All entries for Monday 05 February 2018

Final Exams Approaching…

As final exams are approaching, our cohort is getting really stuck into the revision block now and, as expected, it seems like there's never enough time to do what we want and need to do. At least that's how I seem to feel these days - and from what I gather, most other people feel the same. I have a list as long as my arm of things that I need to cover before exams (which are looming ever closer...) and of course it seems like it's growing every day. I'm pretty used to this state of being, however - we've been through this a couple of times before with Phase I and Phase II exams. The only thing that's a little more daunting this time round than previous times is the sheer volume of information - it's really difficult to find time to cover everything!

The med school have been quite good about setting up revision sessions for us, though. We have had several tutorials at our base hospitals and also have some clinical-skills sessions set up as well in the next couple of weeks. These are useful (well, some are more useful than others...) because they allow us to focus our knowledge and highlight where there might be gaps and where we need to pay more attention. It's also very helpful to have several sessions packed into one day so that we can minimise the time spent traveling back and forth to hospital or other places. Every second counts these days!

I think the most important challenge to us as final-year medical students these days is more just keeping engaged and motivated; our exams (well, those we've not had yet) last a month, and remaining energised to stay engaged is going to be the biggest challenge for all of us. There is a level of stress and tension which I think we've not experienced so far. I think we all just need to find the right way of dealing with it.

This morning as I was walking into hospital after parking up (and preparing for another long day of revision), I happened upon a group of ten or so first-year students who were coming in for their Friday-morning 8:00 am lecture. I remember these lectures well - of the 26 Fridays we had in our first year, we had 8:00 am lectures on 24 (not that I counted!). It was so exciting to see them talking and laughing amongst themselves, and ready to spend another day in hospital learning and growing as medical students. That was exactly the kind of inspiration I needed: after feeling a bit worn down and anxious and every other emotion under the sun, reminding myself of what it was like to be a first-year student again (and excited about EVERYTHING to do with medicine) was enough to light the fire under me - for a few days at least!

John

Joshua Galvin : 05 Feb 2018 09:12 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem