--at least until Wednesday, when I find out how many papers I've failed and kiss my summer goodbye so I can study for the resits.
Dangit.
In the meantime, I'm still sitting around in a state of semi-numbness. The exams are over. I slept 3 hours a night all of last week, and at the end of it all we emerged from the exam hall looking like this:
Second-year medicine is widely reputed to be the toughest year in all Cambridge. Maybe not the toughest course (to get a First Class in Maths you have to prove Fermat's Last Theorem or revive Schrodinger's Cat or something insane like that) but definitely the toughest year. And it's HELL going into it unprepared, especially when it drags on for six days of the week, and you happen to be a lazy bum who's spent more time during the year blogging than doing any actual revision and have to stay up revising till it's bright outside and passing birds laugh at you for having to stay up cramming so late.
I've written two entries on Medscape, including one on the ever-interesting subject of Post-Exam Personalities. You know, the weird social hierarchy that you see when you come out of the exam hall: in one corner you'll have the Nerds and the Hypertalkers laughing about how easy it was and how they BLATANTLY scored the bonus half-mark by quoting the alternative name for the radial groove, in another corner you have the Pedants beating their hands against the wall in agony at forgetting to write down the trade names, old names and early names for frusemide and ciprofloxacin, then you have the larger crowd of Sane Medics who're just glad that it's over, and of course in the distance you can just see the quickly receding silhouettes of the underprepared Lazy-Ass Slackers through the dust clouds they kick up as they rush back to start cramming for the next exam (yours truly is, unfortunately, in this category).What kind of post-exam person are you? Do pop over and leave a comment. In the meantime, I'm sitting here contemplating another crucial life-and-death balance-of-universe-affecting question:
Grey's Anatomy, House and Scrubs have all ended for the summer.
WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO?!
42 comments:
Somehow I seriously doubt that you'll be resitting for any papers.
Enjoy your newfound freedom! :D
Whee... 1st comment?
Nah-nah-nah
I haven't seen ANY Scrubs yet except season 1 and I have already downloaded 2 and am willing to go on... :-)
Good luck for the results, I hope you won't have to resit any at all.
I think I'm a little bit of the last three. I usually come out pale and white and then I'm actually wide eyed at everything the questions actually ment and has nothing to do with what I put down (think pedants, but in non-wall- banging way). At that point I usually manage to find sth good about my answers and I 'm just happy it's over with. I never go directly back to studying, but I annoy all my close friends with questions about the correct answers and avoid strange people who want to ask me about the answers. I start for the next exam only on the next day.
I guess that's it :-)
Too long actually, but hey- you said "pop in"...
Nice to have you back ;-)
I'm a geek.
=/
As for what to do over the summer, get a job ya lazy bum :P
Enjoy your sleep!!!! I love that first post-exam sleep. It takes a while for me to start having the sleeps where I wake up in the night and realize all the questions I got wrong on the exam :)
You need to be more specific you know. When I just read the title, I thought you were being 'loose'...
I think we just exchanged comments :-D
angry you're back! :D yayyy!!! :)
welcome back to the land of the living and enjoy your freedom! and get some sleep you zombie you.
oh i definitely fall into either of the last 2 catergories, depending on the paper and my interest for the subject. for eg. biochemisty and physiology had me running right back to the library after the exams to frantically try to study for re-sits, whereas after pharmacology i was just glad that IT"S OVER!!!! heh.
i'm like you
watch ER. it rocks.
Actually, I leave the room feeling numb and strangely light inside my head, refuse to compare answers with my friends, then go home and isolate myself from the outside world for a couple of days. Only then do I feel relieved and back into the real world. Then comes the partying :P
As for what to do... re-watch ER? lol
http://tv-links.co.uk
Doesn't have much ER, but looooooooooooads of glorious Scrubs, and a substantial helping of the rather poorer Grey's Anatomy too, all for FREE. Who needs a Tv licence eh?
What sort of a post exam person are you?
At medical school I used to join my fellow medics at the pub, get unbelievably rat arsed, play stupid drinking games and do stupid things.
Fast forward 3+ years, and after my MRCS viva (which I knew I'd passed because one of the examiners told me my marks on the day) I went for a couple of drinks with some of the other guys at the pub opposite the College, then I went home and gazed at my closed textbooks in a bit of a semi-drunken trance. I really didn't know what to do with myself, because for the previous 3 months I'd spent every single spare moment studying. It was weird.
Congratulations on finishing your exams! After years endless exam-taking, I've tried to adopt a Zen attitude by beginning and ending with a few minutes of meditation and positive affirmation ("Don't hate me because I'm enlightened")
Regarding the "House" and "Scrubs" withdrawal, there's always Youtube or you can check out the "Poo song" from the Scrubs musical episode on my blog:
http://docwhisperer.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/from-the-scrubs-musical-the-poo-song/
Glad you're back!! I guess the type of post-exam personality I am depends on which exam it was and how tired I am. After non-medicine exams i'm just glad it's over ("sane medic"). After anatomy or something medicine related I'm a bit of a nerd, unfortunately. After hard science exams (inorganic chem anyone?) I'm definitely one of the ones pounding my head against the wall for, oh i don't know, forgetting to convert a value to moles before plugging it into another equation or something, thereby ruining the entire problem. Gaaccckkk... horrible inorganic chem memories returning... must go...get...fresh...air...
Hah, freedom tastes sweet, doesn't it?
