Updates

Its been a while since my last post. I took my clinical skills(CS) exam in Atlanta the day before yesterday. In all there were twelve standardized patients to be seen with each encounter lasting 15 minutes…..where you had to take the history and do a quick physical exam and then counsel the patient. You are then required to write a patient note with the pertinent details, the possible diagnoses and workup for each in 10 minutes. I messed up on my first encounter where I ran out of time! After that I made it a point to be quick in my questioning. There are sooo many things that I can recall now that I missed but hopefully there is allowance for those given the time constraints. The good thing is that this one is a pass/fail exam and so the stress of scoring high does not come into play. I won’t have the results for this exam till October(stress…more stress!!)….which means I will be applying for residency with just my step 1 and step 2 CK scores in hand. I got back from Atlanta yesterday to find my CK score (the exam I whined about till the end of July remember?) awaiting me. I scored a 91/224 which to be honest is a disappointment because I was gunning for a higher score on this as the practice exams I took had predicted considerably higher scores too. I really don’t mean to sound like an ingrate but this was one of those very rare occasions in life where I did let my hopes get a little high…..even after having found the exam hard. That said….I am not depressed and am not hanging on to it either. I am really  thankful to God for having brought me this far and its time to move on. It’s been hard having to study day in and day out for more than a year and a half and I am glad it has finally drawn to an end. I must now complete my residency application. There is lots of work to be done in that department. I have yet to work on my personal statement and get a couple of letters of recommendation from back home. The problem here is that the professors at my medical college have delegated the non-enviable task of writing MY letters of recommendation to……ME! So, imagine my plight….how do I write about four such letters…make them sound different and then write my personal statement too making sure it doesn’t sound the same as those letters….did that make sense? As of now Aya is brain dead! I have not even an ounce of creativity left in me…what little I had went down the drain when I joined medical college!I will keep updating on this exciting aspect of my life…..meanwhile keep praying for me(especially my CS exam results….I cannot afford to fail that!) and those who did pray for me....I thankyou all!