. Actually, there won’t be a curve unless people do poorly on the final and practical because the class scored so high.

Thank God I want to go into peds. Because, ya girl is def not at the top of her class. And I keep getting mad at myself for the grades I’m getting.

I’m more in the middle. And out of 450 some people that’s not bad. But it’s also not amazing. Let’s hope I shine in 3rd and 4th year.

I had my whole I feel sorry for myself and I’m down and pouty yesterday. E made sure to tell me that he hates it when I’m moping or sad because he doesn’t know how to handle me or what to say. So I got a very tough love type of conversation from him last night. Which I didn’t love. But then he bought me sushi so I guess I can’t be mad at him for it. Right? Isn’t that how relationships work? Lol.

Anyways. I can’t jump right into repro (the second half of this course) until I learn some OMM. We have a CPA (or skills check/exam) on Tuesday (so in like 3 full days) and I need to learn this shit.

Dear Lord please let me continue to do well with OMM…

[Later that Week]

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I wish I could say I was happier. Or content. But honestly right now I’m having a really hard time. And not just with school either. I mean, it sucks that I’m not grasping what I’m hoping for and feel like I’m spending so.much.time on topics only to get them wrong on exams. I’m currently trying to figure out how to fix that. The learning specialist thinks it’s a motivation problem.

I’m not sure what I think about that thought just yet.

I’m also having some issues in my personal life. I’m not really sure how to handle the conversations I need to have to improve my peace of mind. Or not miff the relationship. Ya know, things I wish I would have mastered by now but haven’t.

I’m still waiting on my OMM score. But honestly it’s only been 2 days since we’ve taken it. I’m pretty sure I passed. I highly doubt I got an A though. Pretty sure my diagnosis on one of my tasks was wrong… But we will see how nice the grader was.

[The Weekend Before The Shit Show]

So. Ya’ll.

Uhh this next week is going to be a bit rough schedule-wise. We have 2 (well technically 3?) exams next week, 7 lectures, and we have 3 labs also crammed into this week. Oh, and an SP encounter. So it’s… it’s definitely a lot. It kind of reminds me of the last like 2 weeks of fall semester honestly where everything just kind of got crammed in because we didn’t have time during the semester to do it.

I’ll post a rough schedule of things so you can see it. But basically there is going to be a lot going on. A little nervous to have 2 exams in one week again. The last time we had it we had one on Monday and one on Friday. So we at least had the weekend before to prep for the Monday one and the whole week basically in-between for the second one. This time around we have an exam on Tuesday and two on Friday. So less time in-between to figure our shit out.

Oh, and remember, E and I are in different lab groups and go at different times for our SP encounters and debriefs, which means I need to be on campus more to accommodate his schedule too. But his isn’t shown.

I know, it doesn’t look that bad because Thursday there isn’t much. But Imma need that whole entire day to cram reproduction material in my head. Anatomy lab will also be closed from noon-on on Thursday as well so they can set up the exam. So any lab time that I want I’ll have to squeeze in before then!

But anywho, I’m stuck at work for 6 hours today. Hopefully I can finish catching up on the repro stuff from this week and start looking at OS stuff so I’m not cramming it all in Monday night. Wish me luck!

Post-Final Thoughts:

That week was very very rough. I surprisingly did better on OS (both the CPA and exam) than I was expecting, but I also think I put too many eggs in that basket and not enough in the repro basket.

Just because we had so much to do this past week I’ve completely forgotten what I’ve already accomplished already. What happened on Tuesday felt like eons away come Thursday. Well, even come the following day really.

I set my bar really low for repro. Not even gunna lie. I was so burnt out and ready to just sleep that the only thing I wanted was to pass. Thankfully I passed with my raw score. My GPA will likely go down and there may not be a decent curve, (unless everyone also had the same goal) but honestly I’m just happy to be done with it.

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Oh and that practical, man. I was either blissfully unaware of how bad I was failing during it OR I somehow did fine. Because I didn’t think it was that hard compared to what everyone else was saying… Guess when the scores return I’ll find out.

