Tag: KCUMB

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.