Nearly done

So... I've completed all my clinical placements! Now I only have my final OSCE to do. It is scheduled for May. Wow.

Actually, I am behind in submitting a few log books so I must get those done asap.

Now I'm looking at internship possibilities, and....having a (second) baby in June!

I'm coming to terms with this whole crazy, stressful, amazing journey actually coming to a completion. And my new career only just beginning.

I must be feeling confident of my future transition as I'm started sewing a few pairs of scrubs. You can buy them but I wanted to make them from old sheets from the opshop.

I gues that's all I have to comment on at this stage. Just preaprig for my OSCE and finalising everything to graduate!

I'm back.

Sorry about my absence.

I had a little freak-out.

Ok so I feel better now. I've sorted out my social media, AND decided I don't want to be a surgeon anymore lol

I got home from my last placement, and my daughter was acting distant toward me. I hated it. I hated it more than I want to be a surgeon. I want that closeness and bond with my child that only a more family-friendly medical career can provide. So there you go. GP-land for me. Maybe ED, depending.

So right now I'm back in the student accommodation ready for my FINAL clinical rotation! Woo-hoo! Amazing! It's in O&G.

I'm just sitting at my desk cutting off the fake nails I had put on for my wedding (PS I got married). Painted nails, and espcially aartifical nails, are a real no-no, but I havent had the chance to go get them soaked off so here I am cutting them really short and hoping noone will notice. They are a natural/nude colour. I will begin the painful process of actually tearing them from my nail bed tonight and see how far I get. There are bonded on tight!

Now I need to go cram for tomorrow. Apparently we have a full theatre list of gynae surgeries and I need to revise my female pelvic surgical anatomy knowledge.

So you want to be a surgeon

I have a problem. I want to be a surgeon.

It's problem because you have to be mentally a little bit, hmmm, mental to want to sacrifice all else for a career that is tough (very tough). It's also a problem for me becasue I've got a 2-year old daughter that I love being a mummy for. It's also a problem because surgical training programs are incredibly competitive to gain entry too and I'm, let's just say, not overly competitive in where I'm choosing to study medicine.

Where there's a will, there's a way, hey?

My Five Steps to achieving my/your goal is:

1. Visualise yourself achieving your goal
2. Find out what you need to do to achieve your goal, then repeat Step 1.
3. Find people that have already achieved your goal and do what they did, then repeat Step 1.
4. Find out if the people from Step 3 are available to be your mentor, either formally, informally, online stalker-type thing, or not.
5. Actually do the things in Step 2.

I've looked at the RACS website as to my Step 2 above and Oh. My. God. just getting INTO the surgical training program makes medical school look like a walk in the park. I can't believe I've been crying about how hard medical school is. It's true! The GAMSAT was the easiest exam of my medical career. Great.

Anyhoo, challenges only make us stronger, right?

....Right?

Clinical placement update

Things have been going really good on this placement. The hospital is very friendly, as are the other students (both medical and nursing).

Staying in the student accommodation has been a very good experience for me. I am able focus being on a medical student and also rest when I need to (which you can't always do as a parent) which has enabled me to focus. I feel like I'm really keeping up with my local medstudent-peers and meeting expecations of the Interns and Registrars.

The Consultant and seniour staff here at the hospital have all been very forward in suggesting that I would be welcome as a doctor here, although they do all admit the frustrating obstacles with the internship bottle neck and the problem where the hospital is not an accredited training facility (at the moment). I do believe this will change in the near futre as the workload increases in regional areas and the need to invest in workforce stability pressures the government and training colleges to have a rethink. Whether this changes in time for me, I'm not sure.

Lately, I have not been worrying as much about my medical career's future as I have in the past. I'm not sure why. I think maybe it's becasue things are seeming to be working out, I'm more reassured of my level of knolwedge and the welcoming I've had at this site, and perhaps it has been a change in mindset. Maybe it's got to do with my fiancé taking over the primary carer role for our daughter. Maybe it's the fact I listen to podcasts in the car on the way up here and have created a morning routine including saying positive affirmations.

Things just seem to be going my way in all areas of my life, not just medicine.

