Exam Postponed

I just rescheduled my exam to November 20th. With Hurricane Sandy fast approaching and the power outages expected to occur, I figured it would throw my study schedule for a loop. Last year when Hurricane Irene hit RI we lost power at my house for a couple days and the state overall was without power for about week. They are saying the power outages are going to be worse this time around so I decided it would be best to push my exam date back. I cannot wait to be done with this.

Step 1 Score and Residency

During one of my studying lulls, I thought it would be a good idea to see what kind of score I need to get for a fair shot into plastic surgery... kidding. Anyway the chart below is taken from the 2011 NRMP Charting Outcomes in the Match. For the full 2011 NRMP report click here. The below just focuses on the Step 1 scores of those who matched in their respective specialty.  I know the print is a bit small but if you click on the image it will enlarge.  

So shooting for a 235 seems like a good goal, right? It's a high enough score that it doesn't outright eliminate me from most specialties, but it isn't so high that I feel like I have no chance of reaching it. We'll see, maybe I'm just fooling myself. Truth be told I'm actually shooting for perfection, and once I fall short of that goal, hopefully I'll still be left with a pretty good score. An old adage inspired my current philosophy on setting goals: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land amongst the stars."

The Next STEP!

Everything I need to know for Step 1... in flashcard form! HOW FUN!

After coasting for the last 5 weeks of 5th semester, you can imagine how hard it was getting back into the full swing of studying. I got home August 21st, took about a week off and started "studying" on the 27th... and when I say "study" I mean doing about two hours of Goljan each day and then going out and doing something not academically-related (i.e. dinner, drinks, run, movies, football). It wasn't really till about two weeks ago that I stepped up my game for my Step 1 preparation. I've been waking up at 8:30 every morning and I start studying by 9. I study for about 5 hours and then stop to go for a run and eat lunch in the early afternoon when my mind needs a break. After my shower, I push on for another 3 hours before my mom gets home and starts cooking dinner and that's right around where I call it quits for the day.

At the moment I'd say I'm putting in around 7 hours of truly productive work each day. Since mid-5th semester, I had been slowly going through Goljan's Rapid Review of Pathology making flashcards for all the diseases by organ system and I'm happy to report that I FINALLY finished the textbook and my cards yesterday. Pathology was the final frontier in my Step studying. I had already finished the notecards for my other subjects weeks ago while preparing for the Comp so now that I've finished Path, I have this very odd and slightly scary gleeful completeness whenever I look over at my little treasures. I was so proud of my work, I even took a picture to show you guys. I would have instagram-ed it (since I now know what that means), but the confining square I was mandated to use would have cut out some of my beautiful stacks and it's just heartbreaking for me to leave any of those little guys out since I put in so much time and love into them (okay... clearly I'm very tired).

Maybe I'm losing my mind or maybe I just have an obsession with flash cards. The way I see it is like this: Textbooks are so big and heavy, with such tiny, boring black print on so many pages that it's just overwhelming and intimidating to even look at from across the room. I have heart palpitations thinking about it. But when I see a nice, friendly stack of cute flashcards with colorful fun-facts on the other side of them, I just feel much happier and relaxed about studying. Flashcards are FUN, people! They are fun-sized for a reason! Haha anyway....
Thanks for indulging me.

Back to the point of this post-- I'm looking to schedule my exam for the end of October. If I'm not feeling great by then, I'll just have to push it back to the first or second week of November and that will be it! Do or die.

New Phone. Check.

First order of business was purchasing a new cell phone. Over these last two years, whenever I came back home between semesters, I had to revert back to the same flip phone I bought as a freshman in college. I had a "free" upgrade available so I decided to splurge on the new Samsung Galaxy S3 despite my mom's emphatic protestations to wait for the iphone 5. I think I made the right choice.

please notice my lovely St. Maarten-themed wallpaper

So Long St. Maarten

American Airlines Flight 2144 started the slow turn at the top of the runway preparing for takeoff. I took my last look of Maho Beach, the brilliant blue-green ocean, and the insane tourists who insisted on standing behind the jet blasts. A few others were lined on the cinder blocks out of harms way all waving goodbye. It wasn't until this moment that it really hit me that I was leaving St. Maarten and I wasn't coming back. As happy as I am to be returning to my family, boyfriend, and friends in New England I still felt an overwhelming sadness. It took everything I had to stop myself from crying and scaring the poor gentleman sitting next to me on the plane. I kept thinking to myself "it's the end of an era! This is the end of an era" since I often reference my existence back to Friends (The One Where Ross Hugs Rachel). There will never be another time in my life where I will be living on an island with all my friends studying medicine.  No more lecture hall everyday with my 120 classmates. We weren't all going to show up at the same club or lounge and just take it over. No more living in a bubble of perfect weather. No more running across to the casino and getting free money. No more Thai dates, no more $2 beers, no more Cuban cigars, no more Carousel, no more parking wherever we felt like, no more jogs to Tahoma/Beacon Hill, no more coffee shop happy hour, no more random conversations with the Sugarcane bartenders. I  could go on and on because there are so many little things that I loved.

When you spend everyday with the same people for nearly 2 years, you can't help but start feeling like they are your family. A few months ago, a friend of mine likened our experience to "going to war together". She added that maybe it was a strange analogy, but I completely understood her. We are tossed in a foreign country in a high stress environment and we have no choice but to lean on each other to get through it. You build a bond, strong bonds with those you study with and celebrate the good times with; carry on the traditions of birthdays, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, St. Patrick's Day; you cheer each other on to get through the grueling study hours and examinations. From my own personal take on things, I never felt like school was a competition here at AUC. I felt people did a lot to help each other out whether it came to group studying, tutoring, giving tips on professors, or trading notes and files. There's nothing I want more than for my classmates to do well, succeed, and kick ass in the Step and clinicals and secure great residency spots. For those who know me well and maybe even the few of you who have read my entire blog, I am an intensely loyal and proud person. You know I love my Patriots and Celtics, Boston, Rhode Island, and now I've come to love St. Maarten,  my AUC family and all my Caribbean med schoolness. Most of us who end up here have experienced rejection, but none have let that get in the way of what we wanted to do with our lives. It's that unwavering drive and determination and then recognizing that same struggle in one another that binds us all together. We are better for it. 

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but all I have to say is I *loved* my 20 months here in St. Maarten and I can't believe this chapter of my life is coming to a close. It seemed like just yesterday that I was a firstie and the 5ths were telling me to enjoy every second I had on the island because time flies and we're only together in one place for such a short period of time. I didn't believe them at the time, but they were right. Time flies when everyday is the same and I'm going to miss everyone and everything here. No matter what I do or where I end up, I will always carry a piece of St. Maarten with me and for that I am thankful.

And now for my anthem of the last 5 days on the island (I averaged roughly 4 hours of sleep)