Island Med Student

For those of you who may have noticed a lack of posts for the past few days, I want to let you know that I have been studying my buns off. After the lab practical on Friday, I eventually had to turn my attention to the next big hurdle: the first mini. Minis are equivalent to a test that you would take in college, with the exception that instead of being tested on just one subject, you’re tested on them all (or most of them). Here are the classes that I’m taking right now:

Gross Anatomy I
Developmental and Microscopic Anatomy I (which includes cell bio, embryology and histology)
Biochemistry and Genetics I
Medical Physiology I
Doctor, Patient, Society I

This first mini, I was tested on everything everything except medical physiology, because we’ve only had two lectures on that so far. For the first semester, I will have three minis, and then one cumulative final exam. I won’t get an actual grade for the course, but I will get the equivalent of a pass or fail score. If I pass, I make it to the second semester, which is basically the second half of all the subjects that I’m taking now, plus a Neuroscience class. During the second semester, I will have three minis, and then the final exam will actually be a Shelf Exam for each subject.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, Shelf Exams are tests created and administered by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) that are used by medical schools as a way to test and benchmark their students’ performance on each subject taught in medical school.

So, back to the mini. My first mini was yesterday at 1:00. I began studying on Friday night, and studied for about 16 hours on both Saturday and Sunday. I only took breaks to eat, go running, and a short trip to the beach. I learned some vauable lessons about studying, namely, I shouldn’t try to memorize everything 2 days before the mini. I did study every day for the past 5 weeks, but I left the stuff that I had to memorize for the end. For the next mini, I’m not going to do that.

I got a good night of sleep on Sunday night, and studied for a little bit on Monday morning. Then I walked down to the Annex (another building they have that’s not actually on the campus) and sat for the exam. It was very official. They were pretty hardcore about not wearing a baseball hat, or having anything besides your ID and pencil, etc etc.

So, how did I do? Well, I think I passed. Beyond that, I’m not sure. I definitely knew the answers to quite a few of them, but there were others that I had to guess on. There were a total of 125 questions, and we had 2 hours and 37 minutes to complete the test. I think I finished in an hour or so, which is pretty normal for me, as I tend to take tests very quickly.

Minis here are a big deal. All of the locals know when our minis are scheduled, and they actually plan their lives accordingly. It’s actually pretty fascinating. So, after the mini, the “normal” thing to do is to go out and “celebrate.” I’ll admit that I did want to have a few drinks after it was all over, but I didn’t want to get totally obliterated.

I ended up stopping by the Ren brothers’ house on the way home from the mini, and I invited them to come to the beach with me. After they got their mom’s permission, Micah and I took them all down to the beach for a few hours. It was absolutely perfect. The weather was wonderful, and we even saw a double rainbow.

Last night I decided not to set my alarm clock, as a reward for studying so hard for the mini. But it’s now it’s Monday and it’s almost 11:00, and I haven’t watched any lectures for today, and I wish I coud keep writing, but my biochem book is calling, so I’ll have to say goodbye for now!