They say to do the hard things when times are easy, or as I say "Get ahead now while you can".

I feel reinvigorated with my passion for medicine once again. I don't know why.

At the moment, I want to be a GP. I want to work 9am-3pm (school hours) and maybe train as a GP/O+G, or a GP/EM or something like that. Whatever it is, I'll be one of those "good" GPs. I want to have my office decor reflecting my aesthetic (which is quite clinical anyway) and even do housecalls. I'd like to build a relationship with my patients and be one of those old-school family physcicians. I want to keep my training up so I can handle emergencies that come in. I see so many GPs can't place IVs because they never do them, or even interpret 12-lead ECGs. I want to be able to excise skin lesions without referring to a surgeon, and really look after my pregnant and paediatric patients, and even mental health.

This is funny as I rememebr when I did my Basic Clinical Skills workshop the female GP said she was getting out of General PRactice as female GPs do "tears, fears, and smears" Which I think is psych, the worried-well/worried mums, and women's health (PAP smears). Bizarre that those are the things I, once again, look forward to providing for my patient.

Anyway, time to make dinner back in the student kitchen...

Update and Making a come-back

Hi.

I'm on my Internal Med 8-week placement. I just got here. It's a Sunday evening and I've arrived at the student accommodation. What a luxury to be provided with accommodation!

Still need to complete the following to graduate from med school:

1. This 8-week IM rotation
2. 8 weeks O+G in November
3. 4 weeks of surg (trying to arrange)

Plus these exams:
1. O+G
2. Final clinical exam (written) <<<<scary one
3. OSCEs

I hope to be part of the graduating cohort in March 2017.


Making a come-back.

At some point, a few weeks ago, I thought to myself "What if?....I felt as confident about medicine as I do about paramedicine?"

Just allowing that thought to possess my mind for a moment opened something up to me. I realised I don't enjoy medicine mostly because I don't feel confident doing it. Yes, all my other arguments for why I prefer ambulance work are still valid, but WHAT IF?

I've just had 4 weeks annual leave and started to do some mental-game work. I've been reading, researching, watching, and listening to various sources. I found a new mentor and met her for coffee at her house. She has been a doctor for longer than I've been alive and was very, very helpful for my mind-game.

See, my problem is clinical, but it stems from my mind. It is so hard to learn if you have no confidence in your ability. Well, for me anyways.... I've been hiding. Pretending I'm not a med student. Hoping it will all just go away and I can go back to being a stay at home mum.

Then, I started to think BIG. What if..... I didn't go into General Practice? What part of medicine REALLY scares me, that I can turn around and make it motivate me to do better.

Ok, so then I had a dream about it - about what specialty really scares me. I'm not going to say which just yet (too scary). But I woke enthused about medicine again. Like the fire in my belly was fuelled once again. I think I just needed a really big goal to go for. Even though getting into GP-land would be still an amazing accomplishment, there's something about it, even the way I talk about it, that doesn't excite me, and I think I really need that excitement right now. I may end up in GP-land but it's the aiming for something bigger and scarier that is going to get me through med school.

My new mentor said something that really stuck in my mind

"You can't be a good mum, a good wife, and a good doctor all at the same time."

At first, that statement made me sad. I want to be all three. But then it transformed into something I really needed: to be let off the hook a little. It has allowed me to say to my fiancé (and daughter): "I'm sorry but I can't be a good mum and partner for the next 8 weeks." Of course my fiancé reassured me that I am a good partner and mother, but what I meant was that I have to put med school first for a little while. Even before them. Even though they mean more to me than anything.

It's sort of given me a bit of mental relief. I only have to be a good med student for the next 8 weeks.

So, I'm here, in my dorm room at the hospital. It's very comfortable. I'm SMASHING out the study. No distractions from work or home or what I "should" be doing. No watching the clock to get home early to see my munchkin. I'm here for the week and not going home until the weekend. That's that. I can completely focus on med school.

I'm realising I DO know stuff, and there is some stuff I don't know. The stuff I don't know was actually really great to find out because it made me realise that I DO know the other stuff after all.

