MS2 is over and I have a few weeks off before MS3. I have been going to activities with my kids like the pirate birthday party shown in this picture here. From a school standpoint, it has been a challenging year. The fall of this past year (MS2 midway) had tons of exams to study and Jan - May gave me my first taste of clerkships and clinics. The material is interesting and I like the patients. Exams en masse are just part of student life, but the clerkships are certainly a new experience for me and took a little getting used to. In the working world, there can be a fair amount of teamwork and everyone contributing is rewarded and appreciated. Clerkships do have some of this, but mostly it's a time where you are being assessed, and thus it's more of an exercise in impressing your attending and residents. I was hoping it would be more about caring for the patients, but that is less of a factor. Knowing a long differential diagnosis or correctly explaining a difficult treatment was where points are scored, so to speak. Also, it was generally better to take on a bit less work and do it perfectly than to take on more work and risk answering a question incorrectly or missing a fact about a patient. It's pretty much about perfection in terms of your image as opposed to how well your patients are doing.Over the next several weeks, I'll be taking advantage of time with the family, studying, and losing a little weight. I'll take the kids to swim and art camps as welll weekly activities. I'll be studying for the upcoming medicine rotation and refreshing my memory on material for the step 1 exam that I'll be taking next year. I'm so happy to have a nice break. There is so much fun stuff to do; a bit of freedom before some tough rotations in the fall and winter.
2 comments:
Hi Ralf, i've been reading your blog, your research entries are quite interesting.
So you guys take your Step 1 during third year?
One of the nice things about Baylor CM is that there is flexibility on when you take the STEP 1. I plan to take mine about midway through 3rd year because I want to have my medicine clerkship before I take the step. For me, having patients with the different diseases helps me remember the various conditions and medications (provides a framework for memorizing that I like). Some of my classmates took it midway through MS2 because they didn't want to have to rememorize as much of the pre-clinical material and their clerkship schedule was such that this was a good time to take it.
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