376# The End of Family Medicine posting


It's been a very hectic week. But now there's some room to breathe. Having endless diseases to read is making one to get a disease too.

We had our End of Posting OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) for Family Medicine posting on monday.

Yesterday, wednesday we had a theory paper for the mentioned posting.

Today, the last exam for the week, we had a theory paper for Internal medicine.

And everything was just messed up.



Really messed up.


Family Medcine's Long OSCE was a killer for me. That was the very first time in my life where I got blank in front of my patient for 6 seconds.

I did not mention about raised intracranial pressure. I did not talk about brain tumour. I did not ask about family history of malignancy.

And the worst thing was I could not identify the papilloedema showed in the picture. That was really a failure which could execute me.

In the end I did very, very badly for the long case. It was so bad until my doctor sms-ed me and asked what was my problem.

Fortunately my short case backed me up. And according to my doctor he said the short case saved me. In the other words, I guess I still passed. But I estimate myself to pass with a C+...



Freaking messed up


Coming next was the Family Medicine theory paper. Negative marking for true/false questions made up 70% of the paper. So, it's either you know or you don't, the answer is either true or false.

For every answer answered correctly, 1 mark will be given. For every wrong answer, 1 mark will be deducted. So it's very, very dangerious.

If you are not certain of your answer, don't attempt it. I was well aware about it. But I gambled.

I only left 2 empty, while most of the people left 10 questions empty.

In the end I lost in the gamble, I lost 20% because of that. Plus the other mistakes I done in the other parts of the paper, my final mark which I estimate would be a B. But really praying for a B+.

Lesson that I learnt - Don't push your luck.



Damn messed up.


So, today's paper was the last. Internal Medicine theory paper, the toughest among all 3 postings in semester 6.

According to all the question I tried to do, I really did not feel good about this paper. I already screwed up the previous relatively easier theory paper, thus this paper would be a nightmare for me.

This nightmare was so vivid and I nearly pissed in my pants.

I was smart already this time, I did not gamble. But I did even worse in this paper, because it was so freaking hard!

Instead of aiming to score, this time I'm aiming to to pass. From rough estimation I can hardly get a C+. Saw the seniors just now, they said half of their batch failed this paper.

Really not a good sign.



Not a very good sign.


It's like realising the hill at the back of your house showing signs of landslide.

I don't feel relieved after the exams. I can give thousand of reasons for not doing well for the exams, like, new to clinical year, still not adapt to it...

But all of these reasons are just plain excuses. I should have spend less time in sleeping and spend more time in studying.

Just like my friend, sleep less than 4 hours a day and have books in front of him at the remaining hours of his day.