I just hope I'm not SO far behind that I cannot come back. My new mentor reassures me that I am not That I WILL get through this and be a good doctor. I really needed someone to say that to me.

Now for 8 WEEKS OF POWER!

Clinical placements update

I have only TWO placements to finalise; both with promising leads. And only THREE exams left!

My FINAL steps before graduating are:

1. Elective 1 (in progress)
2. Surgery 4 weeks (currently arranging)
3. Elective 2 (currently arranging)
4. IM 8 weeks (booked)
5. O+G 8 weeks (booked)
6. O+G clerkship exam (written exam)
7. Final Clinical Exam (written exam)
8. Final OSCE (practical exam)
9. Pay remaining $3000 tuition

That's it!

What to do when you're really BEHIND at medical school

I feel behind. I am behind. I am overwhelmed. I am unable of forming sophisticated sentences.

I've just started brainstorming what to do in my situation and thought I'd share it in a post. I tried Googling what to do without success so maybe this will help some...



CJ's Damage Assessment and Strategy Tool for Medical Students that are Behind


1. Assess the damage

• take a long, hard look at yourself
• find an objective way to measure where you are and where you should be
• try to analyse why this happened. How can you prevent further damage?
• what is the gap? How long will it take to rememdy?

What I did: Used the MedBullet.com self-assessment exams to see how far behind I am and in which areas.

2. Forgive yourself so you can put the past behind you and move on

• whatever the cause of your situation, forgive yourself. In my situation, I spent too much time being a "mum" and not enough time being a "med student". I am not a bad person for doing this. It is ok. If you saw how cute my child is you'd understand. I made an error, likely becasue I want to be a good mum, and I have learned from it and am moving forward. This does not make me a bad person
• I also overestimated my knowledge and underestimated how much study I need to do. It happens. I have reassessed that my strategy is not working. I am making a new strategy
• accept this is life
• you are not a bad person
• you can still be a good doctor
• you are forgiven

Meditated. Had a wine. Doodled in my BuJo. Put the past behind me.

3. Create a new strategy

• be realsistic
• detail your strategy in as many steps as possible
• talk to others about their strategies and their advice (and take it with a grain of salt)
• what is your end-goal? Maybe its just to graduate, maybe it's to pass the AMC. Maybe you need a Leave of Absence.
• consider a tutor
• consider a new resource

Used the MedBullets study guide and tailoered it to my own schedule. Committed to reaing a chapter of Kumar's Clinical Medicine a night. Committed to watching a clinical YouTube video per day. Every day.

4. Prioritise strategy

• mistake are learning opportunities ONLY if you LEARN from them

Studying every day has become a non-negotiable now. 

Not much to add

I don't really have much to add at this time to the blog but I thought I would post seeing as Bubby is napping and I have the laptop open.

I downloaded the Grammarly app, which I can thoroughly recommend. The free version is good.

I have been nominated for the OUM Students Association. I'll update how it goes over the next week or so. I don't really have the time to do it but there is a group of Australian students that are very driven to improve the course and circumstances for students. That requires people to put their hand up for nomination and to represent the other students There was a hole -> I stood in it.

I'm HATING having Bubby in full-time care atm, but what can I do? It's only for another 6 months this year so really I need to keep a good perspective and devote myself to making the most of the time I do have at home and to make sure this investment in my education pays off long-term.

I'm still using my Law of Attraction planner and can thoroughly recommend it, or at least, the Bullet Journal method (please Google). Maximum time efficiency is what is required in med school, especially if still working and/or raising children.

Retrain your brain to find Netflix boring and textbooks interesting

^^This is what I have done.

Today, I'm at work. I have a mild headache from working on-call. I want to just relax, so I watch a little Netflix on my laptop. A few minutes in and I'm bored. I find it SO hard to find a show I actually like. I'd rather be reading textbooks or intellectual articles on the internet.

Dammit.

I never used to be this way.

However, if you take enjoyment from activities that ADD VALUE to your life, then I reckon you're onto a winner. Learning for enjoyment has got to be one of the best ways to spend leisure time if you are after an investment into your future. Investing into your mind, health, and spirit are the best investments that can be made (in my humble opinion).

