Tri-6 Wk15 Day 401 - Thursday

Done with Finals! :)

So far, I know I've gotten through all my classes with the exception of Jurisprudence which was one of the first finals we took. The complete stress relief doesn't really start until I know I've passed everything.

For EENT I ended up with an 87.8% which is 0.2% from a B+. I'm not sure if the teacher will round up in that situation or not. I did get an A in patient communication for which I'm grateful! :)

We can start looking forward now to see what's in store for Tri-7 besides clinic, in other words, what classes I'll be taking :)

1. Research Methodology - we have to do some sort of final project either with research or conduct an actual study using other students.
2. Professional Development
3. Soft Tissue Technique
4. Introduction to Gonstead - this is an adjusting technique
5. Introduction to Applied Kinesiology
6. Physical Therapy II
7. Activator, Part 1 - this is another adjusting technique
8. SOT, Sacro Occipital Technique - another adjusting technique
9. Gastrointestinal & Urogenital Diagnosis - Heavy hitting class, 5 hours with Dr. Kuhn who's a great teacher so we should be learning quite a bit.
10. Endocrinology - only a 2 hour class but taught by Dr. Sanders so, I'll probably need to treat this more like a 4 hour class in terms of studying.
11. Geriatrics - 2 hour class taught by Dr. Bub, he's sort of off the charts in terms of intelligence. I hope I can do better in this class then I did with his Neurology class
12. Diagnostic Imaging Part 3. This is taught by Dr. Kettner, a total powerhouse in the field of radiology. Pretty amazing person.
13. Health Care Practicum Part 3.

35 hours worth of classes. I just have to get through the Competency Boards on Jan 13th in order to enter clinic and become a full fledged Tri-7. :)

Tri-6 Wk15 Day 400 - Wednesday

We started Tri-1 700 days ago and today was our 400th day in the DC program.

I must admit, I've been in coast mode tonight and not done much with regard to our last two finals tomorrow but, the heavy hitting finals are over and I've made it through pretty well with the tougher classes of Tri-6 like Dx Imag, Phys Dx and, for me, CCR. Jurisprudence isn't one of our harder classes but I'm still waiting for final results on that grade to be posted just to make sure I'm in line for Tri-7.

Moving on to Tri-7 is a little different because in addition to passing everything in Tri-6 we then have to pass all of the Competency Boards and those OSCE test at the start of Tri-7 to stay a full Tri-7.

closing in on midnight - still need to get some studying in - either now or in the hour or two before school. We are getting freezing rain as I type this so I need to leave early enough to bypass all the traffic - kind of like I've been doing but maybe even a little earlier.

Tri-6 Wk15 Day 399 - Tuesday

It's only Tuesday? No new grades posted. It's 4:20 now, checked some emails & got coffee brewing, I'll probably get out around 5...

[5:39 p.m.]...OK, let's try this again ...LOL

[6:49 p.m.] Well, hmmm. I got distracted and should already be studying by now. We had Phys Dx this morning and EENT in the afternoon. Phys Dx was already posted and I ended up Jumping up one and a half letter grades from midterm! C+ in Phys Dx - pretty much one of my most difficult classes. Dx Imag crashed down to a C+ which I'm not that crazy about since I was only 0.33% away from a B+ at midterm. I did hear from upper tri's that many people end up losing an entire letter grade from the final. I didn't quite lose an entire letter grade but, I think I understand the mechanism behind the loss.

Dr. Kuhns Dx Imag class is chuck full of information, it's not one of these fluff classes or anything, from the time class starts until the bell rings, he's giving us information. With the last section we went over we were getting new information through our two hour class last Wednesday and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just a situation where we have all our final practicals during that same week as well as any final exams teachers are going to give us then we go straight into our written final exams. For me, anyway, it was just a little too fast of a turn-around from initially getting taught the information then being tested on it.

If I were a better student I'd have gotten a better grade. I'll keep working at it.

Anyway, it's over - gotta move on. So far, I'm kind of being invaded with C+'s. Like most semesters the lower grades move up and sometimes the higher grades move down. I think I've had more grades move up than down and, I'm fortunate that I don't *think* there's any class I won't get through.

In our group of 5 or so that have been sitting together and studying for the finals I found out a second person got dinged due to Neurology. That's kind of an odd situation. I've heard that last semester was the first time anyone ever failed that class and now, I know of at least two people who didn't get through it. It was a difficult class and I was surprised on both my exams that I didnt' do better than I actually did.

One of the favorite parts of my day is getting to school early and seeing friends from class already there or soon to arrive. I guess they'll still be there for that and I'm grateful.

