I was reflecting earlier how the size of my “world” has changed over time.
When I was an infant, I didn’t know of a world beyond my crib. But as I got older, the world got bigger. While I have memories of going between Storrs and Falls Village CT, I think my first realization of a bigger world was when I followed some older boys in the housing complex in Storrs and ended up lost (I suspect they probably ditched me since who wants the 4yo following them around and ruining your fun when you’re 8 years old.) That ended up with a happy ending as a stranger found me and quite literally drove around asking if I recognized my apartment building. Apparently I did. I can’t imagine that scenario playing out today. That said, well before I can remember, my parents did do a trial move to California, but I don’t count that in my awareness, though I have a vague memory of me brushing my teeth while sitting on the tailgate of the Scout which I suspect was from one of the early road trips my dad and mom did.
When I was a bit older, I recall going to New York City with my parents and being confused because somehow I had gotten the idea that a city was bigger than a state and couldn’t figure out how New York City could be IN New York State. But even then, my world consisted mostly of trips to New Haven, CT to see my paternal grandparents and Bennington VT to see my maternal ones. And then there was the occasional trip to Boston to see my aunt and uncle (technically half-aunt, but there was never anything half about Aunt Sue).
At one point, I want to say when I was seven or so, I know I did a trip with my parents to Cape Code and to Bar Harbor ME. My world was getting bigger.
A few years later, a very different trip to Bar Harbor and then the Cape. That ended well but didn’t start so well.
Then a few years after that my world jumped in size. My dad and his then girlfriend and her daughter (four years my junior) and I travelled first to the Grand Canyon and Havasu Canyon. Suddenly I was outside the comfort of the northeast. And I loved it.
There were a few trips to Florida in there too, including my first time flying alone.
A few years after that I went to St. Croix USVI with my dad. My first long flight over water.
Years later I accompanied my paternal grandmother (my grandfather having passed on years previously) to the UK for my cousin’s wedding. Again, my world had expanded.
The NCRC has also helped expand my world due to having training all over the country.
And over the years, including this one, I have been back to the Grand Canyon three times since and have with the family seen much of the west coast, the Rockies and more.
And pre-Covid, the family and I visited the UK, France, and Belgium. My world continued to grow.
Going forward, I’m sure I’ll see more of the world.
And yet, in some ways, my world has shrunk and for a sad reason.
Other than a couple of brief trips to or through, I haven’t been to New Haven since my grandmother’s memorial.
I still go to Bennington, because my mom is there, but even then there’s a bit I don’t go to, my grandparent’s house. It’s no longer in the family since they’ve passed.
I’ll go to Boston again, but not as frequently since my aunt has died.
And I have yet to go back to Falls Village, ever since my closing out my dad’s estate. That one is just too hard, even years later.
You’ll note there’s a theme to the places I’m less likely to visit. And it’s one that I expect to become more common as I age.
So the world is bigger than ever and I’m still exploring it (as my spring road trip shows) but ironically in some ways, it’s grown a bit smaller. And that saddens me.
Since I have not really deactivated or updated my LinkedIn profile, I still get emails and the occasional text tempting me with a job offer of some sort. And as I sit here, trying to contemplate my study plans for the night and weekend, I have to say the idea of responding to one of them is appealing. For one thing, the money would be far better. Instead of burning through savings, I’d be building savings back up.
But the truth be told, that thought is only a fleeting one. Firstly, I’ve been away from active DBA work for a couple of years now. I’d have to take time to come up to speed and that would be stressful in and of itself. But also, ultimately I suspect I’d be bored or frustrated again.
And there are definitely nights I miss working as a Tech in the ED. Yeah, there were shifts I hated, but overall I enjoyed it. However, I’ll still pick up some over holidays over the course of the next year. That should sate some of my desire.
My biggest doubts come on nights like tonight where the doubts creep into my head. One of my classmates has tracked how many tests and quizzes we’ve had and the approximate number left in our didactic year. I don’t know the number, but it’s up there. Each one brings a new period of stress. And of course, after our didactic year comes our clinical year, 10 rotations, 4 weeks each. Not only will I be stressed about each area I’ll be assigned to, I may often have to figure out housing for that period of time (and how to pay for it!)
But I remind myself, that it’ll be worth it. That the ED is where I want to be, and while I think I’ve done a lot of good as a Tech, I hope to do even more as a PA.
