Okay, so I think I was being a tad melodramatic. True, this level of stress and constant cramming is incredibly dangerous to my health: I have lesions on the mucous membrane of my mouth, I bruise much more readily than ever before, I see so few people that I talk to myself and drag my teddy bear everywhere I go for companionship.
So I lied to myself. I'm going to pass step 1. Now I'm just studying. Not for a good score. Not to pass. But simply to learn. And it is fun. I'll tell you why:
There are fundamental concepts I just don't understand--never understood them--but now I have a chance to solidify the simplest things, and hopefully memorizing from this point will get easier as I develop a stronger framework.
I should have anticipated this earlier--I barely passed all my classes last year. UWorld tells me my worst subject is Physiology. Uh... what?That's not good! Physio is pretty much everything in medicine without a proper name (because pathology is actually everything in medicine, but it's just so obnoxious with all of it's diseases named after now dead jerks). So now I'm just focusing on physiology for a few more days than I originally planned. And I feel like that'll be alright.
Honestly, I just want to sound like I know what I'm taking about--even if it's just vaguely--when I step into surgery July 1st.
Speaking of....!!! I finally know the difference between prothrombim time, partial prothrombin time, and bleeding time! It was so simple I don't understand how biochemistry AND pathology overexplained it to a point where it didn't make sense. But it's probably also my fault, considering I thought plasma cells were platelets until recently. I AM DUMB.
For know...
May 21, 2013
May 19, 2013
UWorld Blues & A Murderous Rage
Studying for boards is driving me into a murderous rage. It is a combination of self-hatred for not studying more earlier and the incredible disbelief that they want us to know so much.
Also I keep getting diabetic questions wrong on UWORLD, which is probably the most depressing thing. You think you understand the process of something fully only to find there are perverted ways of asking questions that make you question what you once knew as true.
This is hell. I also have normal human being things to worry about, but I'm not paying attention to them anymore. I need to cash checks. I need to move. I need to get a new phone. I haven't checked my blood sugar in three days because I lost my glucometer while trying to pack up my apartment. So that should freak me out. But it doesn't. What makes me chuck the First Aid review book across the room as hard as possible is not the fact that my life has deteriorated to this point where I don't care about my own health and safety. No, it is the realization that I don't know how Rifampin works. I haven't been this angry since I studied carbohydrate metabolism in Biochemistry--a class I was desperately failing. I actually flipped a table when I realized memorizing all the intermediates and enzymes that metamorphose glucose was not going to be enough to do well on the exam.
That's how I feel right now. That I know a lot, but that come test day, everything I know either A) won't be tested or B) won't be enough to answer enough questions correctly.
But I have come way too far to fall apart in the next 12 days and fail Step 1 on June 1st.
12 days.
Also I keep getting diabetic questions wrong on UWORLD, which is probably the most depressing thing. You think you understand the process of something fully only to find there are perverted ways of asking questions that make you question what you once knew as true.
This is hell. I also have normal human being things to worry about, but I'm not paying attention to them anymore. I need to cash checks. I need to move. I need to get a new phone. I haven't checked my blood sugar in three days because I lost my glucometer while trying to pack up my apartment. So that should freak me out. But it doesn't. What makes me chuck the First Aid review book across the room as hard as possible is not the fact that my life has deteriorated to this point where I don't care about my own health and safety. No, it is the realization that I don't know how Rifampin works. I haven't been this angry since I studied carbohydrate metabolism in Biochemistry--a class I was desperately failing. I actually flipped a table when I realized memorizing all the intermediates and enzymes that metamorphose glucose was not going to be enough to do well on the exam.
That's how I feel right now. That I know a lot, but that come test day, everything I know either A) won't be tested or B) won't be enough to answer enough questions correctly.
But I have come way too far to fall apart in the next 12 days and fail Step 1 on June 1st.
12 days.
Apr 19, 2013
Board Review Friday
Systems. I'm going to do this by system. Or by subject. But mostly system. I'm going to get really excited and read library books, and draw multicolored pictures, and ask good questions, and find good answers on Wikipedia, about the following subjects in their following order:
- Immunology
- Cardiovascular
- Respiratory
- Peripheral Nervous System (Autonomics)
- Anatomy
- Endocrine
- Reproductive
- Liver
- Biochemistry
- Renal
- Gastrointestinal
- Central Nervous System
- Microbiology
- Pathology
- Pharmacology
Just kidding. There's no way I'm going to follow any structure, whatsoever. A lot of third and fourth year students kept telling everyone: find a study system that works for you, and stick to it. I'm good on that first part. I've found many systems for studying. But I can't seem to stick to any of them.
However, that being said, I did spend four hours in the library the other day, just reading about B cells and T cells, and it was a ton of fun. I am not being sarcastic. Thoroughly enjoyable.
