An update of sorts

A lot has happened since I last wrote in May (!), as it should since eight months is a long time. The bullet point version is:

• Finished first year and block of second
• Spent a month in the tropics learning Spanish and sitting under a palm tree at many beautiful beaches
• Spent another month visiting family in the States and the motherland
• Officially started second year
• Felt super lonely in school*
• Made some friends
• Went to my brother's real wedding Stateside and fake wedding in the motherland
• Nearly quit medical school (seriously)*
• Got my life together (somewhat)
• Went into the holiday break passing all of my classes (barely)

Now here I am, within eight weeks of being done with our pre-clinical curriculum. It's really scary that in four months I'll be in the hospital, seeing real patients, and somewhat having to know what is wrong with them. I know there'll be heavy supervision and not that much real responsibility. I'll adapt and do just fine, but having to integrate and apply all this knowledge that has only been tested by multiple-choice is a bit intimidating. It's all very surreal as well as super exciting!

Before all that, though, comes the monster that is Step 1. For those not in the know, Step 1 is the first of three licensing exams in the US. It's the most important test I'll take in medical school because some of the more competitive specialties have relatively high score cutoffs for their residency applicants. Orthopedics is one of those, and seeing how it's my super duper #1 choice, I have to do kind of well.

Long story short, I took the "P = MD" (P for pass) saying a bit too seriously and have barely skated by in every class since anatomy. It's not that I don't know what I'm doing wrong to get these crappy grades. I just don't want to put in the work. Give me a threshold I have to meet, and I'll be a few points above it. Nothing more. Hence the "barely passing my classes" bullet point earlier.

This has been great for my quality of life leading up to this point (I've had A LOT of free time), but it's also put me behind when it comes to being prepared for the Step. I have a fair amount of ground to make up since I didn't learn most things well the first time. But it also means I have a sufficient fire under my butt to buckle down and get things done, which is how I operate best.

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*Posts about these topics are coming up. Stay tuned!