It’s been some time since I last had a chance to share my thoughts. As some of you know, I had to take a medical leave of absence last year to have a cornea transplant. I went on leave shortly after Unit 1 and the time off gave me the chance to determine if I really wanted to continue on with medical school or resume my teaching and research career. I obviously made the decision to return to medical school, but I realized that if I were going to continue, I would need to do things totally differently than I had done last year.
I started this year with making selfcare a priority for me. I spend three to four days, an hour and a half each day, doing some type of physical training and I have doubled down on making sure that I am in bed no later than 10 PM on most nights. Additionally, Eboni and I have revamped our diets and we are cutting out processed foods and adopting a more Mediterranean eating pattern. When I have days that I don’t feel like studying, I don’t make myself study, I will rest instead. I’m also taking time to spend time with family; I didn’t miss my paternal grandmother’s birthday this year and after Unit 1 exams, Eboni and I flew to Atlanta to celebrate one of her cousin’s graduations from graduate school. All-in-all, I am MUCH happier and that has paid dividends in terms of my productivity, memory/retention, and most importantly, exam scores. We just had our exam results from Unit 1 released and I passed everything. Its nice to be able to continue in Unit 2 without fear of having to remediate an exam next summer…
I’m still a work in progress; I had to take three days off this week due to a nasty cold (or COVID or the flu) and I felt guilty that I wasn’t studying at all. Truth is, I was (and still am) sick as a dog. I haven’t slept so much in YEARS (12-13 hours daily) so clearly, my body was telling me that I needed the rest. Stil I couldn’t shake that feeling of needing to do SOMETHING. Still a work in progress. As long as God wakes me every day, I have a chance to be a better man tomorrow than I was today…
Other changes have taken place since I last wrote. We have a new dean. He came from Western University-COMP Northwest. He’s likable enough, but he’s bought some major changes to the curriculum that have riled up the student body and faculty. For starters, we now have mandatory classes. To me, its not that big of a deal because we are only on campus for four hours each day, but I understand why some students find this irritating. Some students do learn best by watching videos or reading on their own; our “lectures” are mostly a waste of time unless Dr. Sanchez is delivering the lecture. Some students have been calling for open rebellion though but it really isn’t that serious.
The other big change is that we are moving away from written, free response exams to board style questions. I think that this is a GOOD thing and I am happy about this. Starting in this unit, our CE exam will consist of two blocks of written questions and one of board style multiple choice questions. By the time we start Unit 5, we are supposed to be 100% board style MCQs. The faculty don’t like this, but Dr. Pham says that if we can’t pass boards, there is not point to teaching us to think like clinicians. Our COMLEX first time pass rate is sitting at around 85-86%; that needs to drastically improve over the next two years so I think that Dr. Pham is right on the money with this…
Time for SIGS case study; I’m still feverish as can be but I’m gonna do my best to be attentive today!
