I love this!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
In case you're wondering...
The exams are over. I'm not sure how I feel about them. They were hard, yes, but not as bad as the original exams.
I thought day 1 was hard but reasonable. I found that I knew (or thought I knew) the answers to more questions than before, and wasn't left to guess between 2 options as much as last time. I was feeling quite good that night, but the more I thought about it, the more unsure I was.
I'd spoken to a few other re-sitters after day 1, and they were freaking out. It made me feel a little bit better, but then I started to doubt myself.
So I was a bit nervous going into day 2. That exam was a bit better than the day 1 exam, so overall I should be feeling positive about it, but I'm certainly not celebrating yet.
My post-exam policy is not to discuss specific questions, or go home and look up answers. It's too stressful, and will only upset me. However I made an exception after day 1 - I checked the dermatomes because I was sure I'd stuffed up a gimme question. I was right. I'm so frustrated that I displayed classic KT exam behaviour - my first instinct was to choose the correct answer, and then I proceeded to talk myself out of it, and I chose another answer, which was wrong. Aaaaagh!
Oh - and after we were assured, nay promised, that there would be no repeat questions on the exam, what do you think we found? At least 5 questions were repeated from our Barrier. Not that many, but it's still incredibly unfair. For example, I was chatting with one of the guys from another clinical school afterwards, and he said, "That methotrexate question was repeated from the Barrier. I got it wrong before, but I knew the right answer this time."
We've decided to wait for the results, and submit an appeal if things go pear-shaped. Actually either way we have to say something - it's extremely dodgy to get a promise from the head of the Assessment Unit, and have that promise brazenly broken. Do I think it made a difference? Probably not. But is it right? No way.
Some of the questions were laughable, literally. There were a few questions where I chuckled to myself and thought, "When did we ever learn that?" And then I did "eeny, meeny, miny, moe".
None of us felt like celebrating after the exams finished. It was a bit depressing. But now I'm getting used to the fact that I'm on holidays. Yay! We get the results on Friday.
And I've got a good distraction - my sister had a baby yesterday! A gorgeous little boy - the first baby in our family. Here's a picture (about 5 hours old):
I thought day 1 was hard but reasonable. I found that I knew (or thought I knew) the answers to more questions than before, and wasn't left to guess between 2 options as much as last time. I was feeling quite good that night, but the more I thought about it, the more unsure I was.
I'd spoken to a few other re-sitters after day 1, and they were freaking out. It made me feel a little bit better, but then I started to doubt myself.
So I was a bit nervous going into day 2. That exam was a bit better than the day 1 exam, so overall I should be feeling positive about it, but I'm certainly not celebrating yet.
My post-exam policy is not to discuss specific questions, or go home and look up answers. It's too stressful, and will only upset me. However I made an exception after day 1 - I checked the dermatomes because I was sure I'd stuffed up a gimme question. I was right. I'm so frustrated that I displayed classic KT exam behaviour - my first instinct was to choose the correct answer, and then I proceeded to talk myself out of it, and I chose another answer, which was wrong. Aaaaagh!
Oh - and after we were assured, nay promised, that there would be no repeat questions on the exam, what do you think we found? At least 5 questions were repeated from our Barrier. Not that many, but it's still incredibly unfair. For example, I was chatting with one of the guys from another clinical school afterwards, and he said, "That methotrexate question was repeated from the Barrier. I got it wrong before, but I knew the right answer this time."
We've decided to wait for the results, and submit an appeal if things go pear-shaped. Actually either way we have to say something - it's extremely dodgy to get a promise from the head of the Assessment Unit, and have that promise brazenly broken. Do I think it made a difference? Probably not. But is it right? No way.
Some of the questions were laughable, literally. There were a few questions where I chuckled to myself and thought, "When did we ever learn that?" And then I did "eeny, meeny, miny, moe".
None of us felt like celebrating after the exams finished. It was a bit depressing. But now I'm getting used to the fact that I'm on holidays. Yay! We get the results on Friday.
And I've got a good distraction - my sister had a baby yesterday! A gorgeous little boy - the first baby in our family. Here's a picture (about 5 hours old):
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Getting close...
