Is Medical School Hard?

Studying at med school... or just anatomy

I think this response will change depending on who you ask, but despite my less-than-stellar grades in anatomy, I would have to say no, not really. The material is doable and easy enough to understand when you spend time with it, however the greatest difficulty of medical school is just dealing with the volume of information you have to learn by block exams. Time is definitely your greatest enemy here and if you spend a lot of time goofing off (like me) or if you just aren't efficient, it's going to make things a lot tougher.

Time is never patient. When I'm sitting in LH4, I look up at the clock every so often and I'm just in complete awe and simultaneously discouraged to find out how little I did in the amount of time that's passed. I will go over one packet for MCB (about 20 pages of powerpoint slides) and it takes me nearly 3 hours to get through it. And that's just the material for one class on that particular day. Afterwards I do histology, and then I spend what's left of my day on anatomy and by that time my brain is slowly powering down anyway. I'll start switching up the order I do things, because honestly,  anatomy has been getting the short end of the stick this last week and considering this is my worst class......  no bueno.

2010 AUC USMLE Step 1 First time Pass Rate is 94%

Here are the new stats just released today!

Highlights: 

94% pass rate

Nearly 1/3 of the class scored a 99

Nearly 2/3 of the class scored a 90 and above

For insight on the meaning of the results above, please check out my later blog post:

• Revisiting the Idea that AUC is the Best Medical School in the Caribbean (medschoolcaribstyle.com)

Update

On this day 24 years ago, I was born. Yes, Happy birthday to me. To all my friends and family reading this, thanks for all the good wishes on facebook!

Now, I'm aware I have been skimping on my blog of late, but I will try to fix that. Last week I did end up going to LH4 everyday, making sure I was caught up with everything, but then I fell apart this weekend. Friday afternoon I didn't study, Saturday morning I studied for 4ish hours and then just chilled for the rest of the day and Sunday.... I don't even know what happened. The day disappeared in what felt like two hours. That's what I get for waking up at 10:30, I suppose.

By last night, I was completely caught up with Histo and MCB, but was lagging in anatomy. I have yet to go over today's material  so you know what I'll be doing for the next 4 or 5 hours today. Some birthday, eh? Good thing I celebrated on Friday. I'm spoiling myself with a buffalo chicken pizza and a beer right after I publish this. Then shower time to get the smell of death off of me and LH4 for the rest of the evening.

Wooo med school!

Block II Hits and Misses

MCB average was a 78% and I got another 80%
Fine, good, not complaining considering the amount of effort I put into this class (almost none).

Histo average was around an 80% and I'm ashamed to report that I actually failed this particular exam with 65%. My guess-timation of 73% was a little too presumptuous, and it kills me because this class is just so damn easy. I wanted to honor in it, but I'll just have to accept a pass.

Anatomy average was a 75% and I got a 70%. Barely passed I know, but at least I'm trending in the right direction. The head and neck was supposedly the hardest block, so I feel good that I passed this and it's over with.

As disappointed as I am in failing histo, I'm actually pretty happy with my grades. I thought I was going to do much worse in anatomy, but passing really perked up my day.  As long as I keep my study streak going, I think I should build on all these grades for the 3rd block exams. I spent 3 hours in LH4 yesterday going over all the material and I plan on doing the same thing today after lab. As long as I don't slack and continue reviewing all the material everyday, block III should be very good to me and hopefully I will be able to pass all my classes by the end of the semester.

Related articles

• Block I Exams and Post Show Festivities (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• Goodbye Block III (Good Riddance) (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• First Semester Done and I've Passed All my Classes! (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• Semester 2: Block I  (medschoolcaribstyle.com)

Post Block II

Hello dear readers. I've missed you.

Block II is done and as relieved as I am that it's over, I'm feeling a little anxious. Histo went poorly this time around because I never really got into the lymphatics chapter that the professor fully crammed in on our last day of class. Please note: only ONE CLASS on lymphatics. I didn't think it was farfetched of me to think that there would only be a couple question (meaning exactly 2 questions) concerning lymphatics, however I was unpleasantly surprised that we got 8 questions in our lovely one hour exam. To think that the material we spent AN ENTIRE WEEK on got 9 questions for the exam. Yeah, not liking that proportion. That alone probably puts be down to low 80s and I know I got a some other questions wrong in that exam so I'm feeling a 73ish for my final grade.

As for Anatomy, I didn't feel very confident during the written portion, but I feel like I did better for the practical... but who really knows with me and anatomy.

MCB went well enough, I definitely passed that, but again the material from the last couple days of lecture got me! I really need to stop pretending that the material we learn in the last couple days of class doesn't matter. Clearly it does and it's killing me.

What did I learn? Study everything equally. And what else????...To stay on top of my work, yet again. The first week is crucial for me, as well as every weekend after and I need to start making the most of the time I have in the beginning of these blocks instead of having to cram everything in the last week. The results clearly haven't been great.

