<rolls eyes> Oh shelf exams...how I wished you asked questions actually related to something I learned in the preceding 8 weeks...

SoEnchanted, have you taken the shelf for Family yet? Talk about ridiculous. I spent 8 weeks in clinic in a small town in rural Nebraska, where I felt like I learned a lot, only to have about 15 hematology questions!

What clerkship are you on now?

SoEnchanting,

No worries.....the vet idea was many MANY years ago. I've wanted to be doctor for a long time. I think the mere PREPARATION for medical school would have scared me off a long time ago if it wasn't what I truly wanted. Thanks for the advice though. :)

Funny you say that! I JUST finished FM right before the holidays. That shelf was AWFUL for everybody, including myself! The average NBME score across the national was lower than I remember other exams, so at least it wasn't just us.

I'm on Internal Medicine now, and praying for a miracle...

What are you on now?

LOL I definitely understand. There are so many hoops you have to jump through to get to medical school (and even more once you get in), it's amazing what we put ourselves through for this. It's worth every hardship though, if service and medicine is truly what fulfills you. Feel free to send me a PM as you get closer to application and interview time if you have questions. I'm going to assume if you've gotten to this point you've already done your research/teaching/clinical exposure/volunteering/etc. Right now you just need to study study study! Best of luck to you.

Did they have any "throw out" or "experimental" questions? My husband got all kinna crazy questions on 2 different board exams. So don't be shocked with the dumbshit...

All my tests were oral and I had to defend my ideas, which sucks in my life.

I'm on Medicine right now too - inpatient at the VA Hospital finishing up week two of six. We have a phenomenal lecture/socratic seminar series during the course of our 12 weeks on medicine so I've learned a lot just by being in class the last two weeks. I'm not particularly worried about the IM shelf as our class as a whole (at least during first semester) is averaging a whole half standard deviation higher than the national average.

That is awesome! I wish I could have a lecture to supplement everything I'm learning in the hospital and at clinic. Our Medicine rotation is 8 weeks, so there's a slight time crunch, too. What are you using to study, besides lecture notes? I quit Harrison's like 2 days in, and am now just reading FA & doing MKSAP.

Wow, that is unfortunate not to have any lecture at all. I thought that everywhere had at least some lectures while on Medicine. Just seems like there's way too much information to learn while on this clerkship to do it all on your own.

We do 6 weeks on inpatient, 3 weeks of a selective (Pulm, Rheum, DEM, Geriatrics, etc - Cards isn't offered. I'm doing ER at the VA, which isn't a real ER, but it's good for learning bread and butter initial work-up type stuff) and then 3 weeks of outpatient clinic. Our outpatient clinic time is only for a half day each day, the other half being taken up by small group work on high-impact cases...essentially a more challenging PBL session with much more questioning/pimping.

I haven't started MKSAP yet, though I plan to. I've been using Blueprints but a lot of people in my class are using Step Up to Medicine. I personally like having actual text to read rather than just outlines, and blueprints is nice because each chapter/topic is only about 4-6 pages. Kind of depends on what you prefer, but the information seems pretty much the same. Case Files is extremely popular at my school (Nebraska) for all the clerkships.

We do 6 weeks on inpatient, 3 weeks of a selective (I'm doing ER at the VA, which isn't a real ER, but it's good for learning bread and butter initial work-up type stuff) and then 3 weeks of outpatient clinic. Our outpatient clinic time is only for a half day each day, the other half being taken up by small group work on high-impact cases...essentially a more challenging PBL session with much more questioning/pimping.

What school do you go to? What specialties are you thinking about? Where are you hoping to end up for Residency?

I was watching Nightline and a few months ago they had a topic about student loans. Some people are going to med school to be doctors just so they can pay off their loans. For some it isn't what they truely want to do for a living. That's sad. School should be free.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a dolphin trainer at a zoo. I wanted to do that for a long time, after I saw a mother give birth to a calf at a zoo. I didn't change my my mind until I got to highschool. That's when I made the decision to be a vet.

I don't see how going to med school helps the situation...I had zero undergrad debt, and will be at about $170,000+ in the whole when May 2009 rolls around - and I only pay in-state tuition. Private school tuition will usually run you closer to $250k. If you have so much undergrad debt that you need to earn 6 figures to pay it off, it doesn't make sense to add another 150-250k to the total.

On top of that, residency only pays about 44-46k a year in the beginning with small raises in subsequent years (becoming a physician has a real rags-to-riches feel to it sometimes). You're also working 80 hours a week. At my school, with their salary package, that works out to $11.09/hr before taxes.

On a side note, I have an ex-girlfriend who is a third year med student at a different school (Creighton) and her parents are paying her medical tuition for her...I really wish I hadn't screwed that one up. ;)

Wow, again @ all the variety in clinical experience! I'm with the same attending all day every day. He does inpatient in the morning and clinic in the afternoon. He went to medical school in Nebraska, too. I'll have to remember to ask him which and let you know. I go to school in Florida, but I don't plan on staying here. As far as residency, I'm torn between Gen. Surgery and FM. I love them both for different reasons, and so I will have to figure that out over the next few months. Are you leaning towards anything yet?

Awww! As an animal lover, I think being a vet is awesome! I see how it could get get very hard though, dealing with things like neglect or animal fighting. Is vet school like med school you have to do more training after you graduate? Is there some special training you have to do for something like marine veterinary medicine, or is that all a part of the same program?

Going to med school to pay off your loans is crazy! I had no debt from college. Even with some scholarship help, my loan statements from med school would make you lightheaded. Not to mention the new legislation in the works trying to make residents, who don't make a whole lot for the hours they work, pay their loans right out of school. Stop the madness!

LOL Yeah for real!

Nearly 100% towards some sort of peds specialty - my top three are pulm, cards and GI - in that order at the moment. The biggest question at the moment is whether to go peds or med/peds. There are a lot of things pushing me towards med/peds at the moment - but I'm not super thrilled about adults, and even less excited by geriatric patients. But I think med/peds offers better education, gives more inpatient management experience, and a lot of the peds fellowships (in particular cards) are really favoring med/peds applicants...So we'll see what happens. I'm looking at places all over the country at the moment. If I had to pick today, without having any real idea about what the programs are like, I'm most interested in Portland OR (OHSU), Charlottesville VA (UVa) and Denver (CU)vif I'm going to do only peds (none of those has a med/peds program). For med/peds, Nashville or Memphis (Vandy or UT), Little Rock AK (Arkansas) and Salt Lake City UT, are high on my list...

SoEnchanting and BigRedBeta, I totally see what you mean about the student loans. Fortunately I have no federal debt, but I will by 2011. I think a lot of students that do take the higher paying med jobs that they really don't want, I think they just wanna live comfortable lives. Meaning, being able to pay back federal debt while still being able to do the things they want to do. I know, that sucks, but school isn't cheap, and now it would kind of seem like a big waste of time going to school for a business type job and end up becomming an office manager or car salesman. Nothing against those professions, but a lot of times fields that aren't really considered to be specialized, those graduating students sometimes, if not a lot of times, find themselves doing something they didn't go to school for, and then they end up living check to check after the student loans kick in.

Yeah, there's always more training after graduation.

Nope, it isn't the same program. If you wanna go into a specialty program such as marine veterinary medicine, you have to go through a residency program after completing 4 years of veterinary school, then you go into that specialty.

Did you ever figure out where your attending went?

What interests you about Surg and Family? Do you have an interest in eventually ending up in a rural community?

When do you start putting together your 4th year schedules? Are you going to try to do a surgery sub-I? Any away rotations? Anything you're REALLY excited to do for a month?