But those regular hours, and higher pay, they are tempting. Just not like they used to.
This year I’ve lost two people close to me. Both died of cancer. Their deaths have hit me in different ways. Both were linked to each other and to me through caving.
I obliquely referred to the first in a post earlier this year. Don Paquette was a friend, colleague and mentor. His intensity could easily fill a room. As an instructor, he was quick to let you know where you stood. I know some thought he might be overly harsh or strict or that he might have unreasonable standards. But the truth is, he simply wanted everyone to try their best. He didn’t necessarily expect everyone to be perfect in the skills taught. But if he thought you could do better, he’d push you to do so. And deep down, he cared.
Don was known for judging how well students would lay out the gear cache during training. He felt strongly that a well laid out gear cache was a key part of a well-run and organized rescue. In the last few years of his life, when he couldn’t make it to training, I’d text him a photo of a cache and wait for his grade so I could report back to students.
Don might give this a B on a good day
He also was an advocate of what some might call a “Command Voice”. A command voice was more than simply being louder than the rest, it was a tone that caught your attention, made you listen, and moreover, want to to do what was asked.
And that’s where Cordelia Ross enters the picture, or Cordie as we all knew her. I first recall meeting Cordie at the NCRC weeklong in Indiana in 2009. I was helping to teach the Level 2 class, along with Don, while Cordie was taking it. During much of the week, Don kept encouraging Cordie to be a bit louder and more commanding. This wasn’t exactly Cordie’s style however.
Cordie is on the left
We were doing an exercise in Sullivan Cave. The students weren’t quite as organized as they could have been, but as one of the goals of Level 2 is to teach leadership, we as instructors were sitting back letting things unfold to see how the students would cope and if they’d organize themselves.
And then it happened. From the top of the breakdown pile we heard a loud and commanding voice: “Stop!” Everyone, and I mean everyone, including the instructors, stopped what they were doing and waited for instructions to come forth. I recall looking up at Cordie who then, in a much quieter but forceful tone started to direct her fellow students on what to do next. It took us instructors a second to realize that she wasn’t giving us commands. But her voice had been so commanding for an instant, had she given us instructions, we would have no doubt followed them. We liked to joke that Cordie had found her command voice. But she made it clear, she hadn’t found it, she simply had used the one she had had all along, but held in reserve until the right time. I tend to think she was right. After that Don never again gave her any flack about her lack of command voice.
That episode with Cordie really personified her to me. She was a petite woman, often surrounded by firefighters and cavers twice her size. But she was the mouse that could roar. Many might describe her as quiet, but that wasn’t true. When she did speak, it was with authenticity and power. Many might underestimate her, but never more than once.
In my final visit with Don, we talked about many things, including our times instructing fellow cavers. He reminded me of a time where we played a prank on a set of students on a haul team. He had a deep sense of humor. His death was tough and I grieved and still grieve for him, but also know that having lived into his 70s he had lived a good life. He had seen his kids grown and even watched his grandkids grow up. We often talked about his travels with his family on Amtrak. While I know he would have loved to live longer and had more to do, he expressed no regrets to me. He led a good life.
Cordie’s death though strikes a deeper chord. Her family was just starting. Just over a year ago she had given birth to her daughter, Viola. Her cancer diagnosis was a surprise and sadly didn’t give her enough time in this world. Her husband Wayne now has the unenviable task of being what some might call a “single father”. Technically that may be true, but I know there is a whole community out there that will help him. And much of that community will help Viola know the woman who was her mother. Whereas Don had much to look back on, Cordie had so much to look forward to. Cordie looked forward to being a mother and I suspect far down the road, a grandmother. She had so much she wished to teach Viola. And Viola, sadly will never grow up truly knowing her mother. The world is a smaller place because of Cordie’s untimely death.
Whereas Don and I talked Amtrak and travels, Cordie and I discussed New England (because she had gone to school at Dartmouth) and literature. Both were people to whom I had a connection far more than simply caving or cave rescue. Both are people that I dearly wish I could sit down with at least one more time and talk to.
Today I had the pleasure of co-leading some incoming freshman to RPI on a caving trip. I was asked a question I’ve been asked before and honestly, I don’t have a single answer for it.
“What’s your favorite cave?”
It sounds like a simple question, but honestly, I can’t easily answer it.
