Revived and Ready

Have I told you lately that my school rocks? Well, it does. I don't know how many first-year medical students get to take a Spring Break, but Texas School of Awesomeness just dished out this delight for the first time. (My 2nd-year friends were moaning the unfairness of the situation.) At least a dozen of my classmates headed off to Nicaragua on a medical mission. I headed off to tour my new home--covering over 1,000 miles in a week. Just days before the trip, I was tempted to cancel all plans and spend the week sleeping. But after heavy-duty, non-stop stress, I was utterly worn out and needed to put distance between myself and school. Literally.

Heading back to the books today felt a bit surreal. I updated my Firecracker set (I'm sure I'll write more about Firecracker later) to include only the bacteria that will be tested at the end of next week. After seeing 195 "review" concepts appear in my quiz queue, I just groaned. Oh, yeah, I am in medical school, and this is my life.

Fortunately, a friend invited me on a sanity break. We strapped on our skates and headed out to an abandoned tennis courts to enjoy the sunshine. It was the perfect time to wax philosophical on the intellectual and emotional beating that we lovingly call "school." (Remember? We want to be here.) The great thing about making friends who are upper classmen is that they feel your pain without a tinge of competition.

When she asked me how the last block went, I laughed and I told her that I passed. Why the laughter? I only needed a 54% on the final to pass, but even if I had earned 100% on that test, I still would have been 0.35% below the cutoff for "high pass." It's a little magical knowing I can't do that poorly on the final, yet I don't even have to try to do that well either. It's a bit of a sweet spot, really. I had grand hopes of "high passing" at least a couple of classes during the first two years of medical science. She confided with me that after missing "high pass" by less than one percentage point multiple times, she took a deep breath and let go. It's kind of funny how embracing the pass is the over-achiever's version of "embrace the fail." Funny, in a I'm-doing-my-best-to-prevent-an-ulcer sort of way. So far, I think it's working.

Best Laid Plans

Another block of classes is wrapping up this week. Physiology has been a whirlwind. The past eight weeks have covered all major systems in at a level of detail I never thought imaginable. Each section (cardiology, renal, etc.) has been taught by different professors, turning this block into a series of mini-courses with different lecture and testing styles.

After carefully planning my strategic attack for learning material this block, I managed to bomb the first two tests. Luckily, I'm adaptable and changed what wasn't working for me. Of course, the struggle this entire year has been trying to figure out what actually does work. My last two exams went well, so maybe I'm onto something. This week, however, has been a deluge of hormones as we've gone through endocrinology, and I'm not feeling too confident going into the exam on Wednesday. My confidence is even more wobbly when I look ahead to Friday. Our final exam is (once again) a national shelf exam and I'm feeling the need to actually learn all of the concepts I did not grasp from the first four weeks of the block. Wish me luck!