Update!

I survived the spring semester. My nephrology exam went very well, and most of my finals went well too. Clin Med was an interesting experience just because there's absolutely no way you can study for an exam like that. It's cumulative, and what did we do last semester....nephrology, urology, oncology, cardiology, ophthalmology, rheumatology, and neurology. Yeah. You can't relearn all that is just the 3-4 evenings you have to study for the final. It was a little bit of a nerve wracking experience just because I had an 80 average in the class (and 80 is passing) and I needed to get a certain grade to continue to pass, but thankfully I did well enough to let that happen. Despite our schedule being crazier, my grades actually improved somewhat...it's amazing what you can do under fire.

I got back from the National Conference in Vegas yesterday morning technically (2 am). Here are my thoughts:

• Vegas itself is trashy and depressing
• Everything is absurdly expensive
• Vegas is set amongst some of God's most beautiful countryside (and thankfully I got to hike it a day)
• The conference was great in the sense that it was encouraging: I AM learning. When you go this fast and all you do is cram and regurgitate, you constantly wonder what the point is. Going into an exam, I usually know 30-40% of the material we are accountable for, and I just pray for a good guessing day. However, at the conference, I was able to follow most of the lectures I went to, which was AWESOME. Not only that, the conference has a quiz bowl for the students. My program didn't enter because we didn't really want to compete against second year students (all PA programs have different academic schedules, and most teams competing send their senior students who are in the middle of or ending their clinical rotations). I went to quiz bowl and I knew a lot of the answers!! The best part was the second to last question in the final round was "What is indicated with the blue dot sign?" and none of the teams competing knew the answer, nor did most of the audience. I knew the correct answer, and I was sitting with a bunch of 2nd years from other programs who were high-fiving me and saying stuff  like "How did you know that?!" and "I love learning random things from other PA students" (the correct answer btw is "testicular appendix torsion." A certain % of males have an appendix on their testes, and when it twists, the circulation is cut off and hence the blue dot sign. It was encouraging though to know that we are learning
• Here is a list of some of the lectures I went to:
• Emergencies in the Elderly
• Caring for the Adult with a Congenital Heart Defect
• Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness
• Minor Trauma and Treatment
• Knee Instability
• The Best ICU Infections are the Ones That Don't Happen
• Endocrinology Pearls
• Thyroid Management Problems in Primary Care
• Managing Diabetes
• Dementia
• The Ethics of Medical Missions
• Save a Life, Find an AAAneurysm
• Surviving Clinical Rotations
• Smartphone Usage in Healthcare
• Twisted Tales from the ED
• Care for the Returning Veteran
• Advances in Spinal Imaging
• Like I said before, for the most part they were great and they weren't over my head.
• I kinda wish I didn't go to Vegas, however, just because these next 8 weeks are going to be a nightmare. I would be lying if I denied the perpetual state of inner panic that I am running at. Thankfully I deal with stress very, very well, and I have my faith to get me through, but this next semester is going to be TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH. We're in class from 8-5/6 every day except Fridays when we're done at 2/3, we usually don't get a lunch break, and we have more material to cover in less time with boards on top of everything.

To help quantify things a little, here we go:

This is what we did in the first week of summer semester, right before we left for Vegas. Our entire geriatrics and orthopedics block in ONE WEEK. That's 8/10" of size 10 font, double sided outlines and powerpoints.

 

This is my oral boards notebook. Over one inch of double columned, double paged, size 8-10 font of diseases I need to memorize in the next 8 weeks

 

It's going to be a long haul and I will probably have to access my inner crazy side to pull it off, but rotations are so soon! Keep your eye on the prize. Needless to say, this is probably my last post for a long time :)