I can say that the cave I was in today, Clarksville Cave, is not my favorite cave. Though, if the question is qualified, “What is your favorite cave to take beginners into?” then Clarksville might be up there. It’s close to the road, easy parking and enough variation in terrain to make it interesting and challenging to almost any beginner.
A cave that ranks near the top of my favorites would be Eagle Cave at Chimney Mountain. Traditionally it wasn’t the easiest to get to, it was about a three-quarter mile hike up the mountain which could be strenuous. But parking was easy. That was then. Now, because some cavers or hikers could not respect the wishes of the folks who owned the parking lot, the landowners no longer allow parking on their land. This has turned the approach into a 5 mile hike. I have not been back since.
That said, the cave is a great one because unlike most in New York, it’s not solutional. It was formed basically by the side of the mountain falling away. It’s very different from most New York caves. But it’s also a 2.5 hour drive from home. So, is it my favorite? I don’t know. It’s got a lot going for it, but also has some drawbacks.
What about Knox? Great cave, I love it. And I’m thankful for the bypass to the Gun-Barrell, or else I’d probably stop going to it. It has a lot of variety and a lot to see. So it’s up there among favorites.
If I look beyond New York, I could add Flowing Stone as one of my favorite vertical caves.
Or I could add Tumbling Rock as it has some awesome features.
But what if I include commercial caves? (including National Parks) Then I might put Carlsbad up there. The large room is still one of the most impressive rooms I’ve seen in a cave.
Lava tubes? I can’t say I remember the names of too many, but there are some cool ones out there.
I guess I can’t say I have a favorite cave.
But I can say I have a least favorite one: Park’s Ranch Cave. No offense but…
And even then I have some fun stories to tell of it.
My final exam of the semester was yesterday (Wednesday morning) at 8:30 AM. It was our 5th exam of the semester in Anatomy. I’m not sure why, but stuff wasn’t really clicking for it. I did about as well as I estimated I would do, but not nearly as well as I would have liked. But I’ll live with it.
I’m waiting for two final grades that represent 35% of the grade in a 2 credit class. I expect them to be decent and assuming no surprised, that means I’ll finish this semester with a 3.2. In a previous post I mentioned we need a 2.7 or better to continue So I’m good on that. That said, it’s not the 3.7 I thought I was looking at mid-semester. I should be happy and proud, but honestly, I’m still a bit stressed. My last two anatomy exams definitely had a bit of a drop and two of my exams (including one of the anatomy ones) that I thought I did really well on, I didn’t.
I’ve mentioned this to a few folks, but needed to elaborate a bit. It’s not the grade per-se that bothers me. It’s fact that I thought I had done much better than I actually did. I’ve walked out of one or two tests (including this last anatomy exam) not feeling great about it, and the final grade reflected my feelings. But when I think I did great and didn’t, that’s another whole story. It’s giving me a lot of self-doubt.
But my advisor and other faculty have assured me not to worry. But, I will.
That said, I’ve been analyzing some of the reasons for not doing as well on the exams as I would have liked. Some is simply “this ain’t easy.” I didn’t expect it to be and some of it is rote memorization and that’s honestly harder for me. Don’t ask me about all the muscles in the lower leg and foot and their innervation or vasculature.
Some of it, I honestly was trying some different study techniques that didn’t work. I honestly should have taken my own advice and gone back to what I wrote about here. I had started to rely a bit too much on using ChatGPT in a particular way (basically a “quiz” mode) that I ended up being a bit biased in what I felt confident one. That I think explains a lot of the issue with the two exams where I walked in really confident but didn’t walk out with a great grade. I’ve gone back to some of my basics and also modified how I work with ChatGTP. While my last anatomy exam wasn’t nearly as high as I’d have liked, I think it was far better than it would have been had I not adopted these changes to my study methods.
My advisor and mentor and our didactic coordinator have been great. They’ve given me some good advice and guidance. A common them I’ve heard is that while the work gets harder in some ways (and more of it, 25 credits vs 18), there’s less memorization and more integration and honestly, I think I’m better at that. So we’ll see.
I should note, nearly one-third of those credits is Medicine 1, an eight credit class. So a lot is riding on me doing well in that class!
I think if I can make it through the second semester, then I’ll be set. Not to say it’ll be easy, but I’ll be that much closer.