I think I’m finally at the point where I’ve hit my threshold for stress. I’ve noticed my mood is changing, my sleep is starting to be affected, and my brain to start blanking frequently. My irrational fears about nothing to do with the stressors in my life like to pop up. I get nit-picky about freaking out over small things in my home or in my relationship that I have no reason to get upset over.

I am most definitely having those certain signs (that I won’t dive into right meow) that are a little bit more tell-tale when I’m on the brink of hitting my anxiety and some depression just from stress overload. And I’m pretty sure the end of GI and most definitely this past week in repro is what put me there.

Welp. Time to pull my damn bootstraps back up. We’ve got 6 weeks of Neuro. And ya’ll the second years have told us it will be hell.

Breakdown:

Okay, so the midterm focused only on endocrine and the final was only on reproduction. For the midterm:

  • Biochemistry: 10 questions
  • Clinical Medicine: 7 questions
  • Histology: 10 questions
  • Immunology: 10 questions
  • Physiology: 58 questions

Total Midterm: 95 questions

I spent most of my time admittedly on physiology and histology. The clinical medicine really wasn’t that bad. Especially if you showed up for the class (which I did not; these are E’s words). But really I’m learning that most of the clinical medicine lectures take what you’ve just learned collectively from some of the physiology and anatomy lectures and then put them into case studies. Because during physiology, they tell you “oh, if you have a problem here it is primary hypo/hypgonadism” etc. Well clinical medicine lectures take this and just put more of a clinical twist on them. But at the end of the day, they are mostly just asking if you can identify the physiology problem that you learned already.

Final breakdown:

  • Anatomy: 30 questions
  • Clinical Medicine: 11 questions
  • Embryology: 11 questions
  • Histology: 11 questions
  • Physiology: 32 questions

Total Final: 95 questions

{We were supposed to have 100 total questions. But we had some weather issues and long story short they never actually gave us our last 2 hour physiology lecture. They were initially going to just release a video for us to watch (I won’t get into how that got all of our feathers ruffled) but we were ruffled enough that they just pulled it off the exam.}

For anatomy, they did have some blue box material. But honestly I think I’m learning what they like to focus on. Some of the particular professors have clues hidden throughout some of their material in their lectures and notes. For example, Dr. Olinger puts his “blue box” or other tidbit information in italics throughout his note packets. Others just put a slide (such as Dr. Brauer or the fellows). So even though they say to look at all of the blue boxes, in reality, they don’t tend to test on that wide of a range anymore!

For both of our anatomy practicals we had 60 questions again. So that means about 20 were off of a body and were mostly histology slides and models. We didn’t have an imaging lecture this time around so no CT’s/angiography’s/xray’s to test us on. Everything else was on a body like normal.

Additional Information:

I’m not really sure if I feel qualified anymore to give you a how I studied section or what I found helpful. You use the Costanzo book for some of the slides/lectures for physiology and you use the recommended book that is listed (I think it’s a Mosby series one) for the rest. You will always use your Moore’s book for blue boxes. Although honestly, I find it too text heavy to read. I used Dr. Olinger’s book for anatomy and for lab because he has additional drawings and pictures of cadavers in his book.

For questions, I used some BRS. Other’s I used the tutor’s questions. I tried using some of the Mosby questions but I didn’t find them that helpful.

For the repro physiology section I filled out objectives. It was hella time consuming but I wanted to see if I could recall/fill them out without using help. Some of the lectures I could, the rest I couldn’t. I did this because physio was a large chunk of stuff.

Sorry I wasn’t more helpful on this section guys. I’m a little burnt out and at the point of just wanting to pass. Maybe by MOD I’ll get my swing back. 

How scribing has helped me in my 1st year

Hello Medhatters!

I’m pretty comfortable giving advice on scribing since I used to teach scribes. And I’m comfortable talking about my experiences in medical school. Although I will let you decide on how helpful they are.

What I would like to discuss today is how scribing has (or hasn’t) helped me in medical school (so far). I’m writing this on the last few days of my winter break before I dive head first into my second semester of my first year. So that definitely means it will be posted way later… It also means I have many more semesters to go to see how scribing has helped me. But we will stick to what has helped me so far.