Apologies for the lack of updates - though really, there hasn't been a lot to say. Pretty much all I've been doing is studying. And I'm so BORED! The exams are on Thursday morning and Friday morning.
The study group continued until the week before last. It was good, but I think six people was too many - it should've been two groups of three people. As I mentioned in my last post, I found the sessions where we worked through past papers to be the most rewarding.
For the past couple of weeks, we've been doing our own thing. I haven't been going into the hospital as much - I've just been studying at home.
I think the best thing about this (forced) extra study time is that I now understand some concepts that I'd previously skimmed over due to lack of time, or interest, or both. I feel like I'm much more capable of working things out from first principles, instead of rote learning things without fully understanding them.
My colleagues and I had another lovely encounter with the Faculty recently. Here's the story (in probably a bit too much boring detail)...
When I first found out that I'd failed, I emailed the Assessment Unit and asked to view my paper. I was told that this could be done, but my clinical school had to request the paper from the Assessment Unit, and a rep from the clinical school would go through the paper with me as part of my remediation. So I asked the clinical school to arrange this. They refused, saying that the Assessment Unit person was incorrect and that no-one was allowed to see their paper. This was frustrating, but I didn't feel strongly enough about it to fight (figured I had bigger things to worry about), and left it at that.
A few weeks later, we found out that students from another clinical school had viewed their papers. We asked our clinical school again, and again they refused. So I emailed the Assessment Unit, and asked whether we could view our papers without going through the clinical school. Again I was refused - and also annoyed, because the Assessment Unit person CC'd the sub-dean from my clinical school when she replied to my email. "Great," I thought. "Now I'm pegged as a troublemaker."
Then we heard that students from two other clinical schools had also viewed their papers. One of my colleagues contacted our sub-dean, who contacted his counterpart at another clinical school, who confirmed that students there had viewed their papers. So our sub-dean finally gave in and set up a meeting for us with the head of the Assessment Unit (who also happens to be a doctor at our clinical school).
The meeting was at 8am, and it was a colossal waste of time. Of course, we didn't get to view our papers. The head of the Assessment Unit explained all the reasons for this - new pool of questions, don't want the questions to be leaked to other students, the other clinical schools broke the rules, etc. Our main concern was that we would be disadvantaged if any questions from the previous exam were repeated on our re-sit. He assured us that there would be no repeat questions - in fact, he assured us of this so vehemently that I thought he'd say, "Cross my heart and hope to die"!
Apart from that, he told us how we should be studying for the exam - that we should be seeing patients on the wards and setting up a study group. Valid points, yes, but not 2 weeks before the bloody exam! The only piece of new information we got from the meeting was that the re-sit would be easier than the Barrier. He said that the ridiculously hard questions (my words) that were in the Barrier were only there for curiosity's sake - to separate the best of the best. In our re-sit, those questions are pointless.
So I've got 3 days left to study, and I've still got a lot to cover. I'm feeling slightly nervous, but remain confident that I can do it. I can't wait until 11am on Friday!
Thanks again to everyone who commented on my other posts - your support is wonderful!
The study group continued until the week before last. It was good, but I think six people was too many - it should've been two groups of three people. As I mentioned in my last post, I found the sessions where we worked through past papers to be the most rewarding.
For the past couple of weeks, we've been doing our own thing. I haven't been going into the hospital as much - I've just been studying at home.
I think the best thing about this (forced) extra study time is that I now understand some concepts that I'd previously skimmed over due to lack of time, or interest, or both. I feel like I'm much more capable of working things out from first principles, instead of rote learning things without fully understanding them.
My colleagues and I had another lovely encounter with the Faculty recently. Here's the story (in probably a bit too much boring detail)...
When I first found out that I'd failed, I emailed the Assessment Unit and asked to view my paper. I was told that this could be done, but my clinical school had to request the paper from the Assessment Unit, and a rep from the clinical school would go through the paper with me as part of my remediation. So I asked the clinical school to arrange this. They refused, saying that the Assessment Unit person was incorrect and that no-one was allowed to see their paper. This was frustrating, but I didn't feel strongly enough about it to fight (figured I had bigger things to worry about), and left it at that.
