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Where Have All the Average Students Gone?
Anthony Rudine -- I must say that it is difficult to focus at this time in my life. I am trying to maintain some semblance of sanity as I proceed with my studies for the licensing examination. But it is oh so difficult.
I find myself spending more and more time thinking about how great it will be to be a physician in the future, and less and less time trying to get there. I spend more and more time trying to calculate my estimated score on the exam and less and less time actually studying for the test. It is what keeps me going, I guess.
However, as I began to delve into the medical student forums today, I was amazed at some of the things I read as I tried to find correlations between practice tests and actual examination results. My findings? It seemed as if the only people willing to give an estimate were the students who scored off the charts on the exam. There were obviously very few of these.
I am by no means a student who will score off the charts. If I get above average, mission accomplished. However, I wonder if it is misleading to others who read these types of correlations and become discouraged. I find myself becoming less motivated as the test gets closer, because I feel so inadequate already. And I still have a month left. I am not studying 20 hours a day, skipping meals, and drinking coffee pots for lunch. I am pretty much leading a normal life. I just cannot imagine doing it any other way.
I would much rather keep my sanity than attempt to get an enormous score on the test. But, hey, that's just me. We'll see what happens.
May 25, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
I have never been a medical student, rather an eternal student- I completed my teaching days in college as a full professor, but I understand how you feel. There were times I felt as you feel and I even went through my report cards from high school and old transcripts so as to motivate myself, and internalize that I would make it. Nothing was as great as prayer, which I learned
a little later on and which has led me to all sorts of
blessings: With God, all things are possible, now is a good time to test His power, believe me he listens when we are in need and decide to be humble and believe, I will be praying that his love visits you and helps you believe, He'll do the rest.As an eternal student I've come across many things, (knowledge, experience-both positive and negative,and what not)but coming to know that Jesus is real and having his guidance is hitting the right track for once and for all. Bless you.. Try this...You'll be glad.
Posted by: Marina Alvarez | May 25, 2006 7:07:02 AM
I'd focus your energies on believing in yourself rather than mythical creatures. I hear there are gonna be thunderstorms in the northeast, so the guy in the sky will probably be busy orchestrating that...
Posted by: | May 25, 2006 7:44:23 AM
"Pts don't care how much you know
until they know how much you care"
Keep it within reason.
know some pts are poker-faced.
Find balance; "easy does it".
So many times
pt care is made harder than it needs to be.
"It's not what you say but how you say it"
Rock on and understand none of us are well equipped for self care. "PEOPLE" are consumed by illness and, if "lucky", its management.
Stay out of the belly of the beast
and some will follow you out of suffering.
Now how many times a day do you think I screw this up in a day...
Posted by: Bob Kocembo | May 25, 2006 8:33:03 AM
So, I'm currently exactly 1 week from graduation. I amazingly was able to finish everything with a good amount of my sanity left. I will say the best piece of advice I ever got from one of my classmates was: We can't all graduate in the top 50%. I had been going out of my mind trying to keep up with the classes and get the "best" scores. And now that I graduate...I think I'm somewhere in the lower middle of my class ranking. But honestly all the patients and all the doctors I ever worked with in my 2 years of clinical rotations wanted was to know I was there. I cared! I tried to help! No patient cared what my grade was in anatomy, they wanted to know if I could tell them why their knee hurt. The pre-med students I've spoken with don't care what my grades are, they care that I'm someone who survived (and survived well, if I may say so myself). So once I took the focus off the grades and onto *learning*, I allowed myself to do some amazing things like run triathalons and volunteer my afternoons to the local children's hospital. I'll be the first one to admit I didn't get the grades I used to, but I could remember what I did learn--and that's what's important.
Posted by: S Mo | May 25, 2006 11:13:10 AM
I found out that that think is worldwide, personally i think that what it's important at the end of the day is the smile on the patient face, that "thankyou" makes everything have sence. I'm still worry about my grades but more worry if I don't learn anything. I also discover that you gotta have sence of humor to carry on with this carreer other wise I'll be crazy.
Posted by: Ahimara | May 25, 2006 3:03:32 PM
I hear you my friend! Learn with your heart and you will learn the important things.
Posted by: Kristen | May 26, 2006 3:39:57 PM
Well I imagine that studying is not about how many hours in a day you study, but rather, if you learned and retained anything at the end of the day. I would also imagine that there are only a certain amount of questions per subject, so how much could they ask per subject??? I would also imagine that there are review books that someone has written for a reason. Use the review as your guide. Quit looking at it is an insurmountable amount to do and break it down into to daily pieces of work. Look at it as a joy to learn something new about a subject. Make "NOTE CARDS" on the most basic of facts. Look at it as only 25 days left......the odds are most certainly in your favor...
Be reasonable with your work and don't bog yourself down reading every little fact imaginable....Learn the most important facts.....
Posted by: vonna rae | May 26, 2006 6:33:59 PM
Hi Anthony, my experience may help you...I have always been the top of my medical class, but i have to say that at the same time i always felt something missing, a true motivation...until I starting having more real responsabilities, specially with patients, when I faced real problems in diagnosis and treatment, when i realized that being the top doesnt mean you really know...there i finally found out why i was studying, and i asked myself, have i been really "learning"?...not only to keep good grades, but to trully KNOW WHAT TO DO FOR THE PATIENTS THAT COME FOR HELP...so as you prepare for your examn, think that you are preparing to treat patients, real ones! not the classes examples or the book ones...Now, I don`t think about grades, they just come as a reflection of your real motivation. Good luck!!
Posted by: Karlo Lizarraga | May 28, 2006 7:02:37 AM
Hi, I'm a fourth year med student from Sydney, Australia...
I know its two years before my final year, so I probably have lots of learn and study before the big exam, but I've always imagined that apart from the necessity of passing the final exam to graduate as a doctor, the actual mark will fade away in my mind during the first few months of hectic work as a newly born intern....
....just like how we forgot our high school marks when we began our undergraduate training, or our undergraduate grade-point-average when we commenced post-grad training....
And I agree with Bob and Karlo - the only motivation that would probably persist after graduation to keep studying and acquiring what seems to be an endlessly growing lode of medical information would be to learn how best to approach, investigate and manage an ailment of our patients.
Posted by: John | May 28, 2006 11:59:36 PM
You don't sound average, you sound like you have a balanced life.
Which means you'll be a great doctor because you will be less likely to have cynical burn out.
I would rather have a doctor who perhaps knows enough to know when he needs to call a consult than a doctor who is so sure of him/herself they think they know everything...
Posted by: Kim | Jun 18, 2006 3:11:51 AM
