Monday, July 27, 2015

Being an active blogger while in professional school . . .

I have a bunch of ideas for blog posts that I can't write because I have too many tests. So I got an idea to write a quick summary of all the tests someone has to pass while in medical school in the USA (or hoping to do residency training in the USA), because that's a fascinating subject. Right?

So where I'm going to medical school:


  • the first two years were didactic; they involved many, many, many lectures and multiple choice tests every two weeks (about 60-100 questions). 
  • every 4-6 weeks involved NBME Shelf exams (subject tests which I believe are taken from retired/unused board questions; kind of didn't listen to where they came from)
  • my school included some clinical training, but it was mostly once, maybe twice a week
  • there are these things called OSCEs, which I forgot what it stands for, but basically, they hire an actor to pretend to be sick so I can pretend to be their doctor. I am recorded and graded on this interaction. They get progressively more frequent as medical school progresses
  • at the end of the second year comes the USMLE Step 1 test (I think this one stands for United States Medical Licensing Exam). It has eight blocks with 46 questions. How you do in this test is extremely important for residency applications
  • third year of medical school involves clinical rotations of varying in lengths and difficulty; there's a Shelf and OSCE at the end of each (except there wasn't an OSCE for surgery . . . for obvious reasons)
  • sometime during fourth year of medical school, a student most take USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills (basically a big OSCE) and the USMLE Step 2 CK (big multiple choise test); some clinical rotations this year have their own OSCE/Shelf
  • residency application/interviewing must also happen in fourth year
  • during residency, I will have to take USMLE Step 3 . . . I don't even know the acronym; there are also the tests to get licensing to prescribe medications
  • most specialties have their board exams . . .
  • and so do many sub-specialties

So basically, exams forever.

2 comments:

  1. Hahaha... That last line made me laugh, but I know how true it is. I wanted this life but couldn't afford it.
    But that's okay. I'm sure you'll do great as long as you do your best and you're passionate about what you're doing.
    You know the saying right? It's not just a profession, it's a vocation.
    I trust that you know the sacrifices you have to make in order to get that MD on your name. So good luck.

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    1. To be honest, I probably couldn't afford this life either, lol. I owe about the equivalent of a mortgage (maybe two) by now. My last line should have been, so basically, student loan payments forever. Please buy my upcoming book.

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