In general, we hope that our pre-med experiences help us out in some way, shape, or form by the time we get to medical school. Or nursing school. Or PA school. We are hoping to not have to start from square one or get thrown into a situation head first without any context to draw from. Because let’s be real: as humans, we react to situations, especially new situations, by drawing off of previous experiences. So we hope as medical students that we have some context to help us out. Mostly because we have no idea what we are doing most of the time anyways. So a little bit of help is amazing!

I’m also hoping for this post to be much shorter than some of my other, very lengthy posts. I really like to talk, and surprisingly when I think I have nothing to write about, I still end up with a long post. So if you aren’t in the mood to read a lengthy post today, you are in luck!

How it as helped: Anything related to interacting like a future doctor 

In general, I would say my scribe experience has helped me the most in my PCM course (or Principals of Clinical Medicine/How to be a doctor course). Mostly because doing charting and seeing interactions between patients and physicians or physician-extenders was something that would occur multiple times a day, all day, for many years for me.

I’m comfortable here. I’ve seen how a physician asks questions, helps guide their patients along during their conversation, and they types of exams to choose for their complaints. I’ve even thankfully had some interaction with medical decision-making and ordering certain things for certain issues.  It’s very different being on the other side though, so that part does make me a bit nervous. But overall, I’m definitely a lot more chill than some of my other classmates when it comes to this part of our education.

Here are some more specific points for you:
  • Knowing how to write notes. They don’t really give you a great grasp on how to do this in medical school. But they do teach you all of the necessary components of the chart and how to get information for those parts.
  • You are more comfortable with being in a room with a patient
  • You know and are comfortable with so.many.terms!
  • You are comfortable with the outline of how to do an exam. You may not know how to do something specifically, but you are learning why you do it in medical school and how to actually do it. But from being as scribe, you’ve seen your physicians run through this like the back of their hand. You could probably give a run down of how to do one or a good order to perform one in before they actually teach you. (Doesn’t mean you are good at it though).
  • You will utilize that same “on the fly” learning ability to quickly pick up things/research them. Remember when you had to do so much searching and figuring out on your own to get the information you needed? Same thing applies here. Use it. You can thank me later.
  • This “on the fly” learning transfers to other courses; not just in your ‘how to be a doctor’ course.
  • Trouble-shooting.  This one is interesting for me. I would do this all the time as a scribe and then try to figure out the best way to fix my problem before asking for help from the doctor. But turns out it works great here too when you are learning so many things.
What I’m expecting it to help with in the future:
  • Mostly in my rotations. I expect to feel pretty at home in a variety of clinics. My last scribe job had me starting up clinics and I would work in several different clinics throughout the week. I’m hoping that having to be thrown in and learn my way around different clinics will help me feel more comfortable.
  • Putting my ability to ask other staff for resources in my rotations. This one was hella helpful as a scribe. I fully intend to utilize every resource possible during my rotations.
  • Charting on new EMRs. Well using an EMR in general.

And I will see how much more I can come up with in the years to come!

What it hasn’t helped with:
  • I’m still a little nervous. Check out my “What Still Makes Me Nervous” post from last week to see more in-depth and specifics on this!
  • It doesn’t mean I will pass on everything I do. Especially skills wise. I failed a few things my first semester. One of them being a competency for taking vital signs. To be fair, I wasn’t allowed to touch patients as a scribe… so handling patients is definitely a new skill I’m learning!
  • Multitasking isn’t as helpful. What I mean by this is multitasking is needed and very helpful with scribing. But honestly, in medical school you are learning difficult concepts at lightening speed. So it’s actually easier to pull all your focus on that one concept than trying to spread yourself thin.

And that’s all I’ve been able to come up with! If you are thinking about scribing and want to know the benefits and pitfalls to your future in medicine, hopefully this helps. Also, check out my scribing section on my blog if you are interested in scribing. Lots of information on there.

As always, let me know what you liked, didn’t like, and what you would like to see next in the comments!