a terrible, wonderful day…

I am home in Virignia on a non-holiday for a month for the first time since I graduated from high school six years ago. Its weird but nice.

I took a NBME (national medical board of  medical examiners) exam this morning that was supposed to be a practice test for the boards (its strictly for baseline purposes no relevance on any grades). It had the making of a disaster and the gloom and panic of my class was down right infectious after four hours of torture. I have never seen so many 20, 30 year olds so close to tears all at the same time in public not at a funeral. I ate lunch with some friends and then headed for the hills (literally) from the panic. It took me a little while to decompress but by the time I hit the border I was calmer. Spring is just beginning here, its lovely.

On a lighter note. Because I cope with stress by humor…Some thoughts on the exam: (not all of these will make sense to non-medical folk and some will not make sense to non-Wake med kids but some are universally corny )

You may need to study more for the Step 1 if you had some of the following thoughts when doing practice questions:

-You asked yourself on each professionalism question: What would Ober do? You were disappointed that there was no choice like the following:

Z. tell the family member about the death of their loved one with a lot of hand waving and introspection.

-Your micro pharm knowledge is something along the lines of! Fever?!?! Need more cowbell

-Your renal pharm knowledge is a lot like losing to your your little sister (varsity tennis star in high school) or college friends (in the case of Wake kids and I): ACE, ACE, ACE

-You found yourself answering a clinical scenario with the thought oh I saw that on ER (or HOUSE) once.

-You said a prayer of thanks for your own medical problems/family’s medical problems that got you a question or two. (Collagen II, Osteo Imperfecta and Breast Cancer, go team)

-When you didn’t have a clue all you could think was LUPUS.

-All those aliens do a lot of talking…I wish they would talk to me and tell me the answer to these questions.

-On the intoxication questions your mind was fairly blank beyond the pharse… “Why is all the Rum gone?”

-You answered at least one psych question thinking this is me in four weeks after all the studying I have to do…

-When you saw a puncture… I mean punctuate rash…you wanted to put: vampire bite as the etiology.

-When choosing agars…you chose chocolate because it tastes the best (not really its mostly blood)

0:)

I have been taking pictures but I left my photo cord up here by accident so I need to steal it back from my sisters before I post them.