“Well, you certainly do have an active mind.”
~ fellow MUA student after he found this site

tonight might be the end of Block 1, but Block 2 has just begun! next exams are the weekend of October 12th.

along with “hey congrats for working so hard!” i’ve had a few emails from people comparing their term/school to MUA. i have decided to pull any reference to overall class averages from my post-exam discussions. it’s too easy to jump to uninformed conclusions even though there is a big difference between an easy exam and a well-prepared student.

just like there is a small tiny itty-bitty difference between passing a medical school exam and passing your country’s national board exams. i will let MUA’s overall USMLE 1 and 2 pass rates speak to the caliber of our professors and lecture material. i speak only for myself.

besides, this website is all about MOI (in my best Miss Piggy voice) and i try to compare myself with other people as little as possible. : ))

speaking of moi, i did well, but not as well as i had hoped planned in anatomy and histology. a few things threw me off, so i’m in the process of evaluating areas i can improve in. i have learned some lessons! learning is good!

1) pay attention to the in-class PowerPoint slides even if they have difficult grammar or spelling errors. i made the mistake of assuming that everything of importance in the slides was also in the textbook and vice versa — not so! instead of just using the slides for review, i am going to incorporate all of their little facts into my initial study time. unfortunately, i don’t retain info from the screen very well so i will be using a few forests of trees and spending a small fortune on printer cartridges. 9 slides per page, double-sided is my best environmental effort.

2) sticking to the study schedule works well. i alloted a certain number of hours each week for each subject and found that really paid off. i wasn’t left scrambling near the end because i had spent more time on anatomy than histo, for example. i love schedules. they’re like lists, but more complicated and prettier.

3) stop studying things you already know, missy! save that for review! if you know it, move on to something you don’t! if you think you know everything, look again!

4) one of our professors teaches us as if we are already doctors and he is telling us things we need to know for our “jobs” — this is Very Helpful. not only is it an awesome show of respect and responsibility, but a good reminder that we really are going to be doctors someday! for real! we will need to know and use this stuff!

so we’ll see how the next three weeks go. the only non-school thing i’m wrestling with these days is whether or not to find motorized transportation. the bicycle is amazing and i won’t give up my morning ride for anything, but it’s just a *bit* too far to get into town for groceries and errands. looking into a few options and may have fun news soon.

oh, and puppies! looks like they will be coming home sooner than expected… stay tuned for stinky breath, potty-training, and razor teeth.

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