A few weeks later, we found out that students from another clinical school had viewed their papers. We asked our clinical school again, and again they refused. So I emailed the Assessment Unit, and asked whether we could view our papers without going through the clinical school. Again I was refused - and also annoyed, because the Assessment Unit person CC'd the sub-dean from my clinical school when she replied to my email. "Great," I thought. "Now I'm pegged as a troublemaker."
Then we heard that students from two other clinical schools had also viewed their papers. One of my colleagues contacted our sub-dean, who contacted his counterpart at another clinical school, who confirmed that students there had viewed their papers. So our sub-dean finally gave in and set up a meeting for us with the head of the Assessment Unit (who also happens to be a doctor at our clinical school).
The meeting was at 8am, and it was a colossal waste of time. Of course, we didn't get to view our papers. The head of the Assessment Unit explained all the reasons for this - new pool of questions, don't want the questions to be leaked to other students, the other clinical schools broke the rules, etc. Our main concern was that we would be disadvantaged if any questions from the previous exam were repeated on our re-sit. He assured us that there would be no repeat questions - in fact, he assured us of this so vehemently that I thought he'd say, "Cross my heart and hope to die"!
Apart from that, he told us how we should be studying for the exam - that we should be seeing patients on the wards and setting up a study group. Valid points, yes, but not 2 weeks before the bloody exam! The only piece of new information we got from the meeting was that the re-sit would be easier than the Barrier. He said that the ridiculously hard questions (my words) that were in the Barrier were only there for curiosity's sake - to separate the best of the best. In our re-sit, those questions are pointless.
So I've got 3 days left to study, and I've still got a lot to cover. I'm feeling slightly nervous, but remain confident that I can do it. I can't wait until 11am on Friday!
Thanks again to everyone who commented on my other posts - your support is wonderful!
Monday, October 27, 2008
(Re)mediate, try not to hate
(Apologies to INXS for the title of this post.)
It's been a couple of weeks since I started remediation for the exams. You may recall that I didn't know what remediation would entail.
On Monday two weeks ago, I met with the sub-dean of my clinical school, and was joined by two other students who'd failed. One of them was a big surprise; the other not so much. Amazingly, we're all from the same PBL group! (Our poor PBL tutor is devastated and is re-examining her teaching/tutoring style, despite our reassurances that it's not her fault.)
The first thing we were told at the meeting was, "You need to do some ICAs". (ICAs are rotations on the wards, i.e. what we've been doing all this year.) We all got a bit upset, because the remediation policy on the website says you have to do ICAs if you fail the long case, but it doesn't say that for the written exam. Unfortunately the policy is quite broad though, and is open to interpretation. We were told that the best way to learn is by talking to patients, and while I agree with that to some extent, I knew that I needed to simply knuckle down and STUDY - especially basic sciences. I didn't mind coming into the hospital every day, as long as I could spend my time studying, not presenting bloody long cases.
It was an argument we were never going to win, and we were allocated to supervisors on a couple of wards. I was allocated (along with another student) to the Haematology ward, with my supervisor being a professor who I really like. On meeting with him, he said, "Well it sounds like you need to be studying, not spending time on the ward," and I wanted to hug him. Hee! He introduced us to the Pre-Internship (PRINT) student on his ward - a guy who's at the end of fourth year, i.e. one year ahead of us. This student, who was a bit bored, sat down with us to talk about where we went wrong. We each identified our top 5 problem areas, then drew up a timetable to cover those areas first, then everything else, during the 6.5-week period leading up to the exams.
And then we immediately got started on renal. Next was neuro, then endocrine, then surgery (which we're currently working through). We meet each morning for an hour or so, with each person presenting a topic, and then some group discussion. We've been joined in these sessions by two other students from my clinical school, and two from another clinical school (they live near the hospital and had heard about our study group).
We work through things fairly quickly, and while I don't think I'm learning anything new, I'm getting a better understanding of things. And it's good to talk through stuff instead of just sitting there reading and trying not to fall asleep.