My biggest stress about my clinical year will be the logistics. But that’s about nine months away.
That said, the other emotion running through my head is, “I should be studying.” I’ve spent pretty much every waking hour of the last 10 weeks studying. Not having something immediately study for is really wreaking havoc on my brain. I’m trying to get a bit more into “relax” mode and having difficulty.
I wouldn’t exactly say it’s trauma, but in a sense it is. I haven’t really been hyped on adrenaline for the past 10 weeks, but it does feel a bit like withdrawal.
So I’m home for about 10 more days. What am I going to do? Pick up some shifts in the ED. Partly for the money, partly to keep my skills sharp, and really honestly, to catch up with my coworkers. I honestly miss them.
I’m going to take a bunch of incoming freshman at RPI on a caving trip.
And I’m having a pool party.
And then at 9:00 AM on August 25th we start fall orientation. That’s of an hour and then it’s straight into our first lecture: “Evidence Based Practice.”
Well, the first semester is almost over. It’s been over a month since my last blog entry. I had hoped to blog more often, but well honestly I haven’t had the time or energy. To give you an example, this past Saturday I never left my apartment. I spent pretty much the entire day studying, and most of that for a single exam which was this morning.
And to be honest, I’m not sure I did as well on the exam as I had hoped. And a week ago, I walked out of an anatomy exam, thinking I had aced it, only to discover the next day I had barely passed it. By far my lowest grade yet.
I’ve tried to tell myself, “it’s only one grade” but truth is, it’s rattled me a bit. Scratch that, a lot. And not knowing this morning’s exam grade has me on tenterhooks.
Compound with that this Wednesday is another exam that I definitely do not feel prepared for. And strangely, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily the hardest subject or even hardest exam, but it’s perhaps the most objectives we’ve had in a single exam. So after taking a short break, I’ll get back to studying for it. I’ve already spent close to two hours on it today and will spend at least four more today and probably eight tomorrow. And even with that, I know it won’t be easy.
But enough of my complaining. I wanted to share something else.
While I sit here and question my life choices between two hard exams, I thought I’d share one update.
I blogged earlier that when I got accepted at Arcadia, their program was on “Accreditation – Probationary”. This was a bit concerning because in theory their accreditation could have been yanked and I’d be out money and time.
But, I talked to a couple of faculty and staff and chatted online with one of the students at the time. No one could make any guarantees, but their comments and answers did give me a good feeling. So, between that and the honest fact no other school was willing to take a risk on me, I accepted and obviously am now attending.
Well about two weeks ago we finally got an update. Arcadia is now “Accreditation-Continued”. This is excellent news. This means barring a catastrophe (like the entire faculty coming down with Ebola at once) when I graduate, I can set for the PANCE (our certification exam). So that’s one bit of good news.
There’s a time when you’re whitewater boating where you’re just above the rapids, trying to figure out the line you want to take. The water around you is calm, but you know eventually you’ll be in rapids and at that point you’ll have hopefully picked out that line because it can be very hard, downright dangerous to change your line through the rapids once among them.
I’ve left that area just above the rapids and now I’m in them. So far the line I’ve picked to navigate the rapids appears to be working. I’ve got some Class III maybe some Class IV rapids ahead, but I’ve navigated one class III already and just passed some Class II rapids and the boat is still upright with me in it.
I am of course talking about my first semester of PA school so far. I mentioned in a previous post about trying to figure out where the return on benefits for studying is for each class. At some point doing more studying one topic won’t make that much of a change to my grade so I spend that time on a different topic. So far, based on my last few test, I think I’ve hit that mark. Yeah, I could get a marginally better grade on a few of the tests, but I’d have to steal the time from elsewhere.
At the start of the semester they mentioned there were some Grad Assistant (GA) positions available that included a stipend. One of the positions is to lead what they call Study Sessions. I applied for that position and I’m one of 3 in my cohort at this campus (we have 3 counterparts in Glenside) get the position. While they’re called Study Sessions, they’re more accurately (and I’m working to get the name changed) Student Led Review sessions. The idea is that for a particular upcoming exam one of us will work with our counterpart at the other campus and develop a slide deck of practice questions covering objectives that we feel are critical for us and our peers to understand for the next exam. We submit our deck to the course professors for review. After they’ve signed off on it, then we use a tool called “Pear Deck” to make it into an interactive slide show that students can run on their computer to submit answers to the questions while we can then show the results. It’s pretty cool.
