Week of December 6

This was the fifth week of the block which meant that this was the final sprint of information. This week was focused on skin. 

Monday

This Monday was much better than the previous Monday. There was dissection in the morning after lecture. I was able to get to my preclinical site on time for my last session.

This session was interesting for me because I was able to talk to one patient with diabetes on my own. The only issue was that I was unable to ask all my questions because I let my patient talk for too long. I also had no idea what to focus my questions on because I had never completed a diabetes focused interview before.

After the preclinical session, I was able to focus on studying the lower extremity and getting ahead on the skin lectures.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I went to lecture for an hour and then there was a final Active Learning Classroom session for the block. This session was focused on hip pain, and my group had piriformis syndrome (formerly known as sciatica). Our preceptor gave us some guidance on which information to study for the exam as well which helped me plan out my next week.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I decided to go to lecture because there wasn’t a recording and then there was anatomy lab. This was our last session to review before the practical. This session was also focused on making a question for the practical.

Thursday

I started this Thursday morning with a whole lot of anger. It snowed.

I turned my car on about ten minutes before leaving, but when I got down to my car to grab my ice scraper, I couldn’t find it.

Turns out, my dad took it out during the summer and never thought to put it back.

So, I tried my best to get rid of the snow and made my way to campus. I was only five minutes late, but it was very awkward. The session was focused on skin, and we were fortunate to have a guest speaker Zoom in with us to discuss skin of color. 

The CAS session was also about identifying and characterizing skin conditions, which was useful for the FOM weekly case on Friday. 

This Thursday was great because there was no biostatistics or journal club. I spent most of the evening studying.

Friday

This Friday morning was our Lower Extremity anatomy practical. This session was different from the previous anatomy practical. Instead of two rounds, we only did one round in the lab. There were two minutes to figure out the answer, and then two minutes to discuss.

I realized that I was not able to look at the anatomy and know exactly what they were on the donors. It made me nervous for the upcoming weekend of studying because I knew there were many topics that I needed to cover in detail.

After anatomy lab, there was the final weekly case of the block. This weekly case session threw three new diseases at us.

Weekend

During the weekend, I spent most of my time following my schedule and studying. It was very overwhelming, but I learned so much. On Saturday, I watched all the Boards and Beyond and was shocked at how much of that information I was able to return on Sunday.