just had an amazing weekend with my classmates and had a good get-away from studying. i cant remember the last time i went more than 3 or 4 days without studying...obviously taking long breaks away from my computer is not very common in my life. so while on the plane coming back from a Georgian wedding i wanted to catch up on the last month of school. Lots of exciting ‘first times’ occurred and of course the most crazy of those events was doing my first Breast exam, female pelvic exam and male prostate exam [all in the span of 30mins]

i guess i can say i wasnt really nervous because it was in the middle of my Friday afternoon with my GI final coming up on that Monday and I was much more nervous about failing that exam then doing something wrong during the PBRs. thats probably because we had 6 large group sessions on that test making it one of the longest tests we have had and add on that i was barely studying GI during the weeks prior as I was focusing on my board exam studying...oh, and then add on that our professor gave a ‘pep talk’ on Friday morning telling us to not expect lots of As and Bs...that we should just be happy/satisfied with passing. yeah, all that kinda trumped the fact that i was about to stick my fingers into places that are not easily accessible... so that kinda shows ya how scared we all were for the GI final. Well, they must have scared the shit out of everyone because we all studied like soldiers preparing for battle and the class average ended up being around what it normally is and most of us did just fine. but really, did they need to add in that additional stress to the weekend? Another reason why i cannot wait to be done with lectures, classes and exams. Starting in June I will be working like a normal adult [though not getting paid...but im not gonna worry about that right now] and i wont have to stare at a computer screen for 12 hours a day and although i will be still taking plenty of tests to demonstrate my competence..it wont be nearly as frequent in the past 2 years.

but back to the PBR; the general class consensus was that they weren't too bad. We were scheduled for a certain time to show up to the standardized patient department [where we have our ‘learning to play doctor’ sessions] and we were escorted to a room. It was a total of 3 different rooms with 3 different people so i first did a breast exam on a lady then went to a different room and did a pelvic exam on another lady, and so on. Sure it was awkward not knowing what to do but there was an instructor right there next to us taking us through it and answering any questions that we had. After the procedure, the ‘patient’ gave us feedback to build our confidence by telling us ‘it didnt hurt’ [even though they might have been lying]. To note, these were people paid by the school to allow us to practice on them before we go out into hospitals and do it on innocent people who are paying us to do it...smart move to have us run through it once. I am sure you are curious as to the people that use this as income [as was i] but unfortunately no one knows for sure how much they get paid...i only heard a couple rumors but dont know if they were true. But, our instructor said that they will get about 10-12 students to practice on them in an afternoon...yes, 10-12 pelvic exams or fingers in the butt.... they better be paid well.

The next day i got to use my new skills by volunterring with 6 other students at a Womens health clinic. I ended up seeing 2 women--one was a 45 year old lady who was exctremely nervous and the other was a 60+ year old female who couldnt speak english so i needed a translator. For both patients I took their vitals then escorted them to their exam room where I did an initial history and short physical exam [listened to their heart, lungs, palpated their abdomen, etc] and then explained to them that i would leave the room and would come back with a doctor. Then after allowing them some time to change into a gown, i went in with a doctor and we did a pelvic exam. The doctor i was with did the first pelvic because the lady was a more complicated case and she was pretty nervous but then i did the exam on the second female. It is such an invasive and private exam and I was very honored that these women trusted me to be taking care of them. A little pick me up before a long couple days of studying for our GI final.

so anywho, those are the most notable things that happened recently. This Thursday will be my last shift at the Montclair clinic because the first year class will be taking it over so us second years can spend any and all time studying for boards. Sadly, the month of April is still jam packed with responsibilities, tests, mandatory lectures and attendance quizzes. Even though we have this HUGE exam looming in June our school doesnt really seem to care...so they went right ahead and decreased our life expectancy by adding massive amounts of cortisol [stress hormone] into our bloodstreams for a continuos 2.5 months. that sounds bad.. but i think it is probably true.

here’s to the end of spring break and the beginning of spring HELL