The whole point of the delay between the time you finish the exams and the results arrive is not so that the examiners can correct the papers. No. It's so that we have a pure time where we can geniunely not care.
So do that. Relax and sleep. Heh, I'm still recovering from the two times I stayed up for 24 hours this past fortnight (to be fair I didn't have to do the last one, but all in the name of partying hard.
Second year here is the toughest too, which is why I'm happy we have a summer to get ready.
Anyhow. Good luck with your R&R and glad to have you back ;)
P.S. Thanks for the well wishes about the scaphoid! I'm not planning on doing surgery, but I still need good use of my hands!!
Congrats! Now go detox yourself from the caffeine OD.
(And the really smart students are the ones who know where and how to use the anatomic snuffbox, eh?)
I think i'm a sane medic (well sort of)
Well done on finishing dude.
In answer what to what you're going to do now: PARTY you're done dude, don't you have may balls to attend. I'm going to miss them, went to two last year :(
Start cramming for the next exam? Nah, don't think so. Here are things u can do, Angry:
1. Work as an extra in a zombie film while u still look like one.
2. Make some brownies.
3. Kiss a girl (no, not the one with the beard).
Will have fingers, toes, and eyes crossed for you on Wednesday.
Best wishes from Liverpool
I too am in a quandary regarding what to do without my medical shows. I did purchase the latest ER season released on DVD (6?). Don't med students do grunt work in hospitals over the summer, as nursing students do?
Dear Lazy Medic,
Yours is perhaps the most ridiculous blog entry I have read in weeks.
"The exams are over." The exams are over? THE EXAMS ARE OVER?????
You make me irate with your naivety. You are embarking on a career when you will be taking exams til you are in your grave and even then you will have some arsewipe examiner to question your credentials to enter the Pearly Gates.
The exams are over! What tosh.
Your unimpressed Prof.
Prof Scrub
well.. I'm a different category altogether..
I'm the rush home, avoid talking about exam to anyone, (but somehow hear all the answers I've got wrong) type.
I shove the reams of revision notes,debris, books et.c in my flat in boxes and hide them.
Then I sleep, watch movies/ read books, do anything to take mind off exams.
Alert family I've failed and try to not panic too much.
(to find out later on when results come out its not as bad as I thought and have actually passed!!)
Its certainly not healthy, I'm chilling out for my next one!!
I would be a Sane Medic, trying hard not to beat myself up and certainly not feeling overly confidant at clever answers.
Grey's Anatomy, House and Scrubs have all ended for the summer.
Big Brother!
When else do sane people with a conscience get the chance, nay are invited and required, to make snap value decisions on complete strangers? He's good, she's bad, he's thoughtful, she's bitchy, and she's so little worth she should be evicted as she's unfit to be there!
In years gone by "decent folk" would perambulate to the sanitorium to have a good laugh at the lunatics. Now that's seen as poor form. But don't despair, for 13 weeks we get to point at the eejits on the telly and critique their value as human beings in the house. Since they stopped gladiators and lions, when there been better entertainment? ;-)
Hi there!
My best friend is a med student too, I like this blog! Love the picture of the zombies. I get so pre-exam hyper that more than once someone has had to sit on me to shut me up, and afterwards? Chainsmoking! Hope it all went well for you, seriously :)
Jason: Oh we'll see. We'll see. I'm not posting it here though. I kinda like having my legions of female fans :)
Murk: I probably should, shouldn't I? Problem is, I don't think they'll let me near patients due to my murderous history of mental health. Bloody police state.
Alasse: It's not just me! I like you. I like you very much. Consider this a voucher redeemable for a drink anytime you're in Cambridge! You make me feel non-weird again, if only for a while...
The Shrink: ROFLOL you, my man, got the whole of Big Brother summed up just right. I've always thought it was a bit like staring into an asylum and laughing, except with a PC reality TV label slapped on to make laughing at the lunatics on show acceptable.
(And ooh, I have a shrink visiting my blog! I've always wanted to be a shrink. Don't, uhm, don't tell anyone else that.)
Everybody Else Except Ms Ellisa: Since I'm just coming back from Blog Hiatus-dom, I've decided that instead of replying you here, I'd be cheeky and go haunt your blog instead. So if you don't see a freshly-minted ultra-lame comment dropped on your blog somewhere, feel free to come after me with a big stick. And if you do, well shucks, no need to thank me for giving you brain haemorrhages and driving your visitors away from your site in madness. 'Twas a pleasure.
Ms Ellisa: You mean your comment above WASN'T in reply to mine on your blog? Dang! And here I was thinking you had the fastest fingers in history :)
Hope you passed at any rate - we don't find out for a couple of weeks yet (sure I messed up horribly on my last viva).
Forgot to say - I'm one of those people who runs on adrenaline throughout exams (no chance of discussion afterwards as our final year exams are vivas).
Only problem is that I crash into paranoia afterwards...and then end up procrastinating until the results come out.
Try watching something without any medicine.
Boston Legal is keeping me sane now... especially since I STILL have my intermediates to sit for.
Cruelty, that's what it is, cruelty.
I'm a 'postmortem'. I go through every question one by one, collect other people's answers and then create a confidence interval of my likely mark.
Of course, this is problematic because they scale the results based on how well people did. But by estimating a few other people's marks you can compensate for this to a degree.
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Hello all!
I'm an underprepared slacker as well and yet I managed to get through med school :) So take deep breaths and have faith. You'll do fine.
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