Monday 8 December 2014

Exam Season

Final exams have begun once again at CCNM. The school is filled with students struggling to remember that last detail about that one thing they missed in class, and it's definitely much quieter.
My first exam was this morning, and yes, it was the OSCEs. It was a bit of a nerve racking experience, but it definitely went well. My exam was at 8:56 (on the dot, everything has to be very structured and specific!), so we had to meet as a group on the second floor 20 minutes early. Dr. Roberts explained the process to us one more time, and then filed down to the clinic one by one, with our lab coats, medical equipment, and our clipboards. Dr. Pachkovskaja met us in the clinic and provided us with a last minute pump-up speech, telling us all to smile and be excited. Then we were sent off to our rooms, of course mine had to be around the corner and waste a bit of my prep time. We were then given 90s to read our case stem and write down any notes on our clipboard. Our patient had an earache, which is an interesting complaint because it kind of jumps all over with the types of exams you need to do, but it's definitely a little less intensive than something like cough or hypertension. I walked in the room and my evaluator was actually my resident from clinic 2, Dr. Irons, and the standardized patient was a fourth year I knew from unity summit. Needless to say this didn't really calm my nerves at all. I thankfully remembered to wash my hands right away and introduce myself to the patient, getting consent, and then got started on my exams. For some reason I started taking pulse without giving him the thermometer first, but I recovered and got vitals done pretty quickly. After that I kind of jumped all over the place, not really following my previously set up script, I think in the moment of anxiety I was forgetting some things and just went with what I remembered and what I had written down. I did pretty well I think, getting through all the exams, except for some silly reason I forgot to check his sinuses (I checked his nose why wouldn't I do sinuses!). The bell rang at 20 minutes and I was given the post-encounter probe (like a little quiz), it was pretty easy just 3 questions, and then the next bell rang and it was over. I got out of the room and found my classmates all happy and smiling, the anxiety drained from our bodies and left in the exam rooms.

OSCE 1, you were quite the challenge, especially to prepare for, but we took you down. Now, on to the next 7 exams I have! (oh clinical medicine and microbiology, I can't wait until you're over on Thursday).


As a quick side note, I wanted to just comment on the 4th year holiday play that I had the pleasure of seeing on Thursday night. Their theme was Frozen at CCNM, and it was just fantastic. They did a musical adventure with lots of inside jokes about CCNM, and lots of really great Disney songs adapted to fit the play. The words were changed to include CCNM jokes, but they played a lot of my favourites, like "A Whole New World," "Hakuna Matata," and "Be a Man." Of course they also did "Let it Go," a bit of an overrated song but it was still really great. The whole experience got me really excited about my own 4th year holiday play, something that I definitely want to be involved in. After exams are over I think I'm going to start seeing who will be interested in being a part of it; of course it's 2 years away, but this one was really fantastic so I think the earlier we start the better we can be. I just love musicals!

Some of the stars of the play. They really did a great job setting an atmosphere
considering it was all done in the Lecture Theatre at CCNM