I like reading books. I like asking myself questions. And I like drawing diagrams. Hopefully by the time this is over, I will have a cute compendium of colorful notes that I can keep for years and years and share with the next generation of Apantaku's when some of them start going to medical school. And they can laugh or learn from what I will have learned in the next 42 days.
Wait. 42 days?! That's only 6 weeks! That's only one-thousand-and-eight hours. Actually, because it's 4 pm, it's only 992 hours! Terrifying.
Apr 7, 2013
So if I suck at sex I won't get this?
 |
| Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix (1967) |
Apr 4, 2013
Gender Discrepancies (I/II)
Did you know women and men are actually quite similar? We really are. If we were all raised in a society that interacted with the two genders in the exact same way, we'd probably end up like some gender-neutralized weird race of alien a la Star Trek: The Next Generation. We'd still have the two separate sexes, but we probably wouldn't have this weird, polarized, gender dichotomy. The terms tomboys and janegirls, for example, would no longer make sense and be cast aside like the frivolous trash they are.
Yesterday, in our community groups (which is basically a quarter of our class plus one practicing physician from the surrounding area), we were asked to talk about American health care. We were asked vague questions by our community leader and what ensued was kind of hilarious and also pretty depressing.
On a side note: I talked entirely way too much, which is unfortunate because I hate people who act the way I acted yesterday in class. I will have to implement a more stringent foot-in-mouth policy for any future large discussion groups. I am also a crazy liberal. I need to stop telling people I'm a moderate since I clearly believe that taxes are necessary and the government should govern our personal liberties as little as possible (but I still think we should all have access to affordable health care because it should be a personal liberty).
There were a lot of nuances in our overall debate--this is to be expected since if we could formulate a clear solution to the health care problem in an hour and a half, than our government, as crappy as it is, would already be enacting such solutions as policies nationwide. But in the end, clumping all the nuances together and then defenestrating them because who actually gives a **** about nuances?--there were only two general positions a person could have: you believe Universal Health Care should be guaranteed for everyone or you believe that Health Care should be payed for by individuals in some way outside of paying taxes.
Good points can be made for either side, but as you recall, I threw all those nuances out the window, and it seemed for the most part that the most avid supporters of the opposing sides were also of opposing genders. Universal health care is somehow more appealing to more women than it is to men.
Although clarifying point: my sample size was quite small (n=48) and it wasn't as if no men liked the idea of universal health care. Some favored it. Also, not everyone talked so the real sample size is closer to around 20. So I might just be making up a ton of crap, in which case, I'm sorry if the following is just super offensive.
I am trying to figure out why that is. Last year when I went to the American Medical Women's Association's National Conference in Miami, the keynote speaker kept commenting on how women are dearly needed in the medical field because women are natural healers and we just care more. It was pretty inspiring but it seemed kind of hurtful to the small amount of dudes I knew who are actually pretty loving people. But now that I think about it, do I actually know any guys who are selfless? Or are they just decent human beings who have yet to have their selflessness tested? How selfless are they, really? Because I don't think caring is quite enough. I care a lot about things but don't actually do anything about it because I am selfish. I really care about making sure people understand that America's oppressed groups aren't all good to go now that we've slapped band-aids--Title IX and Affirmative Action--on the gaping wound that is injustice. But all I actually do is update my status on Facebook, maybe including a link to a blog article or a recent study.
But when I think about selflessness more, I realize a better question may be: do I know anyone who is selfless?
Not many.
Well, that's depressing, seeing as I am in Medical School. But I guess everyone isn't being "selfish" per se, just too busy studying so that they can one day be selfless. <<>> This seems too nuanced. I will stop ruminating.
If we just assume women care more, why is that so? Is it because we have the capacity to become mothers? Because men have the capacity to become fathers, which I have been assured can also be a full time job. Both of my parents were full time Surgeons, and I am sure they both cared about me equally, but I saw my mom much more than I saw my dad, so can we assume my mother was more selfless than my father? I think that is a far argument. Although we will never know for sure because my dad may have thought that by working longer hours, he would be able to give us more opportunities with the money he'd make, and to him, that would seem like a more valuable pursuit than teaching us how to tie our shoes. My dad may have been selfless. Conversely, my mother may have spent more time with us to show the world that she was not only capable of being a woman and a surgeon, but also a loving mother. My mom may have been selfish.
But either way, actions speak louder than words, and I saw my mom more than I saw my dad, even though they had similar jobs. I think this behavior must be socialized, because my mom didn't actually need to spend so much time with us. We could have just had babysitters who stayed at our house longer.
