Pro Exam revisited

it finally ended....

Wednesday, 30 April, 2008 00:06

after 3 days of exam..we all finished ..on 24th to be exact..the next day, the results were officially announced. Unfortunately, one of our colleagues didn't make it..thus he has to take the retest which is scheduled for another 6 months..

it was one of the most distraught and nerve wrecking experience that i've ever been through,,preparing for the pro exam, that is..anything can come out..anything that we've learned for the past 3 years..

the exam is to determine whether we are going to graduate as doctors or not..even though i do feel that it is an unfair way to assess us, nevertheless, it's the road that we all have to take..

we all felt the palpitation for the exam ever since early of 5th year..its one of those dreaded day that we've to anticipate..the countdowns, the neverending warnings by the lecturers and what nots..

we were given 2 weeks for revision week which is of course not enough at all to cover the many aspects of medicine..but we were to do the impossible..try as much as we can cover.. the thing about medicine is that it's unpredictable..you can never be prepared for it..there's no real standard..it depends on the patient, and also the lecturers..different kind of approaches and different kind of expectations..

as i struggled through the revision week, it seemed as if it was hopeless to cover everything..i only managed to cover the ones that seemed important..that itself was not adequately covered,mind you..

as the day edges closer, the tension mounted..stress level were to an all time high..the heart beats rapidly and heavier..

some couldnot really sleep that well..some had awaken in the middle of the night trembling with fear ..dreaming of the exam day..some had loss of appetite..(but not my rommates & I though)..

one of the favorite phrases there was " dah jadi wanko ke blum?"\

it's quite funny to see how many different defense mechanisms that people have in response to stress..

and then the day arrives...tHE dAY!

it starts with theory part which consists of 4 differetn problem based questions from 4 different department..this time around we had from internal medicine which was diabetes mellitus & its complications, heart disease in pregnancy (obs & gyne), & psychiatry - bipolar mood disordre and lastly from surgery - gastric cancer..we had been allocated 2 hours in which every 20 minutes we were given questions in regards to the topic and after the 20 minutes, our papers were taken & another set of quetions beckons..

8:30- 10:30 - internal medicine & psychiatry ( 20 minutes per question)

11-1pm - surgery & obstetrics & gynecology

then proceed with osce..or in other word,,data & picture tests..now that one is one tricky questions..

here there are 20 stations in which each station has one set of picture & questions regarding the pic..we were given each 2 minutes per stations..

and guess what..many of the pics and also gadgets shown were something that i;ve never seen before..hah..

the nexst day was mcq or in our case, true false questions..we have 70 questions which was furtehr divided into 5 subquestions..so each paper of mcqs consisted of 350 subquestions..and it was negative marking..

that's not all..we have to do 2 sets of mcqs..so..in all 700 subquestions..

..it was so tiring..

and then the most dreaded part of all , which was of course the clinical examination...

i was scheduled on thursday..so i had one day of extra tijme..some of my friends had to go on wednesedaay..

for clinical part, we have long case & short case..for the long case, we were given one hour to be with the patient and then get the history & do physical examination..after the one hour, we were to be in front of 4 different lecturers and rpresented what we had clerked..in my case, i got the case of chronic immune throbocytopenic purpura...and guess what ..it was one of the cases that i did not read coz i didn;t htink that it was importnat...hah..but alhmdulillah..i did do a report on the case previously..so it was not a total zero..

i had to present in front of a paeditrician, a surgeon, obs & gyna specialist & pharmacist...it was quite okey kot..not sure..

then proceed with short cases..we have to do 3 short cases in 30 minutes..so each case we were allocated 10 minutes..which also included the dicssion..i got a case of breech(baby songsang), gouty hand & pleural effusion..so during this session, we are suppposed to show the lecturers how we perform the physical examination..quickly and the proper technique..i alsmot failed in oneof the case, i think..

the thing about clinical part is that because it does not reflect your true self..who wouldn't be scared if so many lecturers are looking meticulously at how you perform..it's really of a on the spot thing..we have to keep cool even tho9ugh deep down inside we were really 'kecut perut"...

and after 2 hours of exam..then it was all over..i cuoldn't believe it..after all those years of toils & torture..it had finally ended..and so quickly...it was like as if in a rush...