Lazy

I am the worst blogger in the world. It's been about two months since I started this, and I'm only at my second entry. Perhaps I wasn't meant for this at all... I blame Facebook for allowing me to post 140 character status updates to chronicle my life instead.

Regardless, for the one person that may check on this, I'm still alive. I finished Peds realizing that I need to incorporate the care of children into my practice. Right now, the three specialties I'm thinking about are Peds, Med/Peds or Family. I'm currently on my IM rotation and absolutely hating it. However, I don't want to completely rule out Med/Peds just because I'm not having the most ideal experience yet. We'll see how the rest of the month goes.

Other than that, I'm up completely past my bed time. The next entry will be of more substance, I promise.

Step One Score

Yesterday I received my USMLE Step 1 Score.

Two years, countless hours of (streamed) lectures, required labs and conferences, numerous freak-outs and nervous break-downs, and an added 25-30 pounds (depending on the day) finally came to a head. The result of a well-followed 5-week study plan, where I spent all but three to four of my waking hours in a day learning and re-learning all of the minutiae of the human body and its pathologies, was only a few clicks away.

And then I read my score report on my iPad screen: the first thing I saw was “PASS”, and immediately I felt a surge of relief and joy. However, that feeling immediately subsided after I saw my three-digit score. Suffice to say, it wasn’t what I was looking for...by a long shot. In fact, it wasn’t anywhere near what I had estimated (or what any of my diagnostics had estimated.) Some would call it "mediocre", I would call it "horrible." Joy turned into disbelief, which blended into confusion, before culminating into an emotional breakdown in Student Affairs with one of our counselors. Thankfully, Kyle was able to take care of me the rest of the night, taking me to Fuji to let me gorge on dim sum and sushi.

Before going to bed last night, I re-visited a blog I read two nights before I took Step 1, and found an entry which really struck a chord with me: http://mypeanutbutterstachy.blogspot.com/2011/05/when-scores-say-youre-not-enough.html. I’ll share with you the final part of the entry, which I found especially appropriate:

“Whether the scores say we're smart or not, they will never define any of us. Not them, or our jobs, or our degrees, or the number of successful parties we've hosted, or loaves of bread that have risen, or races we've run, days with clear skin, pounds lost or notes played in tune on our musical instruments.

We're worth more than the sum of achievements, 

So tell the scores to shove it.”

The past two years, unconsciously or not, I have let myself be defined by what scores I got on exams, and how well (or not) I had been preparing for Step 1. Through this whole process, I lost myself. I let myself be broken down to a shell of my former self, filled with disappointments and excess adipose tissue. Seeing my Step 1 score just seemed to be the nadir of this whole process. Never have I worked so hard in my life only to produce such menial results.

However, this one number does not define me, nor should I let it define me as I go through M3 year. 

Which brings me to this blog. I made a promise to myself that this year I need to get back to what (I felt) made me who I was in the first place, and to do that, I need to revisit the activities that I enjoyed before med school: blogging, running, music, cooking. In this way, I feel it’ll help me process what has transpired over the past two years. Hopefully I’ll find a better balance between success and happiness, something which has been sorely lacking the past two years.

The whole reason why I came to med school in the first place was to find a career where I could help people and have an intellectual challenge at the same time. These next two years are where I can really take that spirit and shine in my rotations. I know I can rock these next two years out...I just have to remember why I did this in the first place.

I know I’ll be feeling better within the next few days (I mean, I PASSED!) However, I need to just get all of these feelings, both from receiving my scores and otherwise, out of my system. Ky and I will be visiting my parents this weekend in Caro, in which I’ll get to see my best childhood friend, Steven. It'll be a nice change of pace from all of the craziness of starting M3 year.

In the meantime, I’m learning how to tell my scores to shove it.