Me. It's all about me here.

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NY, United States
My name is Daren. I currently attend LECOM in Bradenton, FL. This is currently my 4th year of med school. I created this blog to post my thoughts about medical school. And because I rock. Boom. So please, come make yourself at home and enjoy my musings. If you are easily offended by things (ie sarcasm, being politically incorrect, etc) then I suggest you evacuate the immediate vicinity :)

Saturday, March 30, 2013

3rd year pains

So this is the end of 3rd year. A couple months, then comes Step 2 of the boards, then another year of rotations, with some interviews and other bullshit thrown in the mix. As if we haven't had enough bullshit already. 

This year has been pretty interesting with its fair share of ups and downs. I have to say that the only rotations I actually enjoyed were Internal Medicine, Urgent Care, and Infectious Disease. I love kids but I hate dealing with parents so no pediatrics. I want absolutely nothing to do with ob/gyn and the birthing process is disgusting, plus pregnant females are such a pain to deal with. Family practice is ridiculously boring and I don't like the office/clinic setting. I'm starting surgery in a week and although it might be interesting, I hate standing for any extended duration of time and I don't plan on going into surgery... so essentially I've ruled out a good number of specialties... I'm really digging infectious disease, although cardiology can still be a possibility.

I start surgery next Monday (ugh) but amongst all this chaos, LECOM has been absolutely horrendous at even attempting to help me set up 4th year rotations. Am I surprised? No. They have all of 2 or 3 people managing an entire school's rotations. Not ideal. Thus, I've decided that they're going to be zero help and I'm setting up my schedule and my rotations on my own. Whatever.

Board studying is pretty stagnant at this point. I'm trying to fit in study time whenever there's down time in the hospital but those are few and far in between. Problem is that Sisters of Charity Hospital works the crap out of you and by the time you're home, showered up, and prepared to study, it's dinner time and then you only have a couple hours at best to read. Not ideal.

Shelf exams... I don't even know where to start. I think Case Files does a pretty decent job at giving you the essentials... but like any board exam, I don't think any amount of studying will prep you sufficiently. The questions are unpredictable and stuffed with bullshit to sift through. Then, the questions are long paragraphs so that detracts from the reading time. Plus, they don't let you eat while taking the shelf, so you're hungry and pissed off and tired the whole time. And they wonder why people do so bad. But anyway, if you're studying for shelf exams, you need these things: Case Files, UWorld, and Toronto Notes for Family Medicine. As far as the ob/gyn shelf, well, you'll either love it or hate it, but either way, it's going to rape you.

I'm so over this student thing. Ready to be an attending physician already. Or at least throw me into some IM residency and let me do my thing.