In the afternoon we usually meet for another hour or so to work through questions from past papers. I find these sessions particularly useful, because the PRINT student challenges us to explain our reasons for choosing each answer, and also our reasons for not choosing the other possible answers. It makes us really focus on the way questions are worded, and challenges us to think logically. I've already noticed a big improvement in the way I'm thinking about each question.
We meet with our supervisor at the end of each week, essentially for a bit of a pep talk. So far it's working well. We still have a lot to cover before the exams though.
Currently I'm only studying while I'm at the hospital each day, for several reasons - I don't want to burn out, I have a lot of work on (nights and weekends), and Good Food Month has taken over my social calendar, not to mention two weddings coming up (including one in Perth). I've decided not to stress about trying to fit in too much study now, because I will step it up over the coming weeks. One of the other students is trying to fit too much in, and I can already see signs of burnout.
So the good news is I'm motivated to study, and I'm confident that I can make it through the exams. It's been great meeting with other people who are in the same position, and supporting each other through this nightmare.
Of course, every day I see my other friends at the hospital doing O&G - the placement I should be doing. That sucks, but my friends are great - they've been wonderfully supportive.
As have my readers! Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my previous post - you have no idea how much better I felt after reading all your comments!
It's been a couple of weeks since I started remediation for the exams. You may recall that I didn't know what remediation would entail.
On Monday two weeks ago, I met with the sub-dean of my clinical school, and was joined by two other students who'd failed. One of them was a big surprise; the other not so much. Amazingly, we're all from the same PBL group! (Our poor PBL tutor is devastated and is re-examining her teaching/tutoring style, despite our reassurances that it's not her fault.)
The first thing we were told at the meeting was, "You need to do some ICAs". (ICAs are rotations on the wards, i.e. what we've been doing all this year.) We all got a bit upset, because the remediation policy on the website says you have to do ICAs if you fail the long case, but it doesn't say that for the written exam. Unfortunately the policy is quite broad though, and is open to interpretation. We were told that the best way to learn is by talking to patients, and while I agree with that to some extent, I knew that I needed to simply knuckle down and STUDY - especially basic sciences. I didn't mind coming into the hospital every day, as long as I could spend my time studying, not presenting bloody long cases.
It was an argument we were never going to win, and we were allocated to supervisors on a couple of wards. I was allocated (along with another student) to the Haematology ward, with my supervisor being a professor who I really like. On meeting with him, he said, "Well it sounds like you need to be studying, not spending time on the ward," and I wanted to hug him. Hee! He introduced us to the Pre-Internship (PRINT) student on his ward - a guy who's at the end of fourth year, i.e. one year ahead of us. This student, who was a bit bored, sat down with us to talk about where we went wrong. We each identified our top 5 problem areas, then drew up a timetable to cover those areas first, then everything else, during the 6.5-week period leading up to the exams.
And then we immediately got started on renal. Next was neuro, then endocrine, then surgery (which we're currently working through). We meet each morning for an hour or so, with each person presenting a topic, and then some group discussion. We've been joined in these sessions by two other students from my clinical school, and two from another clinical school (they live near the hospital and had heard about our study group).
We work through things fairly quickly, and while I don't think I'm learning anything new, I'm getting a better understanding of things. And it's good to talk through stuff instead of just sitting there reading and trying not to fall asleep.
In the afternoon we usually meet for another hour or so to work through questions from past papers. I find these sessions particularly useful, because the PRINT student challenges us to explain our reasons for choosing each answer, and also our reasons for not choosing the other possible answers. It makes us really focus on the way questions are worded, and challenges us to think logically. I've already noticed a big improvement in the way I'm thinking about each question.
We meet with our supervisor at the end of each week, essentially for a bit of a pep talk. So far it's working well. We still have a lot to cover before the exams though.
Currently I'm only studying while I'm at the hospital each day, for several reasons - I don't want to burn out, I have a lot of work on (nights and weekends), and Good Food Month has taken over my social calendar, not to mention two weddings coming up (including one in Perth). I've decided not to stress about trying to fit in too much study now, because I will step it up over the coming weeks. One of the other students is trying to fit too much in, and I can already see signs of burnout.
So the good news is I'm motivated to study, and I'm confident that I can make it through the exams. It's been great meeting with other people who are in the same position, and supporting each other through this nightmare.
