The fourth week of medical school is over, and I am shocked it’s been a month!

This post covers August 30th, 2021 to September 3, 2021. This week was not very eventful because we didn’t really have an exam or FOSCE. My next FOSCE is actually Tuesday, September 7th (so the day after I publish this post). My summative exam will be September17th and I am starting to feel a bit nervous, but not overwhelmed at all. 

FOM

For this week, there was not a whole lot of excitement. We covered multiple chapters that were very dense. On Tuesday, we received our actual grades for the formative exam. I was very pleased with my score on the NBME section because it was much higher than I thought. I only got two questions wrong which means that my studying was paying off. The GEMS questions that our professors write are definitely going to be the focus of my studying, but I know my current game plan will tackle those weaknesses.

Overall, if this exam was my summative exam grade, I would’ve passed because I was above the class average. I wasn’t higher by much though which means I really need to make sure I put in some extra effort to cover next week’s material during this week. I am hoping it will be doable with the extra three hours I have tomorrow after my telemedicine FOSCE. 

At the moment, I try to watch any Boards and Beyond videos or skim some reading before my lectures. It was very helpful this past week because I was primed for that content. However, there were some issues with recording our lectures so I spent some time trying to catch up making my Anki cards because we were moved to an auditorium. The auditorium was not conducive to my set-up, and the room was very dark so I was very close to falling asleep a few times. 

CAS

For our CAS course this week, we covered medications and sexual history. The medications session was broken into larger groups in our active learning classrooms. We did an activity that portrayed how difficult it is to remember lists of medications and dosages. We were also given some time to practice asking questions about medications in different scenarios of varying difficulties. 

On Thursday, we were given a lecture by an incredible OB-GYN who covered the importance of being open and not judgmental while gathering a sexual history. After the lecture, we were given the chance to practice with a standardized patient. 

This session was very difficult for me. I already struggled with asking the normal social history questions, but the nerves of discussing sexual history with someone older than me was very difficult. I knew that this session was very important for me to break that barrier, and I was so grateful to be given that opportunity especially because I am interested in OB-GYN. 

My biggest mistake during my practice session was speaking too fast. I know that I have a tendency to speak really fast in general, but I can’t stop myself when I’m nervous. I hope that I can stay calm during tomorrow’s FOSCE, but I did not practice discussing social history enough this weekend so I am still nervous. I am going to do my best to pretend that I am not nervous, and remind myself that I am still learning and mistakes should be made. 

Research Course

The research course was not very eventful either. The first hour was focused on our journal clubs. The article we read was not very good. It had multiple flaws, but it was a good experience to see how we were supposed to work through the journal club. I can link that article below so you can see what we read: https://jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10.3346/jkms.2008.23.3.470

After the journal club, we worked with our other small groups to practice some biostatistics. After that biostatistics session, we had a lecture about evidence based medicine. This lecture was interesting and our professor was able to finish up early so we left an hour early. I really appreciated that because by 2pm on Thursdays, I am struggling to focus. 

Overall for Academics

My methods are working, and I am doing my best so stay on top of everything. It is certainly difficult, but I am up for the challenge. 

I have noticed that my undergraduate education with my university truly set me up for success. The same examples and concepts were taught to me throughout the Biomedical Sciences coursework as well as the elective courses for my minors. It feels amazing to have a foundation of knowledge to look back on and say “Oh, I remember this!” and just be able to build up on top of it. 

For that reason, even though this week will be challenging, I am very excited.

I am looking forward to getting more time to practice with the standardized patient during my telelmedicine FOSCE. I have that session at 1:35pm tomorrow so I am hoping to use my extra time tomorrow to work on some review.

Overall for Life

This week was a bit difficult. I managed to get to the gym one time on Friday and realized that I needed to look into the gym memberships for locations around me. Due to COVID, there are fewer machines, and I realized that I would like a bit more space than what the campus gyms have to offer. 

I was able to go yoga this week, but I was nowhere near as active as I hoped.

In terms of my social life, I didn’t really do much this week. I ate lunch with some classmates, but otherwise I mostly did some chores and errands on Friday and Saturday. 

The errands on Saturday took up the most time. I am still very displeased with how much time I spent walking around the stores. In total, I was able to go to three stores to pick up materials for my thank you gifts. I also picked up some food items, and other miscellaneous items that I needed. I was at a Target at one point, so I 100% bought items that I did not need. 

Overall, I am very excited about these gifts because I put a lot of effort in. I bought chocolate and gift cards as add-ons to make the gifts a bit more substantial. 

Comment below to guess what that gift is!