Every year I feel like I've hit a new low in life, but towards the end of this year, life has been surprisingly good. Never mind that I started in January in the worst throes of depression, as of now, I feel good.
For the first time since medical school started, I felt confident that I had passed the semester. Not that I didn't brace myself for failure, but I thought I did "alright" on my papers. I was a bit hesitant in my oral exam, and failed spectacularly in some stations, but otherwise I think I was fine. And so it wasn't much surprise that I had passed, but it was still the greatest relief. I had such a good time this semester, if I didn't have the results to show for it, it would have been highly disappointing. Also I feel as if I worked decently hard, so if I had to repeat that (and put in more effort, in that case) I would have been quite devastated.
I hardly blogged at all this semester, so let me tell you a bit about school.
I kicked off the semester with an elective in cardiothoracic surgery. "Open heart surgery", if you will. Yeah, I got to see the beating heart in someone's chest, and it slowly came to a stop as the potassium kicked in. The person was kept alive through a bypass machine. I must have told you at least once before, but the theatres were fucking freezing, and the whole thing was interesting for roughly one minute before I wanted to escape. Too bad open heart surgery takes HOURS to complete. Anyway I got through that without doing a lot of work, but I didn't have a lot of commitment either, so I got out feeling quite alright.
Then I had a 2 week holiday, most of which I spent playing League.
A two week geriatrics rotation, which was interesting in terms of pathology and disease, but downright depressing when it came to the patients. I've never seen anyone so vulnerable- the compound of age, disease and frailty is a scary sight to behold.
Then I started a six week internal medicine rotation, where I did not-much-work-at-all, until I knew I had exams coming up, so I ramped up my hours and effort invested. It got really stressful at one point, because I managed to FAIL a practise exam. I had 2 actual exams, and I'd passed one of them already, but between that and my final, I failed a round of practise quite spectacularly, and it was the most stressful thing. I did pass my final quite easily, so in retrospect I probably had a bad day when I'd fail practise. The 6 week rotation itself was rather uneventful. I couldn't quite tell you what I learnt or didn't learn, but I do feel better for having done it.
Afterwards it was a challenge of a whole new different level. I knew from the start that surgery wasn't my thing, but it's a course-requirement so I rolled with it. Getting out of bed at 5.30am was probably the worst thing about it. I did become incredibly disciplined through that habit, though. If you have enough will to force yourself out of bed at 5.30am, you have enough will to force yourself to study. I crunched through the textbook, the question banks, practise papers... you name it. The only thing I regret is my lack of clinical exposure- not that I didn't go to clinics, but it was all very... hazy. I didn't feel very involved, and it's something I'll have to work on next year.
Exams were a nightmare of their own, despite my preparation, I never did truly feel "ready". My written papers were "alright", as I mentioned before, then I had a 3 day panic attack leading up to my oral exam. I think I fasted from 8pm to 2pm the next day, because I couldn't eat until my exam was over. I didn't want to feel food churning in my stomach as I panicked, and the last thing I needed was intense vomiting before the exam. It was mostly...okay? A bit of a disaster, granted, but only a bit.
Then school was over, and I went out with my friends, spent a lot of money, ate lots of good food, and it was just really pleasant, in general. Now I'm on holidays, spending way too much time playing League once again, and the binge is quite real. The guilt of it all- my decadence and deplorable sloth- finally got to me yesterday. I started reviewing course content from previous years, and it stunned me how EASY it was to read. For once I understood what textbooks spoke about, words made sense, and I didn't have to search up every second word in the sentence in a medical dictionary. Nobody warns you that medicine is a foreign language to be learned- and no, Latin does not help as much as you think it would.
It's been a rough 4 years, but I'm proud of my progress. People often mention how if they could replay their life, they'd do this and that differently. If I had the opportunity to start over, I don't think I would appreciate it. Some experiences, whilst dramatic in their own right, are better off as singular events. Uni for me, is one such thing.
I'm so glad it's almost over.
No comments:
Post a Comment