Of course, every day I see my other friends at the hospital doing O&G - the placement I should be doing. That sucks, but my friends are great - they've been wonderfully supportive.
As have my readers! Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my previous post - you have no idea how much better I felt after reading all your comments!
Friday, October 10, 2008
Try, try again
If you haven't read my previous post, do that first.
In late September we had our Barrier exams, marking the end of third year. They consisted of three 80-question multiple choice papers, held over two days.
Third year focuses on the clinical application of what we learnt during first and second year - diagnosis, differential diagnosis, management, side effects of treatment, etc. It was expected that the third year exams would reflect this clinical focus.
I studied very hard for these exams (despite having the long case in the back of my mind). I had a strict study schedule, which I stuck to. I did a lot of past papers and other exams, and was pleased with how I went.
So I was feeling quite good about these exams - certainly much better than I felt last year!
The first paper on day 1 was a doozy. Instead of the clinical focus, there were obscure anatomy, physiology, histology, and pathology questions. It felt like we were being tested on the minutaie of first and second year, instead of the practical stuff we'd focused on in third year. It was a massive shock. Still, I took my time with the first paper, and tried my best.
I had lunch with some friends (including Yay), and we said that it was impossible to know how we'd gone in the exam, because there was too much guessing of answers. Like everyone else, we were quite frustrated.
The other two papers were more of the same: long clinical scenarios that take ages to read through, followed by obscure questions about Na+ channels and cell types, for example.
My final analysis:
Unfortunately that wasn't the case. The results came through at the end of last week - I failed. AGAIN.
I was in Mudgee for the long weekend, doing wine tasting with (non-med) friends. A fellow med student sent me a text on Friday, saying that the results were out. My earliest chance to get online was Saturday evening, after a day of wine tasting. I checked my email in a room by myself. I covered my eyes as the page loaded, then peered through my fingers to see "Not Satisfactory". I was numb. I didn't get upset; I just sighed, shut down my computer, and sat there for a while. Eventually my friends came looking for me, and that's when I got upset - telling them that I'd failed again.
Luckily we were heading out to dinner and I didn't have time to dwell on it. In fact the rest of the weekend was wonderful, and I refused to let the news ruin it. (Alcohol definitely helped!)
I called my Mum when I returned to Sydney. She was in tears - very upset. I've slowly told other friends and family, because it will be impossible to hide this from anyone.
That's because the implications of failing the third year Barrier are significant:
I'm so frustrated, because I truly think that I could have done no study and ended up with the same result. What a waste of time doing all that study!
And if I fail the re-sit? That means repeating third year. To be honest, I don't think I have it in me. I'm not one of those people who always wanted to be a doctor, who would do anything to get into medicine. I love it and I want to be a doctor, but the prospect of repeating a year at age 34 does not interest me in the slightest. So this re-sit in November is very, very important.
I find myself wondering whether I'm cut out for this career. Maybe I don't want it enough - maybe that's why I'm struggling (even though I didn't think I was struggling this year!). And it's not going to get any easier! My non-med friends are always full of praise, saying that I'm such an inspiration, changing my career and pursuing my dream. That's really lovely, but I feel like a bit of a fraud. I feel as though I'm letting my family and friends down - all these people who have supported me in my return to student life.
I've had great support from my family and friends, and also from my third year PBL tutor, who is amazing. She's offered to help me with any revision I need to do. I'm meeting with the head honchos of my clinical school on Monday, and I'm already on the back foot, anticipating what they'll say to me. They're nice people and they mean well, but I suspect tears will be shed during that meeting.
So, for the next seven weeks I'll be studying yet again. I have the time to focus on specific areas, such as physiology and anatomy. I'm working on a study plan this weekend.
I'm so jealous of my colleagues who are starting fourth year on Monday, but I'm trying not to think about it. From now until the end of November, it's all about me. And let's hope I don't need to make a difficult decision about my future...
In late September we had our Barrier exams, marking the end of third year. They consisted of three 80-question multiple choice papers, held over two days.
