Nutrition - this was my first open book exam ever, and it was weird. I'm usually a really fast exam taker, but I was here writing up until the last minute. It was an interesting exam, asking you to think really critically about several different conditions, and use your textbook and notes to come up with effective treatment plans, diagnostics, and other stuff. It wasn't super hard, but it also wasn't an easy exam. You definitely need to know your stuff generally, and be prepared.
Men's and Women's Health - Pretty straightforward multiple choice exam. We went through a lot of conditions in detail, and it can get a little tough because there's a lot of similarities, especially with treatments. I think it went pretty well though, my biggest recommendation here is to know your basics. If you don't understand endocrinology and physiology, it's hard to differentiate your conditions. Also, having a nice group study session before the exam in the NSA lounge, and writing out our keynote symptoms for each condition on the blackboard, that works really well!
Physical Medicine - This was a weird exam of course, because it's more of a practical based topic, but we had a 100 question multiple choice exam. Weird right? Anyway, I had heard that a lot of people failed last year, so I was a little worried. Turns out the exam was a breeze! Now maybe it's because we were all pretty worried, and had an awesome group study session the night before, and got to know our stuff really well, or maybe...na that's probably it. There's a lot of information to know, but if you simplify and break it all down, it's not too bad. And also, as a practical based topic, I find it's really helpful to study using your hands a lot - go through the motions of each test and exam as you study them, talk about and really see why they do what they do.
So the big assignment that was on my mind this past week was our RCIA (Relevant Clinical Inquiry Assignment). This is basically a massive paper where you have to do a review on a clinically relevant topic to Naturopathic Medicine. It involves lots of research, tedious summary work, and some cool critical thinking about current treatment standards, and where your research fits in. It was a lot of work, and my paper ended up at about 19 pages (!!!), but it was a good experience. The really cool thing is that the professors are planning to compile all our reports and give it back to us as a resource, so we'll have some awesome summaries of hundreds of research papers on clinically relevant topics. Pretty cool right? I did mine on Mindfulness Based Therapies for improving sleep disturbance and insomnia. Long story short? It works pretty well, and that doesn't even take into account that it has some great results for anxiety, depression, stress, and lots of other conditions. Definitely something I want to incorporate into my practice in the future.
Anyway I'm off for the week, not like I have that much to do - oh just a health psych case formulation, practical male and female genitourinary exams, a homeopathy full case assignment, a marketing assignment, and a physical medicine practical. Should be an easy week right?
Oh ya and it was Halloween yesterday, my house is generally known on my street as one of the best - my brother sets up an awesome display with scary figures in the window, dark lights, spiders, zombies, the whole thing. And then my dad has a terrifying Frankenstein laugh, it's really funny how many kids get scared to knock on the door. Don't worry though, we always have good candy! And Halloween is supposed to be scary right?
As always, here's a funny relevant picture for the week. See you next week!
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