The first three Study Sessions were run by professors. I was the first GA at my campus to run a student led one. From the feedback I received, it went really well. This was good to hear. There are several reasons I signed up for the GA position. The stipend, while minor was among them, but a small reason. Another was because, as many of my readers are probably aware, I love to teach. So being in front of a classroom, especially of my peers, is something I enjoy. But there was also a final, somewhat selfish reason for signing up: I can’t teach what I don’t know.
Now, to be fair, the topic for the first lecture was Genetics. I had taken an entire course in this as one of my pre-reqs and as a result found the objectives covered to be pretty much review. That certainly helped me in preparing the slide deck, but even then I found myself referring to my notes and the lecture notes to confirm I really understood a specific point. Nothing would be more embarrassing than asking a question and then confidently telling the students the wrong answer!
The next topic I will be covering is Cardio-physiology and pathophysiology. I have not taken a class in this specifically in the past, but some I learned previously in my undergrad A&P and some from working in the ED. But there’s definitely some I need to review before I present.
I have one or two more opportunities to present more during this semester. I’ll decide in the next 48 hours what I will end up doing.
But that’s it for now. So far it appears I’m putting in about the right amount of effort for the grades I want to get and I’m helping my fellow students review for particular exams so we can all do the best we possibly can.
So my first exam for Mechanisms of Disease (we just call it MOD, it’s easier) is out of the way. Due to how they grade things, it may be a few days before I get a grade on it. This is a bit frustrating, but I can’t do much about it. So, rather than talk about that or whether I’m on the right track when it comes to how I’m spending my study time, I thought I’d talk about some of the tools I’m using.
OneNote
I’ve mentioned this multiple times in the past. It’s nice in that it allows me to free-form write notes draw images, do outlines, add checkmarks, etc. It’s still a heavy go to to help me keep things organized.
OneNote Screen Shot
This is a current page out of my OneNote. You can see across the top I have a tab for various classes or important topics. On the right I have pages for each lecture plus some other details I want to track. The main section is a portion of the objectives for Exam 1. You can see here I’m using checkboxes instead of colors to mark what I think I know and I don’t. I obviously still have a bit to review here (and note that the scroll bar shows I’ve got a lot more objectives to look at.)
Whiteboards
I mentioned this in my previous post. Once I get to my newer apartment, I’ll get more sheets of whiteboard paper to put on the wall or even some actual whiteboards to mount on the wall. I find this HUGELY useful to help me draw out structures or organize notes. Sometimes just putting “pen to paper” makes a big difference here. One can’t have too many whiteboards in my opinion. I’ve even seen one of the attendings where I work wheel one down so he can teach residents a few things.
I should note, at one company I consulted at as a Database Administrator, their IT/Dev department had very few whiteboards. I never really understood how they got things done.
Quizlet
Some of my fellow students love this app. I’ll admit I use it and sometimes I use old-fashioned notecards. But I find it has limitations. It’s useful for learning “facts” but harder in my mind for learning interactions. Yes, it can be done that way, but it’s more work. So, for example, it’s useful to quiz me on what artery serves the trapezius muscle (main ones are the transverse cervical artery and the dorsal scapular artery in case you’re interested). But less so on fully visualizing where it is and what it does (though I do have a card asking about action). What it has limited use for in my opinion is what are called second-order questions. This might be, “patient is stabbed in the back along the upper back near the neck, what muscle might be show limited to no movement?” The answer (especially if it’s multiple choice and some are obviously wrong) is most likely the trapezius because the nerve that runs to it is in that area. Here it helps to understand where things are and how things operate.
Complete Anatomy
I’ve previously mentioned the Anatomage tables we use for anatomy class. These are awesome, but there’s only two per campus and they’re not portable so I can’t take them with me. Enter Complete Anatomy from Elsevier. I have a copy on my phone and on my desktop. It’s incredible. Very much like the Anatomage tables, I can select a specific structure to examine, add in or remove surrounding structures, look up details on a specific structure and more. I can even tell it to show me how specific muscles move. This is an EXTREMELY useful tool for anatomy. For $40 I would recommend it to anyone who has to study anatomy. I’ve been using it all this morning to help me get a handle on all the muscles in the thoracic cavity and back that I need to know for next week’s exam. It’s definitely helping.
