Cross posting...

Two things that I put on my facebook page today that I'm cross posting...

1) the above picture
2) this link: Suck it up, America (via DocShazam)


Now it's time to watch some TV and pack for the drive back to Massachusetts tomorrow...huzzah

FML...AGAIN

Lappy is expired again...t-3 days until exam...FML. Looks like I'm sitting in the library for the next few days.

I'm pretty sure that the poor innocent Dell tech support guys had no idea what to do with the irrational, angry, over-caffeinated, sleep deprived medical student on the other end of the phone blabbering on about some sort of "medical licensing exam" with "major career implications" threatening to buy a Mac and trying to get a free windows 7 upgrade out of the whole thing me.

3.5 days left...AAAAAH

Lappy is now back and fully functional thanks to its third motherboard and the nice technician that came out to install it! I spent most of Saturday on campus using the computers there (shudder) and had some serious flashbacks to my first two years of med school. Luckily one of my friends let me borrow one of his 3 computers and I managed to get by alright.

I had been thinking about postponing my CK for a week and Saturday's little FML incident nearly pushed me over the edge. The constant 5 week beating from USMLE World had completely eroded my confidence, and I have been watching my average slowly decline over the past week. So I took one of the NBME exams just to see how I did, and it was in the acceptable range...so I'm sticking with my date this Friday. I'm self-imposing a blogging ban since I have like 3.5 days of studying left, but I'll put something up afterwards.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAH...FML

Not sure if everyone's seen this website but it's called F my life, pretty classic stuff on there. If there is such a thing, I had the med school equivalent of that today.

I'm taking Step 2CK in 6 days and I woke up to find my computer dead with 30% of USMLEworld to go. FML.

Welcome to Neurosis...

In behavioral health/psych, we learn about obsessive-compulsive disorder which is mainly characterized by intrusive thoughts that cause anxiety and compulsive behaviors that alleviate the anxiety. (DSMIV criteria can be found here.) Whenever OCD comes up, there's always the half-joking/half-serious tag added on that "a little bit of this isn't a bad thing in medical school," and we all nervously chuckle and look around at all of the other medical students sitting around the lecture hall.

Well, my fourth year is begining to feel a little bit like that. My brain is entirely somewhere else during the day and I can't stop thinking about the match, interviewing, my step 2 exams or other asinine med-school related stuff for more than a few minutes to pay attention to the docs patients. One of the caveats is that the worries can't be about real life concerns...so I think I'm pretty safe there, but I'm still absolutely unable to concentrate because of this chronic, baseline anxiety. The only thing that makes it better is checking my email to see if the programs I applied to are offering interviews yet...and I know that there won't be very much movement this week due to the ACEP meeting in Boston, but I keep on checking anyway! It's totally inappropriate, but I'll slink away to a computer between patients and pull up my email to check. Fortunately, I see other fourth years going through the same motions on the wards and pulling out their iPhone's every few minutes to peak at the inbox...

It doesn't help that I'm on my mandatory PM&R rotation this week. The requirements of the rotation are to sit in a little exam room with a PM&R attending (who looks amazingly well rested, in shape, and happy by the way) and struggle with the patients through her Russian accent and brusk mannerisms. Between her and the tales of woeful chronic back back pain it takes me about 2.4 seconds to zone out wondering when I'll finally get home to start mowing down USMLE world questions or get my next interview (up to 3 now!). I can't muster the energy to care. However she does manage to drop some randomly awesome physical diagnosis knowledge from time to time, but I have to cut through the fog of aweful surrounding the rest of the day...

55% of USMLE World questions down and 10 days to go...I figure 3 blocks of questions plus review should get me done by the middle of next week before my exam. Still getting smacked down by the occasional section, but there's a steady average trend...

USMLE World...

Is slowly killing me. Although, it is GREAAAAT at exposing the weaknesses in my fund of knowledge: Apparently I suck at peds and psych. And the roller-coaster of performance isn't very confidence inspiriting either.

I've also noticed a disturbing trend in reviewing questions: the longer I go with questions during the day, the worse I do. The earlier in the day and the more awake I am, the better at thinking I am...but after a long day on the wards when I come home and try to get through my questions, I can get through a section alright, but the second section of the day tends to be worse every time.

Oh well...14 more days of this stuff until the real thing!