Happy New Year 2022!

Happy New Year 2022! As promised, I always said that I would share the good, bad, and the ugly on my medical school journey. This past term I completed Term 4, but I didn’t end up achieving a passing score. I fell a few points too short. This term was very different for me and tested me in ways I never imagined both academically and emotionally. This was the first term that we started to think like a Doctor. We came up with differential diagnoses during clinical encounters and learned pathology & microbiology. 

When we first started the semester, there was a lot going on. We had weekly lockdowns for the entire weekend. There was also a period where we switched back to online due to the lockdowns. It was honestly a lot to deal with on top of school. I also didn’t really figure out how to study for term 4 until after the 2nd exam. The style of testing is different in term 4. Buzzwords aren’t really a thing and that is something that we have been accustomed to all along. The key to doing well in pathology is understanding what those buzzwords are along with how to describe the histological presentation. For example, when we cover yolk sac tumors you will learn that they have something called Schiller Duval bodies. These are structures that look like the glomeruli in the kidney. Instead of saying Schiller duval bodies, they could say glomeruli like structures surrounding a blood vessel or something like that. Basically what I'm saying is be able to describe things in your own words and be able to integrate disciplines.

In the beginning I was so concerned with knowing the buzzwords and that is not the best approach. Understanding what the buzzwords mean will take you much further than trying to memorize. 

For pharmacology, YOU NEED TO KNOW EVERY SINGLE ADVERSE EFFECT and contraindication that you are provided. Even if it’s rare, it doesn’t matter still know it. You need to be able to recognize the adverse effects based on a description as well. 

For microbiology, virulence factors are huge. YOU NEED TO KNOW THESE. I placed too much emphasis on clinical features. You need to know the virulence factors and whether the organism is gram positive/negative etc in order to be able to diagnose the patient. I did not catch on to this until after the first exam. 

I will be retaking Term 4 in February. For now, I am enjoying the time off and taking the time to regroup before having to dive back in full force. I will be meeting with a tutor for the duration of the term. Despite my shortcomings, I was able to raise my overall grade by 12 points and saw a 20 point increase in my scores for the last 2 exams. Even though I didn’t progress to term 5 with the rest of my class, I still gained so much and nobody can take away the effort and hard work that I put forth. I like to live my life with no regrets so even though I was offered the opportunity to take a credit remediation, I didn’t feel that was the right decision for me. If I could do it all over again, I would still choose not to take the credit because I would always wonder "what if". I know that this next term will be much better for me now that I know what to expect. I will be much more prepared for the USMLE Step 1 exam. This sets my timeline back by 6 months so instead of finishing basic sciences in May 2022, I will now finish in December 2022.