Solicitations...

So I finally remembered to ask some of the first years if anyone would be willing to write up a short blog entry about what their classes are like this year compared to ours last year. I know changes have been made, so we'll see if one of them has some spare time to jot their thoughts down.

Also, for people who have been going through interviews, if anyone would like to share their interview experiences at any of the PA programs I'd love to post them!

In other news, so sorry for the silence. I have a list of things I've jotted down that I want to blog so I won't forget them. My laptop has been having issues so as a result I've just avoided being online much lately. I've taken it to the med education IT help desk a couple times, but so far no improvements. It has meant things like missing out on emails reminding us that our autopsy conference is one place instead of the normal place (that was a bad morning!) and such things.

Speaking of autopsy, I'm back on autopsy after a three week stint at Duke North. It was a good rotation, lots of different complex specimens, and I had a practical exam. It is harder grossing with a staff PA over your shoulder watching you with a critical eye, but it went well. I got an A so I'm not complaining in the least and it was great getting that feedback.

Next week is spring break and I'm going to spend mine going back to South Carolina to do home improvements because I love painting, but until then I'd like to have a busy rotation this time around. Brain cutting today was really busy with med students and first year PA students, but we had some very interesting cases so it was good that everyone got to see those. There was a great moment when the neuropathologist was quizzing the students on neuroanatomy and the first year PA students were getting all of the answers right, so she had to tell them that they weren't allowed to answer any more questions. They did an awesome job and all PA students can name the locus coeruleus thanks to one of our staff PAs!

First year done!!

We had our cumulative final this morning. I spent yesterday studying (with a two hour break around dinner time to see a friend and grab something to eat) and woke up around 6 this morning to go back over the most important things. I feel like I did well... for the most part the answer I was thinking of was one of the options I had to choose from, which I feel like is generally a good sign.

I still feel like laying down and having a good cry though. Just to purge some of the stress from the last week. Not that it has even been that horrifically bad... It always gets built up worse in my mind than it actually is. 

I called my husband on the way back to my car and gave him the report. He said congratulations and then dropped a bit of a bomb on me. Apparently the screening medical procedure my mom had done a few weeks ago had yielded a positive result and she'd gotten the results last week. And everyone in my family decided, what with everything else going on, that they wouldn't tell me until after my exams were over.

Which, while it shocked me, was probably the best course of action... especially considering that our Monday exam covered relevant material and crying makes studying harder. The good news is that as far as prognoses go, she has a really, really good one. Hearing medical news is a lot easier when you know what all the words mean and have a solid understanding of what is going on. And finding out about everything later meant that by today my sister already had a copy of the pathology report, and my mom and dad have had follow up appointments and a plan is already in place.

Senior Seminars and Oral Done

I opened my email to see an invitation to the class of 2012's senior seminar. I've seen facebook statuses saying how they're down to their last 30 days and while studying in the PA room yesterday they were all discussing their cases for their seminar talks. People are getting ready to move and looking forward to being employed and starting that phase of their lives. It is exciting for them, but hard not to be jealous!
 
I can't complain since it really doesn't seem like a year since I got last year's invitation for 2011's seminar! Time flies and it will be our turn soon. I was thinking about that last night, how this time last year I was insanely excited and very impatient to finish up my last month of work and start on this adventure. And now here I am, on the cusp of being a second year student!

I took my oral exam yesterday and passed! I don't know what my score was but after everyone finished taking it we received an email from our course director saying we all passed. I'm good with identifying organs and identifying the disease process... I am less good with symptoms/complications but not horrible. And with cirrhosis I couldn't remember a complication (spontaneous bacterial peritonitis) but knew that I knew it and my brain did that thing where it hung up on that one fact and couldn't move past it. Not horrible though.

And even though it was an oral exam and those are particularly stressful, I didn't have an awful time with anxiety. It wasn't completely absent but I could still function, which is a vast improvement over the way things were in December. I was able to push past the part of my brain that was freaking out and pay attention to the organ in front of me. It helped a lot that as soon as I looked at the specimens on the grossing table I knew what all four of them were. I was scared to look at the table while I was getting dressed because I was worried that they would all look foreign (which is, I know, an irrational fear), but once I did I was reassured. If nothing else I can sight identify organs.