Exam 1 in the Books

My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about being a first-year medical student.

Well, yesterday was the first exam of medical school for the 132 members of UNMC's class of 2012. So, to recap the first two weeks:

On day 1, we met our cadavers, then proceeded to dissect the entire back, scapular (shoulderblade) region, pectoral region, axilla (armpit), arm, forearm, hand, and fingers by the end of week 1. The first two weeks also included lectures on fertilization and early development, along with lectures covering each of the body regions dissected in lab. Living anatomy, another significant portion of our learning experience, is an exercise in which all 132 of us take our shirts off in the amphitheatre and palpate (fancy word for feel) muscles, nerves, arteries, bony prominences, etc. in each of the body regions being covered in lab on a previously chosen partner. In addition to all that, we've had some afternoon lectures and small group meetings covering health care quality and professionalism.

The test was scheduled for Saturday morning. Very few people acted real confident that they understood the material and knew they would pass the exam. The levels of stress, though, varied pretty significantly amongst my classmates. Some flat out said they were probably looking at the 'five year plan' (if you fail, you repeat the first year). That's the high end of it, but I assume that the entire spectrum of pre-test anxiety was well represented. For my part, the night before the exam I went to UNO at 5 for the chemistry department's 2008-2009 kickoff (there was free pizza), after which I spent about 3 hours with Joanna delivering Johanns for senate signs to the good little republicans who had requested them. An ill-advised trip to Taco Bell, about another hour of liesurely review, and I fell asleep at Joanna's house around 11.

I woke up at Joanna's the morning of the exam about 5:15. I went home, showered, dressed myself for success, and made my way to school. I was in group A, which meant that I had to report at 8 for the written portion of the exam. Group B reported to the gross lab first for the practical exam. We had 2 hours 15 minutes to complete about 45 or so multiple choice questions, one page front and back of short answer, and two essays. The questions were tricky, but manageable. I finished early, so I had to go wait in the hall outside the gross lab until the switch was to take place. They try to prevent interaction between the two groups between the two portions of the exam, so we sort of get herded around the halls down there in a specific pattern until we finally got inside the lab and positioned at our tables. The way it works, if you've never taken a lab practical, there is a computer hooked up to a sound system in the lab. Every minute the computer sounds a bell. When you hear the bell, you move to the next station, read the question, look for the pin in the cadaver, and try to answer the question before you hear the bell ring again. A little twist: after question 15, the bell rings, you take your shirt off, put down our paper and go sit down in the 'waiting chair'. The bell rings again, and your living anatomy partner (who is mandatorily next to you) takes off her shirt and joins you at the waiting area. The bell rings again and you both go into the first living anatomy cubical and one of you grabs a card: "Demonstrate the bony prominences of the shoulder." Before you finish the bell rings and the other partner grabs a card: "Draw the flexor retinaculum on you partner and its bony attachments. Explain what you are doing." Before you finish, the bell rings (or even worse, you finish first and stand there feeling awkward because you're topless, and the grader feeling awkward because he/she can't let you see how many points you lost or why on the little clipboard) and you move to cubical two. There are a total of four cubicals for living anatomy. After the final bell rings in cubical four, you walk out and put your shirt back on. The bell rings and one of you moves on to station 16. The bell rings again, and the other partner follows suit. There are a total of 55 stations, and, other than the living anatomy, I am relatively certain that I scored very well in the lab. There was not a single cadaver whose pin I could not identify, and there was not a single x-ray in which I could not identify 'the structure at the tip of the green arrow'.

Well, this is getting out of hand, so I'm going to stop. We get our grades back next Thursday, so I'll post mine at that time. Meanwhile, we start dissecting the face tomorrow, so I think it's going to start to get a little tougher for people to cope in the lab, but we'll see.