Third year focuses on the clinical application of what we learnt during first and second year - diagnosis, differential diagnosis, management, side effects of treatment, etc. It was expected that the third year exams would reflect this clinical focus.
I studied very hard for these exams (despite having the long case in the back of my mind). I had a strict study schedule, which I stuck to. I did a lot of past papers and other exams, and was pleased with how I went.
So I was feeling quite good about these exams - certainly much better than I felt last year!
The first paper on day 1 was a doozy. Instead of the clinical focus, there were obscure anatomy, physiology, histology, and pathology questions. It felt like we were being tested on the minutaie of first and second year, instead of the practical stuff we'd focused on in third year. It was a massive shock. Still, I took my time with the first paper, and tried my best.
I had lunch with some friends (including Yay), and we said that it was impossible to know how we'd gone in the exam, because there was too much guessing of answers. Like everyone else, we were quite frustrated.
The other two papers were more of the same: long clinical scenarios that take ages to read through, followed by obscure questions about Na+ channels and cell types, for example.
My final analysis:
- I knew about 20% of the answers
- I guessed about 20% of the answers
- For the other 60%, I could narrow down the five possible answers to two possible answers, but then I had to guess between the two.
Unfortunately that wasn't the case. The results came through at the end of last week - I failed. AGAIN.
I was in Mudgee for the long weekend, doing wine tasting with (non-med) friends. A fellow med student sent me a text on Friday, saying that the results were out. My earliest chance to get online was Saturday evening, after a day of wine tasting. I checked my email in a room by myself. I covered my eyes as the page loaded, then peered through my fingers to see "Not Satisfactory". I was numb. I didn't get upset; I just sighed, shut down my computer, and sat there for a while. Eventually my friends came looking for me, and that's when I got upset - telling them that I'd failed again.
Luckily we were heading out to dinner and I didn't have time to dwell on it. In fact the rest of the weekend was wonderful, and I refused to let the news ruin it. (Alcohol definitely helped!)
I called my Mum when I returned to Sydney. She was in tears - very upset. I've slowly told other friends and family, because it will be impossible to hide this from anyone.
That's because the implications of failing the third year Barrier are significant:
- I'm not allowed to start fourth year with my colleagues next Monday
- I have to re-sit the exams in the last week of November
- Assuming I pass the re-sit (big assumption?), I can start fourth year in December/January with my elective term - this means I don't miss out on Vietnam
- After the elective term, I rejoin my colleagues for rotations 2, 3, and 4
- While my colleagues are doing their pre-internship term (PrINT) at the end of 2009, I have to do rotation 1 (which I'm missing this year)
- When my colleagues commence their internship in January 2010, I have to complete my PrINT term
- I have to join the June 2010 intake of interns.
I'm so frustrated, because I truly think that I could have done no study and ended up with the same result. What a waste of time doing all that study!
And if I fail the re-sit? That means repeating third year. To be honest, I don't think I have it in me. I'm not one of those people who always wanted to be a doctor, who would do anything to get into medicine. I love it and I want to be a doctor, but the prospect of repeating a year at age 34 does not interest me in the slightest. So this re-sit in November is very, very important.
I find myself wondering whether I'm cut out for this career. Maybe I don't want it enough - maybe that's why I'm struggling (even though I didn't think I was struggling this year!). And it's not going to get any easier! My non-med friends are always full of praise, saying that I'm such an inspiration, changing my career and pursuing my dream. That's really lovely, but I feel like a bit of a fraud. I feel as though I'm letting my family and friends down - all these people who have supported me in my return to student life.
I've had great support from my family and friends, and also from my third year PBL tutor, who is amazing. She's offered to help me with any revision I need to do. I'm meeting with the head honchos of my clinical school on Monday, and I'm already on the back foot, anticipating what they'll say to me. They're nice people and they mean well, but I suspect tears will be shed during that meeting.
So, for the next seven weeks I'll be studying yet again. I have the time to focus on specific areas, such as physiology and anatomy. I'm working on a study plan this weekend.
I'm so jealous of my colleagues who are starting fourth year on Monday, but I'm trying not to think about it. From now until the end of November, it's all about me. And let's hope I don't need to make a difficult decision about my future...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