ChatGPT
Or as one of our professors likes to call it, “Professor Chat”. I find the fact that I’m using this a bit ironic because just within the last two years, every PA school application process has had to add a disclaimer that you can NOT use ChatGPT or other LLMs to write your essays. But once here, they’ve encouraged its use. It’s NOT perfect and I’ll be honest, it wasn’t until a fellow student pulled it up in a study session over the weekend that I had given it much thought. My early playing with LLMs had not left me very impressed. It seemed like a gimmick (e.g. “Write me a short love story in the manner of Stephen King”) that while fun, I didn’t find overly useful.
But that study session changed my thoughts. I started playing with ChatGPT Sunday night (the night before my MOD exam). I did several things. In one case I took a slide about skin diseases and copied it into the ChatGPT window and said, “Give me a 10 question multiple choice quiz on this material”. Not only did it, when I got an answer wrong it attempted to explain why I go tit wrong. At one point I put in the entire list of objectives to be covered for the MOD exam and asked it to give me a 30 question quiz with at least 5 second order questions. It did, and then it graded it.
Now it’s FAR from perfect. More then once I’ve found it’ll mark the right answer wrong (which is strange enough) but also it’ll mark the wrong answer as correct occasionally. Honestly, though I found this useful as it forced me to engage with the LLM. For example one question was poorly worded and I told the LLM that and it came back with a better worded question making the same point.
I find ChatGPT very useful for second order questions because it’ll craft decent ones and then after I attempt to answer them, explaining the reasoning to all the available answers, why the one that is correct is correct and why the others are not correct. This forces me to think a lot about systems.
Yes, ChatGPT can be used like an advanced search engine, but that’s only scratching the surface of what it can do.
I suspect I’ll be using ChatGPT a lot over the coming year to help prepare for tests. I also suspect that at times during my clinical rotations, if the preceptor allows it, I will use it to help verify my diagnosis or give me more information to make a better one. I don’t think it’s quite ready to be the sole source of truth though when it comes to making a diagnosis. I will note there are some AI tools that in limited cases can be better than humans, but those tend to be fairly constrained areas of medicine and even then they often have errors.
Study Groups
This is not really a technology or object. But study groups can be critical to helping “polish” my thinking. Sometimes I’ll see how others are approaching problems, sometimes I can share my knowledge with others (which seems to help them, at least in some cases.) Once I get to my newer apartment, I hope to host these once a week or so.
Classroom Study Sessions
This one, honestly, several of us believe if misnamed and we were talking with a professor about yesterday. They’re honestly more instructor (and soon Grad Assistant) led review sessions. For my campus, I’m one of three selected Grad Assistants who will eventually be helping to lead these. The reason some of us think they’re misnamed is because the format is really more a review of material than an actual study of it. We’ve had two so far and the format is the professor(s) create “slide” deck in what’s essentially an interactive PowerPoint like program (I can’t find the name or link right now). They’ll put up a slide with a question and often answers and anyone logged in can select an answer. After some time (generally after about 10 seconds have passed) they’ll show the results, give us the right answer and maybe a very quick comment and then move on. We generally do about 50 questions in one hour. So as you can see, it’s not really studying as much as reviewing. These sessions are completely voluntary, but I think very useful. There were two reasons I signed up to be a GA for these. The first was I want to help my fellow student succeed. The second was because it would force me to make sure I was more familiar with the material. Oh and we get a small stipend, so there is that too.
In Conclusion
There’s probably other tools I used I didn’t think to add and over time I’ll learn to use some tools more than others or add or remove tools to the mix. For example, once done with the Human Gross Anatomy class, I probably won’t use Complete Anatomy as much as I do now. And I’m sure when I’m taking the pharmacology class, I’ll pick up a new tool specific to that.
One thing I’ve very quickly learning is that I have to continually work on my study habits and adapt them as needed. This will be especially true in the second semester when I’m taking 25 credit hours!
To state the obvious, any grad program, but I think among them, especially PA school requires intense studying. In some ways, PA students will cover more in a semester than many med students in the same amount of time. Time is at a definite premium. As mentioned previously, for every hour we spend in lecture, we’re expected to spend roughly two hours outside of lecture on that same subject. So if we have a single hour on a topic like Inflammation, we should probably plan for two hours or more of studying on that outside of class.
Related to that though is some advice they’ve given us very early in the semester and that is to a point, grades don’t really matter. Obviously they do, there are some program minimal requirements and the like. For example, to continue to the next semester or next year will require a minimum GPA of a 2.70. In order to be eligible for the overseas service trip requires a GPA of 3.0. But, for an individual subject, they’ve told us if we get a 70% or better on it, we should be OK for the PANCE. That said, I think everyone wants to do well and to do better than “just enough.” I know I do. But, we don’t have class ranking and we’re not competing for residencies, so honestly, they’re right, beyond a certain minimum doesn’t matter.
I say this because it does impact my approach. I mentioned in a previous blog how I had a major test on Tuesday (Medical Terminology) and hoped to do well. We were all nervous about it and several of us, including myself, had dreams about it. Mine was particularly weird. But we all took it. I don’t think any of us required the full amount of time. They’ve warned us that often tests will take several days to grade (there’s a complex process to it, even though the tests are given electronically). But today, it only took a couple of hours. I’m proud to say I got an 89.69. Yeah, just short of a 90. But I’m ok with it. Yes, I’d have loved to have gotten higher, and honestly where were two questions I know I got wrong that I probably should have known a bit better. But, the reason I’m ok with it is, I based on the amount of time I spent, I got a grade I’m happy with. I was hitting a cost/benefit ratio on time. Had I spent another 5 hours studying, I might have gotten those two right. Another 10 hours, perhaps four more right. But, in the end, there were a couple of terms that I honestly never would have thought to study, so it’s unlikely I would have gotten a 100% on it. And I’m ok with that.
And that leads me into my part of this post. HOW I am studying. For medical terminology, one of the approaches I took was to ensure I knew a number of Latin roots and prefixes and suffixes. This meant that if I encountered a term I had not studied for, I had a better chance of figuring them out. Sure enough there was at least a few terms I had not specifically studied for, but that I was able to figure out. I’ll probably talk more about the “language” of medicine in a future post.
Now, that said, the medical terminology exam was a critical one to pass, but honestly, I didn’t think it was hard to study for. Coming up tomorrow is our first major exam in a class called Mechanism of Disease. This has been far harder to study for.
Below are two pictures of some of the things I’m doing to study. I’m going to work on this process over the coming months as I realize what works and doesn’t work.
Since I started taking my prereqs, I’ve gotten quite adept at using Microsoft’s OneNote for taking notes and outlining things. Here I’ve taken all the objectives from various lectures that are covered in this first exam and put them in one place. I’m slowly going through and color coding what I feel very comfortable with (green), only moderately comfortable with (orange, or not at all comfortable with (red). Black is for stuff I haven’t reviewed yet. This images is from Tuesday night.
Using this will hopefully allow me to decide where over the next few days I need to focus my limited time. If it’s already green, I’ll spend very little time on it. If it’s red, I’ll definitely spend time on it, and if it’s orange, I’ll have to determine how much time to allocate to it.
You’ll note that I don’t have any actual comments within the objectives. That’s generally elsewhere in my notes on other tabs.
But I also have a second thing I’m looking at. That’s the whiteboard shown in the following photograph. This is definitely something I’m going to be changing over time as I find out what works and doesn’t work.
I’ve broken out each lecture that will be covered on this exam. Then below it I’ve put several items (and this is the area most subject to change). Here, the colors mean nothing. They’re simply the markers I had available.
But to decode it:
Notes – Have I reviewed my notes (or in a few cases, even made them!)
PPT – Have I reviewed the PowerPoint slides. I’ll be honest here without naming names, but some professors make better PowerPoints than others. For example some will include notes with the slide. This can be very useful so that I can put the contents of the slide in context.
Book – Have I read the assigned chapters in the book? If not, I need to go back to it. Sometimes the book will explain things the lecture didn’t cover or explain it differently which will help.
O – Outline – have I outlined notes and organized them in a readable fashion.
AAR – Alternative Academic Resources – did they provide a link to a video. Are there videos I need to read.
Quiz – Have I made or looked for a Quizlet? To be honest, I find this hit or miss because if someone else is making them, they put in topics I don’t need to know or alternatively not put in stuff I do need to know.
LTT – This is the critical one and ultimately the only one I’m going to care about at the end.
Learn – Do I feel like I’ve learned the material? This will be true when I have all, or perhaps mostly green in my OneNote outline.
Teach – Do I feel like I can teach the material to someone else, or even better, have I. If I feel comfortable teaching it, then I’m going to be comfortable that I’m ready for the final T
Test – How did I do on the test? This of course is the ultimate metric.
For the whiteboard, I don’t necessarily plan on or hitting every single mark there. They’re more of reminders. “Hey, you’re having trouble with this topic, have you tried all these ways of learning it?” The only one I really care about is being confident in the LT portion of LTT.
The combination of these two resources will hopefully help me make sure I don’t go down a rabbit hole of a particular lecture and forget to study for another. For example, if I wake up Sunday morning finding I’m green on almost everything, but perhaps orange on two things and red on one, I’ll focus on the red topics first, so I can at least get them to what I consider an orange level.
What’s this translate to in the end? I can’t put hard numbers on it, but my thinking is something like:
Everything green – I feel like I should walk into the exam expecting something solidly in the 90s.
A majority of green with a few oranges – ok now I’m talking solidly the 80s, perhaps approaching 90.
Mostly oranges but no reds – I’ll start to worry. I’ll probably pass, but not solidly in the 80s.
Mostly oranges with some reds – I’ll be in panic mode. I’ll have to spend more time.
But, this is a feedback. If I think I’m green at that amount of effort and I’m getting a much lower grade on tests than I expect, that means in the future I’m going to have to increase my study time, or change how I study.
Alternatively, if I find myself in the orange a lot because I ran out of time, but doing really well on tests, then perhaps it means I’m overestimating how much I don’t know and need to revise.
I started this blog Tuesday night and am posting Sunday night. At this point, I’m green on most items and I think I’m ready to go. But we won’t know for sure until tomorrow!
“It’s like drinking from a fire house.” Before classes even started, I heard that expression a lot and frankly, used it a lot. It’s true.
The first week started off a bit easy. The first day was orientation. That was easy. And we had two classes postponed to the following week. That made that week easy. Of course it meant that much more work last week! By my count we had 16 class lectures, plus a lab and four other scheduled events. It was quite the firehose. I still haven’t caught up on my note taking!
But this week is in some ways where the rubber hits the road.
For one thing, our first “student led lab” was today. In these, we are broken down into three groups, and each group has two student instructors that we rotate through over the next 7-8 weeks. This means everyone at some point will lead a lab. You can guess who, by sheer coincidence get assigned not only to lead a section for the first student lead lab, but the first session of the day. Ayup, myself and a fellow student. So since there are three sections each week, each having two student leaders, that meant that six of us got together on Sunday to setup what are called “presets” on the Anatomage tables and work out our presentations. That took at least six hours. Then on Monday, I spent at least two to three hours doing additional prep and run through. Tuesday, I had to lead my section. I wasn’t quite as well prepared as I would have liked, but I got good feedback, and my fellow students seemed to appreciate my efforts. The TA that graded the section gave me my grade a bit later the same day. 100%. I’m of course happy with that. BUT… that ends up being like just a few percentage of my entire grade. There’s a lot more grades to come.
Speaking of which, Wednesday was one of the bigger tests for another class. It’s big in two ways. For the class it’s in, it represents 20% of the grade for that class! For another, it’s sort of a make or break exam. If you fail it, you actually have a chance to remediate it before the end of the semester. This is great, but if you fail that, you’re dismissed from the program! Reportedly no one, at least in recent memory, has ever failed it twice. So that was reassuring.
The exam itself is “Medical Terminology”. I’ve been studying for it off and on over the past few weeks and 3 of my fellow classmates did a study session for it late Tuesday afternoon. In addition, my Council of Moore has reassured me that I’ll do great given my background (but of course they weren’t the ones actually taking it now, were they?)
So I’ll admit I was not OVERLY nervous but I’d by lying if I didn’t admit that I had been a bit trepidatious about it. Turns out I did “well enough.”
Around here, they reassure us that any grade over an 80% is good enough
Monday morning, I have my next exam. That one honestly, is MUCH harder than the Medical Terminology one, but as long as I pass, I don’t have to worry about being kicked out of the program!
So, wish me luck. I’m confident, but will always take a bit of luck!
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