Exam 2

Exam number 2 went far better than my first exam. The questions were on things I knew about, and the few questions I wasn’t too sure about, I felt that I at least could put down a sensible answer. I don’t know why this exam went so much better than my first exam; maybe I just got lucky with the questions or maybe the extra day and a half’s revision actually made a difference. For this second exam, I actually felt as though I might have passed all 4 questions on the exam, which would mean that I might actually pass the exam! I would love for this to happen, but I’m not getting my hopes up as I’m not sure how picky they’re going to be with their marking.

I came out of the second exam pretty happy, thinking that the second paper was far nicer than the first, but most of the people I spoke to afterwards seemed to think the exact opposite! I think it might be because the majority of the people on my course seem to have some sort of Bioscience degree, and therefore find the bioscience molecular questions pretty easy, of which there were more on the first paper than on the second. I’m the opposite however, my degree involved a minimal amount of bioscience, and in much less detail than we’re covering now, and therefore I find the bioscience questions the hardest. The bioscience people seem to have a slight advantage at the moment, but I’m hoping that come the clinical years and our pharmacology module, my degree will be of benefit!

I’m currently typing this on the train. I went home for the weekend to do a locum shift today. It was quite a nice shift, not too busy but not too quiet, but there were a few things I found a bit more difficult. I had several people requesting my advice about various ailments, including two mothers with young children. One of the children had what appeared to be conjunctivitis, and the other had come out in a horrible rash with no obvious cause. I think I gave sensible advice about treatments and made sure to tell the mothers to go to the doctors if things didn’t improve/symptoms got worse or certain symptoms appeared, but giving advice is still really stressful, especially with young children who can decline really quickly. I realise that this is pretty much what being a doctor entails, but I’m hoping that with practice comes confidence.

The first day of second term is tomorrow. I think it’ll mostly just be introductory stuff to our new modules, but I’m looking forwards to it. Some of the modules that we’re doing this term look really interesting (and difficult..) and I’m excited to start them J