Today I'm reading Cecil's Textbook of Internal Medicine and the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine in preparation for my IM rotation coming up.

I have also been reading articles about Justin Wolfers, the Economist, and trying to think of how applying economic principles to my everyday life may be of benefit.

Placements booked!

So, very exciting. I booked a 4-week IM placements and another 4-week EM placement (which I will do as an elective "rural emergency medicine").

I start IM in 4 weeks. I have been on annual leave and at home with the baby so not studying happened for me. I can get that done at work. I have 16 work days until my placement commences so in that time I need to get well enough prepared to make the most of my placement, feel more confident in myself as a medical student and future doctor, and not make a fool out of myself.

EM begins after a 4-week break between the two.

Both are local hospitals! YES! That means I can juggle being a mum and a paramedic without having to travel away from home.

Both hospitals have hinted that they can potentially give me more rotations. Both hospitals have internship programs that I'd LOVE to get once I graduate and pass AMC.

After these placements I still, therefore, have to find another 24 weeks of hospital placements before I can graduate.

Trial OSCE

I had a trial-OSCE a couple of weekends ago. Three students were taking their final OSCEs, and three students were having their trial run.

I hate to admit this but I did not prepare. I was in complete denial about what I was going in to. I figured it was a trial run so learning from mistakes is ok. I relied entirely on my paramedic background.

My paramedic background served me well. There were one station in particular where I felt uncomfortable (it involved a CT image), and one I completely lost the plot due to a reason I know but won't go into now. That particular mistake won't happen again. I think I might try and do a separate post about it.

So, anyway, it was actually good. I saw that I can so accomplish this with effort. There are things I need to do to get nowhere I want to be but it is very achievable. It was probably the best outcome I could have gotten from the experience.

I have being avoiding med school and pretending I'm not a med student since returning to work. I was so tired of the stress of it all, and with moving house and a new baby and returning to work, and no placements to go to, and with OUM pausing the clinical exams until the new year: I had little to motivate me to care to study in my free time. The little that I have.

Anyway, I'm trying to get back on the horse. At work I go the extra mile to learn about the cases we attend but not much else is happening. I hope to start some IM placements locally soon but I wonder how many timesI can harass my contact for a spot.

Fingers crossed for the new year.

Two essential textbooks

Here are the two textbooks which I believe are essential (for Australian OUM students anyway):

1. General Practice by John Murtagh
2. First Aid for the USMLE Step 1

AMC MCQ prep

I am beginning to prep for the AMC MCQ exam. I said I wasn't going to start yet, but I am not feeling confident in my abilities of an almost-doctor that I want to have a focused kind of "revision" of actual "what to do" when treating patients so I figured AMC prep might help me have some sort of plan.

I've been looking around the net and I think I'll do the HEAL bridging course, but not yet. It's 6 weeks so that it a trouble in the first place as I only get annual leave in 4 week blocks.

RACGPs has a 10-week fully online course but it's really only a MCQ question bank and I resent having to pay $2000 for 400 questions. Maybe I'll do it once I graduate. For now there are plenty of free resources around to keep me occupied.

This is my current strategy:

I have John Murtagh's General Practice text book that I'm using as my core text. There are 141 topic it! Too many to tackle cover-to-cover.

I have the RACGP list of top 30 conditions treated by GPs. I will list them for you:

1. hypertension
2. immunisation
3. acute URTI
4. depression
5. diabetes
6. lipid disorders
7. general check-up
8. osteoarthritis
9. back complaint
10. prescription
11. oesophageal disease
12. female genital check-up
13. acute bronchitis/bronchiolitis
14. asthma
15. anxiety
16. test results
17. UTI
18. dermatitis
19. pregnancy
20. sleep disturbance
21. sinusitis
22. gastroenteritis
23. vitamin/nutritional deficiency
24. malignant neoplasm of the skin
25. abnormal test results
26. atrial fibrillation/flutter
27. oral contraception
28. solar ketosis/sunburn
29. ischaemic heart disease
30. virus

So, I think knowing the top 30 conditions is essential, but also are the rare but life-threatening conditions.

