June 2004 Archives
Done! Done! Done!
A lot has happened since my last post. The most noteworthy occurance, of course, being TAKING THE BOARDS. Since this was one of the most intense things I have done in my life, i think it deserves a little remeniscing.
The test itself was preceeded by that final week of studying. It was awful. Honestly awful. I think I averaged around 10-12 hours of studying per day, and I usually didn't stop studying before 1 in the morning. I was trying very hard to stick to the schedule I had outlined for myself, which proved to be harder than I had thought. Its funny, because when talking to other people about their studying experience, it came out that while they didn't exactly enjoy it, most people found time to do some fun things once in a while. I know one person who watched a mystery series every night, and others who would stop studying at 6 every day and go out for a beer. But for some reason, I was totally unable to maintain any semblance of a normal life during that period, and did absolutely nothing that was fun, relaxing, or in any way entertaining.
In fact, I opted to go against every single person's advice about what to do the day before your exam. Literally everybody who i talked to who took the test last year, and everything I read online or in prep books, said to relax the day before. Go see a movie, go for a hike, go to bed early, and maybe review some notecards, but whatever you do, do not study. So what did I do? I studied all day long, from 9 am to 9:30 pm, feverishly trying to cram months worth of medical facts into my overcrowded brain. Fortunately I was able to stop to watch an hour of Waiting for Guffman before bed, as a reward for getting through the day.
But I think it paid off. The fact that studying was so stressful made the actual exam pale in comparison. The morning of Monday, June 14th rolled in quietly, and before I knew it I was sitting at a computer in a half-cubicle in a large room filled with other people sitting at computers in cublicles. My fellow test takers. A few of them were classmates, and it was kind of reassuring to know that other people had also reached this moment successfully. And for some reason, throughout the whole 8 hour ordeal, I felt nothing but calm, peace, and relief. I was relaxed, I was in a good mood. I was fucking doing it.
It was a cathartic experience. And it went ok. A lot of the questions were simpler than I expected (which might mean that I totally missed the point and got them wrong), and I found that I was remembering some random things that I had just reviewed the day before. But, there were also plenty of questions that left me totally stumped, about drugs and diseases I had never heard of, but for some reason I just let them slide. It was all ok. I was almost done.
I am now in the waiting-for-the-results phase, which should take anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks (which is kind of incredible to me, given that the test was computerized and was scored instantly). So any day now. I have no idea how I did. I'm pretty sure I passed. I'm pretty sure I didn't do awesomely. We shall see. But the point is, I am done. A weight the I have been carrying since the beginning of first year has been lifted, and I feel like I have genuinely accomplished something. Unfortunately, I will have to do it all again for Step 2 and Step 3 (this was Step 1), but that's in the distant future.
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Day 16. T-7 days and counting.
The official countdown has begun. In one week from now I will be in the middle of the test. Probably on break between my 3rd and 4th section. The exam is composed of 7 one-hour-long sections dedicated to the following subjects: Anatomy, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Physiology, Pathology, and Behavioral Sciences.
Right now I am most scared of Anatomy and Pharmacology, but Behavioral Sciences is creeping up there. Its one of those "soft" subjects that mixes hardcore biostatistics and epidemiology with questions like "what should you do if a man dies, and his liscence says he wants to be an organ donor, but his wife is frantically refusing to give up his organs, saying that is against their religion." I thought the answers to that kind of question would be pretty basic common sense, and I consider myself to have a pretty well-calibrated moral compass, so I was suprised to find that I get every single one of these moral dilema questions wrong. Turns out I am a horrible person who doesn't know right from wrong and who will end up being a terrible doctor because I clearly can't identify what's in the best interest of my patients.
