#block exams

Well it’s finally here. I have taken two finals already and have four more to go. My school does not do block exams (we have a bunch of exams every week forever). I have on multiple occasions whined about how I think I need more time to study, and grass is greener, and block exams make more sense AND YET now that we have a 2 weeks (ish, I mean they gave us a final last week and the week before) to study for 4 classes, I’m losing motivation.

Yay I’m an actual medical student now! Okay I know that’s a silly thing to say because I’ve been in school for over 6 weeks now but I felt this whole time that I hadn’t truly proved myself until I took my block exams. Well, now I know that I can succeed in medical school. I passed all my exams, did very well in anatomy and my written exams and only missed one tiny thing on my clinical skills portion (upper extremity osteopathic exams). I’d say it was a success all around. 

Block week wasn’t nearly as scary, stressful or horrible as I thought it would be. Yeah, a full week of exams isn’t fun but what that actually means is that you’ve got one or two who days in between exams to study, eat well, do some yoga, and try to reach a bit of zen before your exam. I’ve already figured out some ways to study more efficiently for next block so I think I can only go up from here!

Also I didn’t bring this up before but I was VERY nervous about anatomy at the beginning of the block. I didn’t seem to memorize as quickly as those around me and one of my partners in donor lab had taken cadaveric anatomy before in undergrad (what!?) and so she was such a pro that I felt very overwhelmed. Well, it all seemed to work out as soon as I started doing a little bit of anatomy every day instead of leaving it all for two 12 hour weekend day sessions (why did I ever think this was a good idea). End result? I rocked my anatomy exam and I actually was having fun during the practical. It became a bit like a game to figure out what they were tagging and the feeling of knowing exactly what body structure it is can be truly awesome. Anatomy is my favorite part of medical school now, and last week I was even the one to take the bone saw and open up the glenohumeral joint. 

Yeah, medical school is pretty awesome.

This ended up being my best semester yet. Physiology grades are still out, but it might even be the first semester in which none of my grades dip below 80%.

So not only did I pass my classes, but I might have actually passed all of my finals with flying colors.