Not a Light and Fluffy Post

The best thing about Christmas was that my brother came out and we went for a short hike down by the cliffs near Pacifica, and it was gorgeous and peaceful and awesome and I got to hang out with my brother. I mean, of course we had some major Christmas drama in our family, but a 3-ring circus would go unnoticed in our household. This post isn't about that.

I was going to write a happy, fluffy post about finding the perfect planner and Mrs. Miniver and how it's worth it to splurge a little bit on a book you look at several times a day and keep all the details of your life in, but this post isn't about that, either.

I could write about how I'm going down to LA tomorrow to see B, and how I'm really excited because I haven't seen him since Thanksgiving, but unfortunately, nope, this post is not about that.

I am scared shitless about a big promise I once made to myself. I don't know if I can keep it.

Once upon a time, I was in high school. I was going through some pretty rough times, and I thought, well, if I can just keep going and make it through this, then maybe one day I'll be a doctor. I had dreams about graduating from UCSF with a diploma in my hand and an actual MD. I had dreams about joining Medecins Sans Frontieres and visiting all sorts of places and seeing patients all over the world. I had dreams of being a community doc, getting to know people and earning their trust and retiring at eighty having delivered half the town. Or lobbying congress to do something about the fact that millions of Americans are told, "We don't give a crap whether you live or die," and that it's largely based on how much money they have in the bank.

It's scary to wake up and realize that you are on the brink of do or die, which, in our third year of medical school, we are. I didn't come this far to fail now. But there are two major hurdles in my way. One is the thesis.

I could write a book on this thesis. It's an MS in Health and Medical Sciences. What does that even mean? But I'm excited about my project. It's a qualitative evaluation involving fifty in-depth interviews. It's interesting. I have lots of cool data. I want it to be perfect. But it can't be perfect. It has to be finished. I have to finish the thing pretty much next week, and that is a lot of pressure. All these voices in my head keep saying, "But I'm not ready! I don't know enough! I haven't done enough! Wait! Give me more time!"

And the dangerous part of this is that I could take more time. There is no deadline for the thesis, not until we start rotations. I could be writing my thesis until the Friday before the boards! Which is a great way to fail the boards. And that is unacceptable. I'm mad at our program because I think they've lulled me into a false sense of security: "Oh, the boards will be fine, don't worry about them." "Everyone passes, who cares?" "You only really need a month to study." And this is from professors. They should know better. I think they're trying to not psych us out, but I feel duped.

Because now that I've been reading up on the boards, here's what I've learned. The boards (or the USMLE Step 1) are an 8-hour-long, knowledge-based, multiple choice exam. You take the test on the computer and choose the answer based on a combination of the information they give you and your prior knowledge. There are often as many as six answer choices. There are even choices that are correct, but just not as correct as other choices! Bottom line, it's a difficult exam.

You need to take the boards, and pass them, before you are allowed to rotate through the hospitals during your last two years of med school. More importantly, residency programs use your boards score to evaluate you, because the second boards aren't finished until after you've applied to residency programs.

And here's the worst (or best) part: If you pass, you can't retake them. You are stuck with that score for life, whether you did your best or not. So from here on out, I have only one thing in mind, and those are the boards.

So why am I scared shitless today? Today, we got our mock board exam scores back. And let's just say I was not amused.

If you are not my thesis or the boards, take a number.