Finals Part II

This Tuesday I had my final for my Medical Interviewing class (if you remember, that is the first class in the two-year Physican's Core course which teaches us how to actually be a good doctor). The test is called an OSCE. Wikipedia recently told me that this stands for Objective Structured Clinical Examination. Yes, I just took this test on Tuesday, and I still had to look up what it stood for.

In Medical Interviewing, we learned how to ... wait for it ... interview a patient and take a history. There are a LOT of questions that you are supposed to ask a new patient (most of which I've never actually been asked at a doctor's appointment; usually you just fill it out on a form, butttt I guess it's sorta important that we at least know how to do it). Some of the topics of questions include taking a history of present illness, past medical history, family history, medications and allergies, current health behavior and risk factors, sexual history, and social history.

So the test. They have fake doctor's offices set up with one of those two-way mirrors and a hidden video camera (it probably wasn't very hidden, I just obviously didn't see it). Inside this fake exam room is an actor who is pretending to be a sick patient. You knock on the door, introduce yourself as a first year medical student, and ask all your questions. Then you ask if they have any questions for you or have anything to add, and then you say that you are going to talk to the attending physician who will be back to see them shortly. You do this three times in three fake rooms to three fake patients. And then they grade you.

You are not supposed to forget any questions. Luckily we were allowed to bring an index card with notes in with us... and guess what, I still forgot to ask a few questions. How? I really don't know, maybe nerves make me forget how to read. But rumor has it that if you have ever spoken to another human being in your life, you will pass. And in fact, I have spoken to many human beings throughout my life! So I'm not too worried. I was also in the first group to go (whatupppp backwards alphabetical order!) so I had the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday off while everyone else was still freaking out.


Level of Scariness: Terrifying. And I'm sort of a people person. Still terrifying.

Finals: Some are Scarier than Others

Sorry for the long delay on posting, but I am officially finished with my first two classes of med school, and I am still alive! The finals for the two classes were completely different. Today you get to learn about the shelf exam, and tomorrow the OSCE. Spoiler alert: the OSCE was infinitely times scarier.

So, our MGM (aka biochem and genetics) final was last Friday. As many of you know, that was awesome timing because it allowed me to actually enjoy my birthday this weekend (thanks to those who were part of it!). Throughout the class, we had three non-cumulative tests, and then a cumulative final a mere ONE AND A HALF days after our third test. That sucked. The final was actually a national biochemstry test, scored and curved by a national board (aka our professors were too lazy to write and grade a final exam - I'm joking, they had good reasons, see below).

This national exam is called the "shelf." There is a shelf exam available for each course/topic in medical school, and it is a way of assessing your abilities in a subject in comparison to the rest of the country. This also means that based on how your class does as a whole, you can see how your med school ranks in comparison to others in specific subjects.



Here are my thoughts on taking the shelf exam instead of a final written by our own professors:

Con: The test doesn't necessarily follow what we focused on in class, so it seemed like the test was missing questions on topics we had covered really well, and vice versa - I definitely came across some (many?) questions on things that I am positive I had never seen before, and let me tell you, that is not a fun feeling during a test. But at least it's curved.

Pro: Getting used to these kinds of tests starts preparing us for the USMLE Step 1 which we take at the end of second year and is super important for getting into residencies. The Step 1 is also a national, standardized exam that will not be prepared by my professors.

a different kind of shelf

Level of scariness: Same as any scantron test. Even less scary because we were so tired and burnt out from studying for Wednesday's exam that by Friday we were all just ready to be done.

[fun fact: they are supposedly called shelf exams because they are "off-the-shelf," meaning ready-made as opposed to custom-made]