Wannabe Medic

Study drugs; what I thought were used by the desperate, the well and truly left-it-so-late-it's-now-too-late hardcore, "academia is my whole life" and "life isn't worth living if I fail" oxbridge types. I look around me right now in the library: I know at least two people in the room are on them. I wonder how many more are. Some of these people are my friends. They're capable of concentrating, they made it into medical school in the first place without ever touching them and so they are capable of passing exams without them: so why have they resorted to what I thought was a last-ditch attempt at powering through an essay type drug? I'm slightly disappointed by them. We both know that they're capable of passing these exams without them: what it's come down to, is that they're being too lazy to try. And what if they weren't capable of passing or studying without them? Then if they pass; they're passing under false pretences. In ...

Over the past fortnight, i've seen several of my friends break down and cry about how hard this all is. About the sheer frustration they feel trying to study for a career they once dreamt about, about watching the NHS be torn apart right in front of our eyes, about wanting a better a quality of life then we would get as doctors. We're not saying we'll have an awful quality of life, no, but it's certainly not what we once thought it would be. It seems like nobody actually wants to do this any more. So why are we? Because it's Medicine, no matter what, will be a good degree to have. Whether you establish your whole career based on it, or whether it's simply a platform to go onto better things; a medical degree isn't a bad thing to have under your belt at all. This is what I tell myself when I have been sat in the library for 12 hours. My exams are around the corner and I think about how difficult this is. Of course it is. It was never going to be easy; but...

It's March already. What the hell is happening? I'm two months away from sitting my Semester 4 exam and then i'm into clinical years. HOW HAS THIS HAPPENED SO QUICK??? I remember moving into halls like it was YESTERDAY. I remember doing my GCSE's and reading about 6 million other blogs from medical students at University reflecting on their clinical experiences and thinking about how far away it seemed, what a dream it would be to be in that position... it's actually blowing my mind. I keep getting palpitations every time I look at my calendar and see how little time there is between breaking up for the summer and now. Technically my last ever proper summer. What the fuck am I doing with it? Jack shit it would seem. That's stressing me out - feeling like i'm not making the most of the time I've got. I'm caught up in feeling like there is so much I need to do and trying to stay on top of everything while not freaking out and actually thinking ...

I HAVE MADE IT THROUGH SEM 3. I HAVE PASSED. I AM THROUGH. I NEVER HAVE TO CRY ABOUT THE BASAL GANGLIA AGAIN!!!!!!!!! Looking back at the OSCE's which were the real source of my heartache feedback this year was welcomingly more detailed! I have left out the average score of the cohort and my percentage in the interests of privacy but i'm pleased the medical school provided us with them.  Station 1: Anatomy  Predicted: Fail Actual: Fail Station 2: Anatomy Predicted: Fail Actual: Fail Station 3: Opthalmoscopy / Otoscopy Predicted: PASS Boundary: 69.2%  My score:  PASS Well above average here! In fact the only place in this station I got less than 100% was the use of the ophthalascope because I spent so long faffing around with which one is the right light! Station 4: BP and Pulses Predicted: PASS Boundary: 68.4%  My score:  PASS Interesting that I was so confident with this at the time but did about averagely...

So on Thursday we had these new exams being introduced to Year 2 students: "integrated osce's". The idea being that from year 3 onwards we are expected to perform osce's in a "whole picture" way, so communication, examination and knowledge of what's going on would be examined all together. In a way to make it more "realistic" of the real world. Great idea in theory. There were two "integrated" stations this time. 8 minutes each. Buzzer went off at 8 minutes. Let me start by saying my exam time was early morning. Exams were being held from 0845 to 1630. We were going in blind, no idea what the stations would be assessing - there was no official announcement the night before making it even more unfair for the people who had their exams first. Everyone from about 11am however, had plenty  of notice to find out what the OSCE's were on and how to prepare for them.  This was bullshit. So, I'm walking into my building, I real...

Nightmare. So some bright spark thought as well as introducing two new stations and giving us the vaguest / unclear information about them, they've decided that we should have 8 (both anatomy, all of physiology / pharmacy and communications) on one day and the two new one's on another. Today was the holy-mother-of-god 8 station day. Phys / Pharm  Just like last time we had the run down of what the physiology/pharmacy stations would be the night before. I've not refreshed my e-mail so many times in quick succession since I was waiting for track to update. The stations were decent - I was dreading an audiometry station or EMG but neither of those came up. So like last time i'll run through what they were and everything I fucked up on. Station number. Station type: whether I think i've passed or failed (how confident I am that I passed / failed) 1. Otoscope / Ophthalmoscopy:   Pass (60/40) So this station was in three parts, had to look inside the ea...

So that last week up to the Semester 3 test was pretty manic. My friends and house mates all came back from their respective home cities and the stress kicked up yet another notch; something I did not believe could happen by this point. I tell you what though, I employed a new tactic that last week. Something I have never done before. I worked with others. I am notorious for just needing to be on my own to crack on with revision, too-easily-distracted by the prospect of chatting about shit. I was apprehensive about employing this alien concept into my revision... and whilst those hours were definitely not as "progress" productive (aka it can takes three times as long to go through a topic when there are three of you) as the one's where I am on my own, it really helped cement some things in my mind. Moreover, things that I'm sure I wouldn't have remembered had we not discussed them suddenly came floating back to me in the exam. I would work on my own all day to...