On another note, since getting out at 4 pm today, I calculated that I had exactly 16 hours to enjoy life and not worry about studying anything at all, thus, I went to the beach, had a beer, played some volleyball and here I am showered, made up, and ready to go to Tantra for the Valentine's day auction and a little dancing.  And with that, I leave you all. Have a goodnight!

Special shout out to my one and only John! I love you and 

Happy Valentine's day, darling. I wish we could be spending 

it together. ♥

I'm not dead

I've just spending a hell of a long time studying these days. I've been going to the anatomy lab every evening this week for 1-2 hours because I'm making sure I know all my structures down cold. When I'm not in the lab, I've been spending 4-5 hours a day in lecture hall 4 (without my computer) doing mostly anatomy. I feel bad about neglecting histo and MCB, but I should be completely caught up in both of those subjects by tomorrow evening. Block II exams are on Monday. Wish me luck this weekend. I need to keep my intense study streak going. 

Block II Fast Approaching

I am going to get my study on for this weekend. I had a nice beach day, fun dinner at BB's with a little flip cup, and I'll probably watch the Celtics game tonight, but when tomorrow morning rolls around, I will become boring, serious, study mode Andrea (fun and vivacious Andrea will make a quick re-appearance for the Superbowl). Not one of my favorite personas, but I suppose I need that side of me to get through life sometimes.

I need to do some major damage in Histo because I've let that go far too long and the rest of my time will be reviewing the head and neck in anatomy and then doing a whole bunch of questions from BRS and the UMich site. And of course I'll give MCB some love on Sunday.

The Annoyance of searching for off-campus housing culminating in Pure Joy for finding one kickass apartment

These last few days I've been hearing a lot of my classmates discuss their search for off-campus housing or news that people have been signing leases and I just kept thinking to myself why the hell is everyone looking for housing now? It's been barely a month since we started school here and yatta yatta. But then I overheard a few upperclassmen telling a first semester student that they should find and sign a lease by the end of THIS WEEK.  Of course fear crept in me and I was suddenly afraid I'd be missing out on some prime real estate.

For all those wondering why I have to find an apartment:
Unfortunately for us AUC students, after living first semester in the dorms with all day AC, generators, and relatively fast/reliable internet, everyone gets kicked out, never to return. I suppose 5th semesters used to be able to come back, but I'm pretty sure AUC has just started implementing a new policy where only new incoming students and their RA's can stay in university housing.  So I need to be out of my dorm and into a new place by April 24th.

Yesterday might have been my least productive and yet also my most productive day on the island. Not only did I manage to sleep through MCB (I swear this is my first absence of the semester), but I hardly studied at all yesterday save for the one hour at 8-9 pm. I spent my 2.5 hour break between class and lab visiting the following residencies: Cupecoy Beach Club, Rainbow Beach Club, and The Cliff and then spent the evening initiating the leasing process with my soon-to-be landlord. I'm happy to say the very first one-bedroom apartment I saw at Cupecoy Beach Club was absolutely gorgeous and I fell in love right then and there, however I didn't feel like committing without seeing at least a couple of other places first. I visited the studio at Rainbow and it didn't have a kitchen and was pretty much any generic, clean, nice hotel room and I don't really want to feel like I'm living in a hotel room for 16 months. I also found out it was $1400 a month for no generator, no gym access... no thank you . Boo. I also looked at a two-bedroom apartment here as well, and I liked the space much better. It was fully furnished with a full kitchen, long hallways, huge bedrooms with king size beds, all for $3000 a month. In case you struggle with math, in the event that I get a roommate to share this place with, I would be paying $1500 a month  and that is a bit out of my price range since it doesn't include utilities.

Next stop was The Cliff. There is no entrance I could find for people on foot so I awkwardly went up to the voice box thing in front of the gate for cars and pushed the button for assistance. After explaining my situation, they opened the gate for me and I met with someone who then told me there were only TWO singles in the entire building and this place is huge. It's beyond me that they can have only two single bedrooms out of hundreds of rooms. Of course both singles were occupied and after inquiring about the price, I realized this place was way out of my price range.

I returned to campus for anatomy lab and mulled over whether I should visit some more buildings tomorrow and then I thought screw it, I found a place I love and for $1350 a month for that fantastic space, I'm doing it. My single bedroom is fully furnished (It has 3 TVs for whatever reason, and both couches pull out into beds), a king size bed upstairs, my own washer/dryer, full kitchen, generator, balcony, gated 24 hour security, maid service once a week, access to the Beach Club private beach, the workout room, and pool. My adorable Canadian landlord said she will pay for my cable (Dish Network) all year around, but I will have to pay $175 a month for electricity/water/internet. Whew Done

PICTURES!!

Kitchen and dining area which seats 8. I may need to do
some dinner parties next semester.

Up the stairs we go and I'm totally replacing that TV with my flatscreen!

King size bed and TV pretty much make up this floor

View from top of the stairs

Picture of my loft, I'm standing out on the balcony

View from the balcony

For housing information around AUC, the following list is updated pretty often. Check back at this link for new listings:
http://www.aucmed.edu/pdf/Current-Housing-Availability.pdf