Randomness
I haven't updated in a little while because things have been busy here! I'm back at school after a nice one week holiday in which I went snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, hiking, and studied for a few days. Coming back and having to go to class again is a bit of a shock because exams are only a few weeks away.
My OSCE is a week today and I'm pretty scared. I have to go over scenarios because I'm still too slow at certain examinations. My neuro exam is always too slow for the allotted time. I think I get caught up with the myotomes and range of motion etc. and then run out of time for sharp/dull, reflexes, vibration, etc. etc. This happened to me last OSCE and it's not going to happen again! A few of us are getting together on Monday to practice and I'm going to do that damn neuro exam until I can fit the whole thing into 5 minutes if it kills me. I have to also review my associated symptoms for a bunch of conditions so I don't forget to ask about anything. There is definitely going to be something psych oriented on the exam so need to bone up on the depression screen, psychosis, etc. and there's definitely going to be a knee exam so I'd better remember my lachmans and drawers etc. There's so much to remember that I'm bound to forget something - hopefully it becomes second nature with experience.
Match day was last week. 5 people from my school (100 people) did not match in the first round. This is about 1/2 of the national average I was told. All of those people applied only to surgical specialties and none had backups. I hope they are able to find something that's an OK fit for them in the second round, but I doubt there were any ENT spots that went unmatched :) We had a record 3 students this year who matched to ophtho which is great! Also suprising, some of the people who wanted obs/gyn did not match to that specialty. I have been told by numerous docs that if you really want obs/gyn you will match to it. I can only suspect that they didn't apply to every program and were more concerned with location than specialty. My good friend matched to his second choice, family in rural BC and I think he'll be really happy there. He was ok with getting his first or second choice so hopefully he still feels like that after the fact. I'll find out when I see him in a few days. All of this makes residency seem so much more real. I actually started looking at residency programs today, which I haven't done before because I thought I was more concerned with location and what I want to do isn't competitive. Now, I've got the bug! Especially because we're starting to get more and more into planning for our impending clerkship!
Oh, and to those who wonder if that's me in the picture: yes. If someone really wanted to find out who I was, they could, but what I write here is mostly about myself and if there's something that is sensitive I change the situation and the names involved. I like that picture and it has the most important person in my life kind of in it, so I decided to put it up!
6 comments:
What'd you do to your ankle? (or gastrocnemius, or tibia, it's kind of hard to tell from the pic)
It's not me, it's just the random picture i got when I googled "Lachman test" - totally irrelevant. I wish I could do gymnastics though!
So, wait, are you referring to the picture at the top of your sidebar, or the one in your post when you say
"yes, that's me in the picture"? I wouldn't actually have guessed it's the one in the post, since that girl doesn't really resemble the previous pictures of yourself you've posted.
And on the neuro exam - I'm not sure what your OSCE wants in five minutes, but my neuro exam in a clinical setting is just the cranial nerves, brachioradialis and patellar reflexes, and strength in interosseous, wrist extensors and flexors, biceps, triceps, deltoids, then illiopsoas, hamstring, quadriceps, gastroc, tibialis ant, and EHL. Anything major will show up there, and it's about five minutes time.
Nathan,
Thanks for the tips! I'll remember that. Usually they do narrow it down a bit more to "upper extremity neuro" or "lower extremity neuro" and they want all the pin/vibr/cotton, spasticity, ROM, blah blah testing but it's still a lot for 5 minutes in my opinion. My problem is that I look too hard for findings so I'm too thorough for an OSCE situation. I'm trying to modify that (just for OSCEs). And, yeah, the picture on the sidebar is me, and I don't think it looks much like me either. Probaby due to the fact that it's taken with a camera phone, I have dark hair, and I haven't showered that day :)
Yay rural family med in BC... those are great programs!!!
I like the picture too!
Best of luck with the OSCE - it's really just a matter of repeating the exams until you could do them backwards, blindfolded!
Practice, practice and practice some more!!
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