Its Sunday afternoon and I really wish I could be doing something other than (trying) to study for the pharma retake, which is now just 6 days away. I've be studying pretty diligently for ages (pretty much since the day after I failed the first one) but at a much slower pace than I should have. It was a great lesson on how much more enjoyable it is to study small chunks at a time instead of the same topic for hours on end, but now I'm behind where I hoped to be and it's frustrating. So the next six days will be pretty full-on.
On the flip side, I started my pediatrics rotation last week and I LOVE it. We are splitting our time between pediatrics and neonatology and both have been wonderful. Great doctors, interesting patients, getting to learn physical skills, practicing history taking and differential diagnosis. The hardest part though is watching children suffer. We had one especially who didn't even have anything majorly serious (hopefully) but seeing him in the situation he was in made ME wish I could take the sickness from him. Luckily he had the most loving and caring parents, which I was so glad to see. So far, the kids and babies we've seen had wonderful parents. But I know that there are kids with parents who are not so nice, who abandon them, who can't cope. I'm dreading meeting them because I swear, I'll just want to swoop in and adopt them all. Seriously, my husband even said he is fully expecting we will leave Poland with an adopted child.
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Another challenge is that my husband is looking for a new job now and is doing so in Canada. He quit his previous job 6 months ago and took some time off, which was great for him, but now it's back to reality and the reality is that he may be away for a while and it sucks. I miss him and not only that, he did so much of the childcare stuff that it's going to be a hard adjustment with him gone. Luckily my nanny is super flexible and will pick up the slack to some extent but still. He's hoping to find something that will allow him to work remotely from Poland or at least be flexible about it. This should be possible given the nature of the industry he is in and because he finally has that "10+ years of experience" that opens doors for him. So keep your fingers crossed!
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Monday, February 3, 2020
The first semester of third year is over and I'm on term break now. And I have to admit, I'm feeling super...blah. I never seem to feel relief after an exam session. It takes me forever to unwind.
It was a tough end to it, I must admit. I ended up failing the pharma exam. I was just shy of passing by two points, but a fail is a fail. It's the first exam that I've failed since starting med school. Actually, its the first exam I've ever failed in my life, period. So it was a bit of an ego bruiser, though if I'm honest, I just wasn't prepared like I should have been. Luckily the re-take will be at the end of the month and luckily it was just a term exam and not a final, so it doesn't really affect me.
My other exams went fine. I did really well in my pathology test and radiology final. I did ok in my parasitology exam, though I did worse than I expected so I'm going to go in and have a look at my exam because I'm confused on where I went wrong.
But I've still been active with trying to improve our program and met with the Dean again. I brought some concerns I had to his attention and he told me he had a great solution and I am so happy that he is taking it seriously. We also discussed some plans and opportunities for students to prepare for the USMLE and to do electives in the US. I'm still undecided whether I'm going to pursue the US as an option for residency but I still plan to take the USMLE prep course if we manage to get it off the ground because learning more stuff can't hurt. One great thing that came out of the meeting though was that the Dean told me how much he appreciated my pro-activeness and hard work, which was nice to hear. He also said I could come to him if I ever needed a favour for anything and its nice to know that I have that in my back pocket. And nice to know in general that he appreciates what I'm doing.
In spite of everything though, I'm feeling a bit drained at the moment. A part of it is the frustration I'm feeling at not doing that well on my exams in spite of having way more time to prepare. Only one kid to take care of - though I did have to spend a bunch of time driving to hospitals and doctors offices to deal with his leg that he broke two days before we came back from Poland and because we had another strep throat scare. And had to make sure he stayed on top of his school projects.
All I feel like doing right now is lying on the couch and watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy and drinking tea. But I need to start studying for pharma...yet I need the rest (and by "rest" I mean do my tax returns, book some medical checkups, take my son to the ortho, register my middle son for school, finish some projects at home and spend some time with my little kids). Ugh, I don't mean to come off complaining because I'm grateful every day for what I'm able to do. I'm just a bit tired.
It was a tough end to it, I must admit. I ended up failing the pharma exam. I was just shy of passing by two points, but a fail is a fail. It's the first exam that I've failed since starting med school. Actually, its the first exam I've ever failed in my life, period. So it was a bit of an ego bruiser, though if I'm honest, I just wasn't prepared like I should have been. Luckily the re-take will be at the end of the month and luckily it was just a term exam and not a final, so it doesn't really affect me.
My other exams went fine. I did really well in my pathology test and radiology final. I did ok in my parasitology exam, though I did worse than I expected so I'm going to go in and have a look at my exam because I'm confused on where I went wrong.
But I've still been active with trying to improve our program and met with the Dean again. I brought some concerns I had to his attention and he told me he had a great solution and I am so happy that he is taking it seriously. We also discussed some plans and opportunities for students to prepare for the USMLE and to do electives in the US. I'm still undecided whether I'm going to pursue the US as an option for residency but I still plan to take the USMLE prep course if we manage to get it off the ground because learning more stuff can't hurt. One great thing that came out of the meeting though was that the Dean told me how much he appreciated my pro-activeness and hard work, which was nice to hear. He also said I could come to him if I ever needed a favour for anything and its nice to know that I have that in my back pocket. And nice to know in general that he appreciates what I'm doing.
In spite of everything though, I'm feeling a bit drained at the moment. A part of it is the frustration I'm feeling at not doing that well on my exams in spite of having way more time to prepare. Only one kid to take care of - though I did have to spend a bunch of time driving to hospitals and doctors offices to deal with his leg that he broke two days before we came back from Poland and because we had another strep throat scare. And had to make sure he stayed on top of his school projects.
All I feel like doing right now is lying on the couch and watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy and drinking tea. But I need to start studying for pharma...yet I need the rest (and by "rest" I mean do my tax returns, book some medical checkups, take my son to the ortho, register my middle son for school, finish some projects at home and spend some time with my little kids). Ugh, I don't mean to come off complaining because I'm grateful every day for what I'm able to do. I'm just a bit tired.
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