Murtagh's has clinical boxes with an asclepius listing medical conditions which are important to know so I hope to go through those too.

On Facebook, I've liked the https://www.facebook.com/AMCprep page. They put up free AMC MCQs, only one every few weeks, but if you go to their page all the old ones are listed so you can work your way through those before you pay the $100 a month or whatever it is on their website.

So I'm beginning with that and hope to complete by the end of the year.

There's also a few things on YouTube if you hunt around.

I also have to hunt around for my next lot of placements.

Stress Management and clinical placement after-hours

Stress
In an almost ironic fashion when contrasted against my last post, this post is about Stress Management.

It turns out, from a DASS assessment, I have severe stress. Funny about that, because I don't feel stressed. Even though I have good reason to be stressed. I have been feeling irritable and frustrated. Mental health can be funny like that and irritability can be a symptom of chronic depression and/or anxiety.

Exercising regularly has some good evidence for its effects on stress. This morning I began my now daily goal of 20-30 minutes of exercise each morning. This sounds like a massive commitment to me, but I think I just needed a really good reason to prioritise my fitness. One of the problems is obviously I'm quite time-poor, but the other one is that I actually feel really good. I don't feel unfit or unwell or any need to do exercise (other than stress management).

Clinical placement after-hours
I am currently at the hospital after-hours (after 5pm) doing my clinical placement in paediatrics. Tonight, we have no patients admitted to the ward, There are 4 in special care nursery, all doing fine. The ED has my number, and so does the Paeds Reg. So, I'm up on the ward just getting some study in. I'm behind. As usual.

I have one topic a day to cover during my rotations (5 a week). So, for example, tonight I'm covering asthma which has a 30 minute lecture to watch, and the entire chapter of childhood asthma in Nelsons Textbook of Paediatrics, which is pretty substantial. That on top of your day on the ward, and, oh yeh, that little thing called "a life" outside of medicine.

I really wish I had decided to have a life before I decided to get this far into medicine.

Back at med school

I'm back studying at med school. Things are going ok so far, but my initial thoughts of having a more balanced life seem impossible now only a few weeks back. I'm beginning to wonder how other people do it.

I guess I'm already a little disheartened by my grades so far. Mostly, because I thought I was doing really good. In my mentor meetings I feel confident, like I know what I'm talking about. I read about the diseases and think "Oh yeh, I know this" and cross read other references and it all looks familiar, I actually complete the allocated readings, then all of a sudden it's quiz time and one week I do amazing, and then next really poorly. I can't make heads or tails of it.

I suppose all I can do is hope they will take me back into the MBBS program if the MD thing doesn't work out. I can't believe how negative I sound already. I guess this is a good warning to potential med students that it can be a real hit on the self esteem.

My parents are coming over from interstate to visit and I've basically had to tell them that I don't have time to spend with them. They're all like "Just one day together will be fine" and I'm seriously thinking "No, I don't even have one day". I have a really good mate's baby shower on the weekend, I promised my best friend I'd help her prepare for it by making the vegan food, and another party back in my bf's hometown and I'm basically cancelling on everyone. I feel dreadful.

To make matters worse, I feel I can't train and I'm still off work with a broken toe. Talk about feeling completely useless right now. At least I don't have major anxiety like last time or chronic fatigue.

To sum things up, I suppose things are not going well for me back at med school after all. They were last week and I didn't feel like blogging so excuse me while I vent now. I guess this is how I got into this blogging in the first place! If things keep going bad for me, then expect more posts. If you don't see any, then assume things are going well.

One positive thing is, I do have a really good academic advisor this time. She is very friendly, helpful, and supportive. Do you remember that the last one laughed at me (literally in my Skype-face) because I didn't have a solid microbio background? My new ones is all like: "Med students always put too much pressure on themselves. You can't know everything. It's ok not to do well in everything - you're still learning." I know some people prefer tough love, but I like the softer approach and gentle reassurance. I also like the fact she sounds like Oprah, although I haven't been exposed to many people with that type of accent in rural Australia.

