Sak Pase!!
I'M A 5TH SEMESTER Y'ALLLLLL!
It took me two weeks to write this post because of how busy and behind I am in everything. But that's basically my whole life summed up...i'm always behind lol. I complete a little bit of the post then i start to feel guilty so I stop typing so I can go back to my studies lol. I'm also taking so long to write this post because so much has happened. I'm sure you're excited for me to tell you about 5th semester...my last semester on the island...the busy semester.
If you don't want to read about God skip this post, respectfully :)
So much has happened since the last time I posted and I mean SOOOOO much. Most of the things I don't feel comfortable sharing so I'll spare you the details and just share the general things but I feel like a completely new person. I have renewed strength, renewed faith in the Lord, and renewed passion for medicine. I have always wondered why things were always a struggle for me. Y'all just don't know how much it took to get here and how much I'm still dealing with. This whole time I thought it was God punishing me. My childhood, my hurt, this difficult path to med school...all of it I blamed on God. However, I learned recently that generational curses are a thing. I learned that I was misdirecting my anger and frustration towards God when it should have been towards the devil. The devil was closing doors but the Lord had his hands in mine and was opening them for me. Sorry to make this post about religion and God but He's been too faithful for me not to share with the world how wonderful he's been to me, so no I'm actually not sorry. *shrugs*
DESPITE all the mess, I made it on the Dean's list again and I'm one of the 15 people in my class who made the school's Honor & Service Society this semester. The Celebration of Academic Excellence is Friday, October 18th and my name will be called up to the stage 3 times, once for Dean's list, once for the Honor Society and once for the Student of the Semester Award. Do you see why I'm grateful? because my journey here has been difficult and some days I couldn't study, some nights I cried myself to sleep, sometimes I was just too depressed to get up for class. M first semester, I was so depressed, I ignored 4 weeks worth of MCB and Anatomy class but somehow I still managed to pass the classes. I failed the final exams but I still ended up passing the classes because I did so well in the midterms. Another example...last semester things got so tough that I couldn't study for pharm during second block. AND DO Y'ALL KNOOWW HOW MANY DRUGS WE NEED TO REMEMBER FOR PHARM? A LOT. That Monday, I failed exam 2A with a 40 percent. That Tuesday, I drank Redbull, it gave me wings and I studied weeks and weeks of drugs in ONE DAY and ended up with a B on exam 2B that Wednesday. I then passed the final and made the dean's list. Do you see what I mean? God is faithful and for that I'm grateful. When people ask me how I do it and I answer "it's God," they laugh at me and think that I just refuse to to share my secrets. Ain't no secret lol. I grind and I mean I grind hella hard but most importantly I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
OKAY, I'm done lol. Let's talk about 5th semester. I'm taking ICM 5, ICM6, Behavioral Science and Ethics. Ethics was only two weeks, I took the final this past Tuesday. First behavioral exam is this upcoming week. Not excited for that one at all. So this is a typical day for us: We have ICM mostly every morning from 9am-11am where we get to act like doctors. Then we have behavioral from 12:30-2:20pm. Then Ethics from 2:30-4pm. Now that Ethics is over we're free at 2:20pm unless we have a double lecture day in behavioral . Sometimes we don't have ICM in the mornings because we have special workshops like venipuncture or focused interview etc.
Now this sounds all easy right? WRONG? We have to do these things all while self studying for our big COMP exam. The comprehensive exam is basically an exam we have to take that mimics the USMLE Step 1 exam. It includes everything we learned since we began classes on the Island. We have to take it during our 5th semesters and PASS it so we can be cleared to take the Step exam when we leave the Island. If you don't pass Comp 1, you're given a chance to pass a pathology shelf and a physiology shelf. You have to pass BOTH shelves to be cleared. Now if you still don't pass those, you're given another chance to pass by taking Comp 2. If you still don't pass you won't be cleared for step, you have to go back to the states and study for comp 3 given in the states. If you still don't pass I think they have you return to the island to study under supervision and take another comp with the current 5th semesters at the time. If you still don't pass after that, I'm not really sure what happens then. Sorry that's all the info i have on that because I'm planning on killing the first comp SOMEHOW. Lettuce pray lol. They had us take a diagnostic NBME exam so we can see where we are in our knowledge and what we need to study and let's just say I was at the bottom so your girl has got A LOT of work to do. I have gaps in my knowledge, especially when it comes to MCB, Anatomy and Pharm, the classes I struggled with most haha, go figure!
I find it really hard to make time to study. With ICM and behavioral and ethics and CPR classes in the weekends etc theres just no time left during the day. The days seem to be getting shorter and shorter and shorter. We also have to complete two preceptorships before the semester is over. I signed up to do mine after comp at the end of the semester. I signed up for an obgyn rotation and a pediatrics rotation at the Sint Maarten Medical center.
Finally, I'm using cramfighter to schedule my studies. I am 4 days behind on my schedule :) The school gives us UWORLD and Kaplan Qbanks so I try to do questions on them every day no matter If I get time to do content review or not. Questions are extremely important so even though I'm behind in content review I still try to do questions every day. I still have a lot left to do but let's get this bread or whatever lol.
Whew, I'm at the end FINALLY! I'm going to continue to study this here behavioral material now. I apologize for the long post. If you read the whole post, thank you so much!
PS: Every time I want to be reminded of how far I've made it, I look at this picture:
TTYL! 💜