I wouldn't say that I'm starting to panic, but I would say that I'm beginning to develop strong feelings of concern. I did my first official timed practice test last night. 2 of them actually. 66% and 52%. Yikes. That following a weekend of half-hearted committment to the study schedule. On top of being perpetually tired I mangaged to develop a mild festering illness over the weekend that made me weak and distractable. But I'm all better now, and I'm ready for what I will henceforth refer to as "Power Week." I am going all out on this one. Its the homestretch and I'm starting to sprint. Its the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs and there are 2 runners on base and we are down by 1 and the manager tells me to bunt, and I say 'No, goddammit! I'm going to bring 'em home!" and he says, "Just don't strike out like you did last time," and I say, "OK!"
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Day 10:
Last night I couldn't fall asleep, even though I was exhausted. This has been an occaisonally recurrent problem for me over my adult life, but it is happening way more now. I think its some sort of internal self destructive mechanism where my brain tries to sabotage all of my hard work by keeping me awake, thinking of things like "I bet it will feel so good when I'm done with this test" and "wouldn't it be nice to live in New Zealand?" Shut up, stupid brain! One would think you would be exhausted from studying until midnight. But no.
These little bouts of insomnia force me into a really unhealthy cycle of drinking caffeine all day to stay awake, and then taking sleeping pills at night to get to sleep. Maybe I should just develop a heroin addiction and an eating disorder while I'm at it. You know, just to round things out. God, wasn't there a Saved By the Bell episode about this?
Other than my perpetual exhaustion, things are going ok. I am fairly on schedule, thanks to the fact that I stayed up late to finish off respiratory pathology and pharmacology. Now its on to the kidneys, most complex of organs, about whom I'm not very excited right now.
The weirdest thing happened to me day before yesterday. I was studying at the World Cup in the Ecotrust building, sitting in the back at two tables pushed together - I like to spread my stuff out. The place was dead, and as the laws of the universe would have it, the only other people in the place were sitting at the table right next to me. So I was studying away, listening to Postal Service on Mike's Ipod, when I was startled out of my concentration by a guy putting his backpack down on my table. Now, even though I am at a double table I am clearly using all of the space. I have two books, a binder, and several piles of notecards spread out, with very little open table left. And, to reiterate, there were almost no people in that coffee shop - there were at least a dozen open tables. Needless to say, it was a bit startling to have someone decide that, given their options, my table was the one they should sit at.
So I look up. The guy is hurridly arranging his laptop on my table, saying something about how he can't pick up the wireless signal. "Are you guys connected to the network?" speaking aggressively to the party next to me, who are I reapeat, the only other customers in the coffee shop. "Cause I can't get it." He's clearly very put out by the inconvenience of that situation, which must have been set up intentionally to annoy him. He's so put out, in fact, that he doesn't actually ask if its ok if he sit at my table. He just does.
But here is the amazing part. The guy is short, chunky, clean shaven, with a bit of premature grey sneaking in. He is wearing a yamaka (sp?) skull cap. He is wearing a giant tie-dye shirt with a large tie-dyed hot pink electric guitar in the middle. He is also wearing a long, thick gold chain around his neck. And on that chain, a giant gold pot leaf.
So the angry jewish pot-smoking hippy rock and roll laptop nerd sits at my table, in the little open corner not occupied by my stuff, and types very loudly on his computer. He occasionally makes loud grunts of consternation. Soon the party at the next table packs up and leaves. But does he move to the open table? The table that was obviously getting an internet connection? Of course not. He stays at my table. So its me and him, sitting together in the back of a very large and very empty coffee shop. It was very difficult to concentrate, let me tell you, but I wasn't really sure what to do. I was honestly kind of enjoying the utter absurdity of the situation.
After a while, probably about 10 minutes, he packs up and leaves, his giant gold cannibus leaf swaying languidly against his pink tie dyed electric guitar. He manages to accomplish this entire event without ever once having spoken a word to me. What was he thinking? Did he honestly not know that he was breaking like 9 or 10 rules of social behavior? And why was he wearing a giant gold pot leaf on a chain? These are just more unanswerable questions to keep my brain occupied while I'm trying to fall asleep, involuntarily contemplating the ridiculousness of the world.
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