Perhaps, one of the worst things is, I feel like I would make a really good doctor. I feel like I "get" things quickly and can work my way through diagnoses no problems. It's frustrating me that I'm stuck in the purgatory of pre-clinical.

That is all. Excuse my complaining. I'll try and end on a positive note, perhaps some sort of positive affirmation, each time to avoid the bad mental state I got myself in last time I was studying at med school. I don't want to get those grey hairs back again. It may not be original, as I need practice, but here goes:

I can do this. Whatever it takes, I have the ability.

Edit: My former mentor is mentoring me again, I've been told I have to repeat neuro at 50% tuition if I want to complete an MD (MD>75% vs MBBS>60% as I got 60) although they didn't offer it this term so I'm doing renal and seeing how I go (if I get 60-75 then I'd seriously consider changing back to MBBS if they will allow me - I haven't asked - and not worry about the USMLEs for now), and my tax return pretty much covered my tuition fees but I wasn't able to do a 12-month tuition plan until January so I have had to pay a whole module. Oh, and I broke my big toe during my taekwon-do tournament and have had the past 6 weeks off work!

Money, med school, and mouth pain

I'm over two weeks with Invisalign and I've gotten used to them. They don't hurt any more and I'm actually beginning to prefer to have them in. With them in, my front tooth gap is closed and my teeth look shiny and glossy from the plastic veneer, and the scratchy button are protected. I put in my new tray next week so it will be interesting to see if they hurt again from another adjustment.

This is my last week of acting up in high duties and on the weekend I do my taekwon-do competition. After that, I'll be just going back to regular tkd training for my next belt grading, hopefully netball will begin again, and I can begin preparing to return to study.

I contacted OUM a few months ago about what to do with me, seeing my situation, and it was as if it was a bit too hard to think about that far ahead. So, next month, I will contact them again. When I know what I am doing (I return half way through a term and need to do remedial for neuro) then I can ask my previous mentor if she is willing to continue mentoring me. If she says no, I hope to get clinical rotations at her hospital so I can prove my worth once again and not completely lose the excellent contact I have for my possible future career. I hope to NOT do my first rotation there so I get some sort of experience in-hospital and not look completely clueless.

Samoa has finally opened their new training hospital and I can't wait to check it out.

I went through a period of about a week where I was meditating every morning and I had a lot of mental clarity and came up with some solutions to the clinical placements vs money problems. I am hoping to get in a least a few clinical rotations while still working full-time as an ambo. A year would be ideal. After that I will be refinancing for my last clinical rotations. I am therefore planning to either do overseas rotations/electives (4 weeks each) during my annual leave form work while still being full-time employed and/or after finishing up full-time and using some of the money for tuition fees to support myself OS. IF I left my trickiest placements (to obtain) and Samoa to the very end, I could rent out my house (ie move my stuff out and get the renter to cover my mortgage) and simply stay there seeing as Internship is guaranteed for graduates. I'd then stay on and work as a low-paid doctor over there - just enough to live reasonably comfortably in Samoa. The last piece of the puzzle is my pets. My bf can easily follow me (he's looking forward to living overseas for a year or so). I'll have to meditate more to come up with that solution for the pets. Possibly my parents would take my dog, ad the bf's parents take his dog back for a year, but I'd have to build and pay for a fence at my parents and more my dog interstate AND my folks don't really want pets due to wildlife and lifestyle but they might suck it up for a year to help me sooooooo I'm hoping the untapped powers of my subconscious can come up with something better.

If I had unlimited money then I'd have a lot more options. I could continue to have my boarder who'd look after my dog, but she alone doesn't cover the mortagage. I could possibly get a second boarder in, but then that's a bit of a long-shot finding someone appropriate but then again it is a possibility.

Every body visualise me coming into great amounts of wealth.

One good thing, apart from my epiphany, is that I will soon have enough money from my lovely tax return to cover my owed tuition fees at OUM! Hoorah. So back to the 12-month payment plan I go (hopefully).

Study addiction

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I think I'm actually addicted to studying. I think this because I've had to cut-back on courses, I continue to study even when I feel sick and have no reason to do so, I study for entertainment, I study in the bath and when I get home from work, and most of all I think it's an addiction because I study even at the cost of my health.

Meanwhile,I'm so happy with the progress I've made in the last two days. Studying without deadlines is a good way to study. I have even made my own YouTube video but I'm not sure I'll post it publicly as I am too fussy and am not happy that I left out the central spinal as a location for grey matter.

Today is all about cranial nerves. This time I want to know them back-to-front. I want to known their origin  tracts, where they emerge (foramans) and where they synapses. I want to know their pathology and lesion locations.

Ok back to it.

The 5th pass theory

I have a theory, which I have shared before, about the 5th-pass idea of learning a new topic. I first heard it from another student while studying for GAMSAT, so it may actually be a real theory that I'm in-advertantly plagirising. Anyhoo, here it is.

When learning a new topic, it takes 5 times of studying that same topic to retain it.

1st pass - brain does not recognise foreign word/idea. Mild confusion and panic sets in
2nd pass - brain recognises it has seen this word/idea before. Not as much panic but still confusion.
3rd pass - brain feels smug - it knows this complicated word.idea. Still doesn't understand it though but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
4th pass - brain begins to get a grip and opens itself up to learning this new word/idea. A vague understanding is achieved.
5th pass - brain begins to consider this word/topic "old hat". Greater understanding is achieved and the information may be manipulated and explained from a different angle.

In med school, you really need to get to at least 6th or 7th pass to be able to answer USMLE-level questions.

Today (and yesterday), I am doing the central nervous system. Here are the resources I have used to get to the point where I'm starting to understand it to the level where I could possible re-draw from memory the tracts and possibly figure out where a lesion may be in relation to the presenting clinical manifestations.

1. School notes
2. Davidson's Principles and Practice of Medicine - CNS chapter
3. Dr Najeeb lectures
4. Hand Written Tutorials lectures
5. Wikipedia
6. First Aid for the USMLE step 1
7. Googled images of the spinal cord tracts
8. Random YouTube videos that catch my attention
9. YouTube video "Memorise the Parts of the Brain" (my favourite)
10. Residual knowledge

I still have a long way to go!

My journey through medical school - the story so far

Above is a picture of all (except my neuro which is at work) my folders from studying medicine at OUM so far.  I have got them together to go through while on deferral before returning later next year.

I'm not sure why I only have one Endocrine folder. Also, I have not yet done GIT (gastrointestinal) but I have a folder there as I was trying to get ahead with some study between terms previously. I'm not sure what's going on with the "extra clinical lectures" at OUM any more since their course revisal.

So what have I achieved in 2 years at med school? 6 out of 10 of the pre-clinical modules. That's right, I'm only just over a quarter of the way through! Bear in mind that - I'm only doing 3 out of 5 terms per year before deferring, and I began my academic year in March (not January) in 2010.

One of my favourite rules of life is that everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as initially thought. Med school seems to fit quite nicely into this idea.

The good news is - I'm super-keen now to get back into it. I'm totally motivated and ready to focus on this one degree only!....

Well, I can't blog anymore as I am due back at work from my fatigue break. 

OUM update

New MD curriculum chart

Old curriculum chart (my course of study)

So I finally thought "Hey, I should email OUM for an update of my request for deferral" and as I searched my inbox I found a reply from 6 weeks ago! It said my request was approved until 31st August 2013! Yay! This is wonderful news.

My plan is now to revise what I've studied so far, especially neuro as I need to retake that exam (if I stay in the MD program as their cut-off for a pass is much higher than that for the MBBS ie 65 vs 50). I generally need to revise everything as I'll have the OUM in-house end of pre-clinical exam to pass before attempting the USMLE Step 1.

As for IUHS, I still have my application in progress over there so I'll see what happens about that.

I have that motivation for study feeling coming back! So good! Just as I began revising my neuro modules it was as if everything seemed easier.

In other news, Maria (my VA) is doing exceptional work. My business is coming along well. Now the truth will be told as to whether it is at all profitable!