Now that I've dragged you through my own internal thought process, let me actually tell you facts: female physicians make $17,000-a-year less than male physicians, on average, for doing the exact same amount of work. This number has been normalized, so any arguments that male physicians tend to work longer hours (as was the case for my parents) or that male and female physicians choose to enter different specialties or practice in different locations (as was not the case for my parents) does not at all affect the statistic that women make $17,000 a year less than men for doing the exact same work. Discrimination, of course, plays a role in this inequality, but another interesting point that the researchers brought up was that some of the blame actually falls on women: women will stop negotiating their wages with their employers at a lower rate than their male counterparts. You could see this as women having a lower innate self-worth (which is true in society overall but may not apply to physicians) or you could see this as women willing to do more "caring" for less economic compensation. That sounds a lot like selflessness to me.
Yesterday, in our community groups (which is basically a quarter of our class plus one practicing physician from the surrounding area), we were asked to talk about American health care. We were asked vague questions by our community leader and what ensued was kind of hilarious and also pretty depressing.
On a side note: I talked entirely way too much, which is unfortunate because I hate people who act the way I acted yesterday in class. I will have to implement a more stringent foot-in-mouth policy for any future large discussion groups. I am also a crazy liberal. I need to stop telling people I'm a moderate since I clearly believe that taxes are necessary and the government should govern our personal liberties as little as possible (but I still think we should all have access to affordable health care because it should be a personal liberty).
There were a lot of nuances in our overall debate--this is to be expected since if we could formulate a clear solution to the health care problem in an hour and a half, than our government, as crappy as it is, would already be enacting such solutions as policies nationwide. But in the end, clumping all the nuances together and then defenestrating them because who actually gives a **** about nuances?--there were only two general positions a person could have: you believe Universal Health Care should be guaranteed for everyone or you believe that Health Care should be payed for by individuals in some way outside of paying taxes.
Good points can be made for either side, but as you recall, I threw all those nuances out the window, and it seemed for the most part that the most avid supporters of the opposing sides were also of opposing genders. Universal health care is somehow more appealing to more women than it is to men.
Although clarifying point: my sample size was quite small (n=48) and it wasn't as if no men liked the idea of universal health care. Some favored it. Also, not everyone talked so the real sample size is closer to around 20. So I might just be making up a ton of crap, in which case, I'm sorry if the following is just super offensive.
I am trying to figure out why that is. Last year when I went to the American Medical Women's Association's National Conference in Miami, the keynote speaker kept commenting on how women are dearly needed in the medical field because women are natural healers and we just care more. It was pretty inspiring but it seemed kind of hurtful to the small amount of dudes I knew who are actually pretty loving people. But now that I think about it, do I actually know any guys who are selfless? Or are they just decent human beings who have yet to have their selflessness tested? How selfless are they, really? Because I don't think caring is quite enough. I care a lot about things but don't actually do anything about it because I am selfish. I really care about making sure people understand that America's oppressed groups aren't all good to go now that we've slapped band-aids--Title IX and Affirmative Action--on the gaping wound that is injustice. But all I actually do is update my status on Facebook, maybe including a link to a blog article or a recent study.
But when I think about selflessness more, I realize a better question may be: do I know anyone who is selfless?
Not many.
Well, that's depressing, seeing as I am in Medical School. But I guess everyone isn't being "selfish" per se, just too busy studying so that they can one day be selfless. <<>> This seems too nuanced. I will stop ruminating.
If we just assume women care more, why is that so? Is it because we have the capacity to become mothers? Because men have the capacity to become fathers, which I have been assured can also be a full time job. Both of my parents were full time Surgeons, and I am sure they both cared about me equally, but I saw my mom much more than I saw my dad, so can we assume my mother was more selfless than my father? I think that is a far argument. Although we will never know for sure because my dad may have thought that by working longer hours, he would be able to give us more opportunities with the money he'd make, and to him, that would seem like a more valuable pursuit than teaching us how to tie our shoes. My dad may have been selfless. Conversely, my mother may have spent more time with us to show the world that she was not only capable of being a woman and a surgeon, but also a loving mother. My mom may have been selfish.
But either way, actions speak louder than words, and I saw my mom more than I saw my dad, even though they had similar jobs. I think this behavior must be socialized, because my mom didn't actually need to spend so much time with us. We could have just had babysitters who stayed at our house longer.
Now that I've dragged you through my own internal thought process, let me actually tell you facts: female physicians make $17,000-a-year less than male physicians, on average, for doing the exact same amount of work. This number has been normalized, so any arguments that male physicians tend to work longer hours (as was the case for my parents) or that male and female physicians choose to enter different specialties or practice in different locations (as was not the case for my parents) does not at all affect the statistic that women make $17,000 a year less than men for doing the exact same work. Discrimination, of course, plays a role in this inequality, but another interesting point that the researchers brought up was that some of the blame actually falls on women: women will stop negotiating their wages with their employers at a lower rate than their male counterparts. You could see this as women having a lower innate self-worth (which is true in society overall but may not apply to physicians) or you could see this as women willing to do more "caring" for less economic compensation. That sounds a lot like selflessness to me.
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