1 Week to Go

So I am here, 1 week before the written COMLEX and 4 days before the Physical Assessment Exam. I have been hitting the books hard. And I mean doing anywhere from 150-250 questions per day and focusing on my weak points.

I have also been successful in maintaining my promise to myself of not changing answers once I select them. Now I am moving on to ensuring that I think the question more thoroughly. So what does this mean? Well, this means that I do not answer the question until I have thought about the patient in the question and see whether or not the data that is supplied in the question makes sense. For example, if the question is going to ask about a diagnosis in a patient with chest pain and trouble breathing, but the pain is in a 23 year old girl who is on birth control pills, I want to make sure that she is not having a pulmonary embolism. So my question would be if she smokes. Well, if the question tells me that she does not smoke, it still does not rule out the potential for the problem. But if the question tells me that she recently had a viral infection, well now I am more than likely going to find out if she has any fluid around the heart rather than look for a blood clot in her lungs. But I still want to.

I have also found that I have gotten more out of reading the explanations rather than just reading the book. Which is why I plan on doing more and more questions until the last possible minutes. Which will be Thursday, mid day. I have also been going to bed early so that I can be well rested. I would also like to give props to my best friend, Ian, who introduced me to a set of musical sounds that has helped with my concentration and retention of information.

However, I still cannot wait for the exams to be over so that I can go back to some semblance of a normal life, get back to seeing patients, and hopefully get good score so that I can get more residency interviews in my first choice rather than my backup.

8 months and 8 days to go. But who is counting......