No more exams!

I write this post with a sigh of relief.  As of last week, I am done with all exams in medical school!!  2 weeks ago I took my step 2 licensing exam.  In order to be a licensed physician there are 3 "steps" of licensing exams.  Step 3 doesn't take place until intern year, so step 2 is the last one during medical school.  I took step 1 in February and spent 6 weeks straight studying for it.  Step 1 covered all the basic science that I had learned in the first year and a half of medical school.


Step 2 did not have a deisgnated study block, and rumors were widely circulated that it wasn't needed.  It covers more clinical science that should be learned during rotations.  One preceptor told me "you spend 2 months studying for step 1, 2 weeks studying for step 2 and 2 days studying for step 3."  I tried to squeeze in some practice questions during my first couple rotations of 4th year.  I didn't get in as many as I would have liked, and on my third rotation I powered through a video series to study.  Once I got through the videos I finally had some more time for practice questions.  I took a practice exam a week before I was scheduled to take the exam and wasn't happy with my score.  I took another one the day before my exam and still wasn't happy with it, so I cancelled my exam.  I had never done anything like that before!  Cancelling a major exam at the last minute wasn't much like me.  So I spent another rotation doing more practice questions and finally took the exam 3 weeks after I had originally scheduled it.  I felt terrible when it was over.  I couldn't believe so many people had said this was an exam that barely needed any studying.  It was hard!  I am still awaiting my score, but praying that I passed.


The following week I had a bunch of exams to make-up from maternity leave.  I had finished my internal medicine and psychiatry rotations that I took off last year, and had to take the assessments for those.  Good news, I crushed those shelf exams, doing much better than I had on any others.  I guess all that Step 2 studying must have helped!


In between all that studying I have also been working on applying for internships-- tweaking my CV and personal statement, asking for letters of recommendation, interviewing with different programs, and perseverating over whether I am choosing the right specialty and location for training.  Everything is all submitted now, so it's just a waiting game until match day in December.  With all of this behind me I didn't know what to do with myself in my spare time!  I decided to read a book for fun, which I haven't done in a couple years.  I breezed through the first book in the series Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and am looking forward to the next ones!