weeping with joy

it’s official. i am done with surgery. my two hour shelf exam is completed, and i walked out with that feeling of passing. if i’m lucky, i will achieve an 80/100 and “honor” the shelf, and then hopefully the whole rotation.

it didn’t start well though. the shelf was at 8, and i woke up at 737. you’d think after 3 months of waking up at 4-5 am that i could get a grasp on this waking up on time thing. being accustomed to waking up late, i did manage to make it on time.

the shelf exam wasn’t too bad. there will always be those questions where i read it and have no idea what the answer is. unfortunately, questions on the shelf are never what does this patient have? they expect you to know that. they want to know, given that you know the patient has “x” disease (they never 100% confirm it), what would you do next? however, it’s over and i can finally clean the house properly (you don’t even want to know).

as for “honoring”, this is the only way to get ahead in medical school from a class rank stand-point. at my school, you have to achieve a certain, pre-set percent on the shelf, in addition to getting excellent marks from your clerkship attendings and residents. this is challenging because you typically have to do one of two things: 1. get to hospital early and leave late to show your committment to working hard or 2. sneak away every chance you get to study. it’s difficult to find that balance for both.

for now, i have the opportunity to clean, wrap presents, hang out with delilah.