Late Night, Late May Update

I was lying in bed not sleeping and realized I haven't written anything aside from the monthly newsletters in a while. The semester has ended, but I don't think I'll consider myself a real third year until after I pass the boards. The fact that we're reviewing everything doesn't help: we're taking a review course covering the last two years' information to prepare for said boards. This review isn't helping with my academic drive, either, with two years of graduate-level information crammed into three weeks. Oh, well. I keep tending toward getting stressed out about how much I don't know, but I tell myself to relax and try to learn a few things from this review instead of trying to cram everything in and forget it all.

I hadn't done any sort of physical activity for a couple weeks, so I've somewhat fallen into an every-other-day workout schedule. When I feel lazy on the "other" days, I figure I can let myself slide since beating myself up over not holding to a rigorous exercise schedule isn't going to help. Yesterday (Friday), I went for a good bike ride in the afternoon and later a classmate who's been wanting to go hiking for probably several months now texted me to see if I'd go today after class (yes, we have class this weekend). At the time I thought it would work, so I said yes, if we could keep it under an hour. This morning, though, I started to get irked that it takes around half an hour just to get to the place and the hike would take at least 45 minutes. After the first hour and a half of class, I was feeling overwhelmed again by what the instructor was covering and by the additional topics I plan to go over on my own. I decided the best thing would be to bow out of hiking, despite the fact that, knowing myself, I would probably be fairly unproductive anyway if I stayed home and tried to study. I figured not resenting my classmate for dragging me on the hike would be better in the long run, and hopefully he doesn't resent me for canceling. I said I would definitely go after June 8th (when I'm done with boards), so hopefully that will work out. He wasn't in class today, thus the text instead of talking to him, and he didn't text back, so I'll have to see.

Speaking of boards, I should explain how they work and my specific situation. I'm training to become a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, or D.O., as opposed to a Doctor of Medicine, or M.D. Since I'm explaining the boards, I'll just highlight the main differences between an MD and DO, which are the manipulation training (think massage therapy, physical therapy, and chiropractic rolled up together) and a whole-person approach on the osteopathic side. These days, though, the entire medical field is focusing more on the person who has a disease than on the disease in isolation. In any case, an MD and DO have the same practice privileges and career opportunities available to them, aside from the manipulative treatment. But, since there are two distinct routes to become a medical doctor, there are two different series of three-part tests, or boards, students must pass to become certified. Level One (DO) and Step One (MD) is what we're all worried about now and they cover the first two years of medical school. Level Two and Step Two are during the second two years and Step Three is taken within a year of graduating med school.

Since the MD degree has been around longer and its boards test the same type of information (again, aside from the manipulation), osteopathic students have the option of taking the MD boards in addition to their mandatory DO boards. Since many MD residencies only consider MD board scores, the only reason a student would put himself through more than one full-day test in rapid succession is if he wanted to apply to MD-based residencies in addition to/instead of DO-based residencies (residency is the next part of training after the four years of medical school). I want to apply to MD residencies (particularly one in La Jolla, for those family members who might be interested), so I'll be taking my Level One DO board June 1st, then the Step One MD board on June 8th. While the two are fairly similar, I wanted to get the manipulative medicine out of the way first and be able to focus on everything else for the second test. However, the MD board is more academically rigorous, so the order probably doesn't really matter (on the spectrum from working in the lab with beakers to working in the clinic with patients, MD training tends slightly toward the lab and DO training tends slightly toward the clinic, and this is evident in the boards). I'm just hoping I won't be totally burned out in a week, since our school is making us take a full practice board test on Thursday, the day after we finish our marathon sprint through this review.

Well, that's probably more than you wanted to know and I've accomplished my goal of being tired enough to fall asleep, so good night.

Scott