The Readiness is All

I'm sorry I have been so bad at posting lately, but I have finally finished my board exams, so I should have more time here for a while.

I must admit that boards were really hard. The COMLEX was a 9 hour exam, and the USMLE was a more merciful 8 hours. The exams are computer-based, as of a couple of years ago, and consist of 400 and 350 multiple choice questions, respectively. To prepare for these exams I picked two review books and read one 4 times and the other 2 times. I listened to a 40 hour pathology review on mp3 twice, and read an outline of that same review three times. I also completed and reviewed answers for about 3500 practice questions. In all, it was a little over two months and 500 hours of studying. I actually feel like I learned a lot of stuff in the last two months that I never learned in 2 years of attending school. I don't know if that is every medical student's experience or not.

For the record, I have been informed that I have little to complain about when it comes to the length of my boards. Before they switched it just a few years ago, each exam was twice as long--taking two days each to complete. I can't even imagine the smell of frying brains on the 8th hour of the 2nd day, can you?

If I was not armed with all of the information that I needed in order to successfully complete these grueling exams by attending school the last two years, I feel that I was, at least, armed with a sort of confidence--the ability to get through the last two months without breaking down and crying every day from the stress and the pressure. At some point in the last year, I have learned to believe in myself--to believe that it maybe wasn't a mistake after all that I actually made it into medical school in the first place, and to believe that I was smart enough to make it. I think that this new-found self-confidence was probably just as crucial to my success as the information that I learned. As Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "The readiness is all."

I don't find out the results of my exams until 6-8 weeks after the dates that the exams were taken, so it will be a while before I find out if I was indeed successful, but I feel good about them, which is saying a lot. I don't feel like I 'aced' them, not by any stretch of the imagination, but neither do I feel like I 'bombed' them.

I have more that I want to write about, but I don't want to lose you in a horrifically long update on my life, so I will update in installments. If you were hoping for some horror and are sad that I am not providing any, check out "Molly's Top 10 Horror Films" at http://sarahlitchick.blogspot.com/ Let it be noted that I was told to "kiss off" in the aforementioned blog, but Sarah is a very smart chick, and if she tells anyone to kiss off, it is for a good reason! She is also currently my favorite movie critic!