I'm beginning to think there's something to test anxiety and how it can affect a persons performance. I know I still remember some things I read regarding neurology during my last break but sometimes things don't seem to stick as well during the semester or, in particular during the more stressful times of the semester.

The other odd thing is that twice now, the same people who have tutored and helped me understand material for a class don't end up getting through the class themselves even though they would appear to know the material better than me outside of class. Who knows, there's a lot of variables.

Still no grade for Jurisprudence.

I need a quick plan here - in less than 12 hours I have Pediatrics. In 16 hours I have CCR. CCR is a bigger concern since I'm sitting with a solid B in Pediatrics. Well, and now we see how the final grades tend to level out.

Do I stay up all night? The two exams tomorrow are going to be significantly more difficult than the two on Thursday. I think my plan is clear. I'll be spending all my time tonight on CCR and studying what I can for Pediatrics after I get to school tomorrow morning. I've heard there's supposed to be an ice storm tonight so I'll need to be up early enough to make sure the car is good to go.

Only two days left! I'm psyched!

Tri-6 Wk15 Day 398 Monday, continued ...

My focus and a buck 25 will get you a soda from a vending machine at Wal-Mart. I'm toast - gotta focus - going to use this blog to aid in accountability. I want to make up 30 flashcards for my Physical Dx final tomorrow morning ...it's not until 9 a.m. so I *should* have over three hours to study for it in the morning. I want those 30 flashcards - I'm going to publish post as I go so it's already out there - it's 6:24 p.m. ...no sleep until I get this done, it's not much, just focus ...

[6:36 p.m.] not bad, 33 notecards made on the computer and it only took 12 minutes.

CCR is on my mind - going to look through ppts and take some notes regarding what a positive finding indicates ...I wonder if this final is going to be cummulative ... so, let's do it [6:38 now]

[7:29 p.m.] good- got 47 notecards made up for CCR covering what a positive ortho test indicates for Elbow/wrist/hand, hip, knee, ankle/foot. Now, I'm thinking of going back to the ....those other flashcards I made up ...oh yeah, the ones for phys dx - let's at least get exposed to them before bed. ...doing those ortho cards took 51 minutes ... [7:32 now]

[7:48 p.m.] 19 minutes on phys dx flashcard review - got through them all and worked through several quizzes - no i want to get them printed out then get to bed [7:49 now]

[8:35 p.m.] 47 minutes - printed out two sets of flashcards and recorded all the flashcards by reading them into my recorder so I can listen to them on the way to work.

I think I have a new candidate for office. His name is Imperfection and his platform will be "Imperfection for Progress!" I say this because I could have frittered away hours on those notecards making sure each one was astutely accurate but, I was more concerned with just getting it done and being satisfied with "good enough". Heck, on the back of three of the notecards I don't even have answers. One has a question mark on the back and another has "write something about it here :)" Progress is more important than perfection. I suppose I started thinking about this in a prior blog when I mentioned that an imperfect plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

Anyway, I've got to get to bed soon.

Today's picture. You'll have to click on it to get a larger view. This is stained glass from the inside of our library at Logan. If I recall my Sunday school correctly we're looking at the first of the 12 stations of the cross. At the bottom of this window is written Ecce Virgo Concipiet which means, "Behold, a Virgin shall conceive"

Tri-6 Wk15 Day 398 - Monday Finals

It's about go time. Jurisprudence this morning at 7:30 then Dx Imag II at 11:30. I woke up this morning kind of early but stayed in bed until 2:30 a.m. I'll end up getting to school around 5:30 or so which gives me close to 2 hours to read through JP.

Diversified is in the bag and still waiting on Neurology grades to be posted from Friday's finals. This semester should be in the bag and a matter of merely going through the motions to finish up. My worst grade is in JP and, even then, I only need to score a 40% on the final to pass the class. Clinical Reasoning was a bit of a concern due to dismal performance at our last practical and there I only need to get a 30% to pass. With all my remaining classes, I need even less.

JP was a bit of a joke. I listened to the lectures regarding what was going to be on the final but all she gave was a week number of class and how many questions were coming from each week. Week one will have 5 questions, week 2 will have 3 questions ...etc

but, she mentioned topics for a couple of the weeks like "week 4, HIPPA, 12 questions" and told us to look at the syllabus for topics covered in other weeks. Unfortuantely, were weeks did not match up with the syllabus or the actual weeks during the trimester. According to the syllabus, HIPPA was covered in Week 2. Who knows. I'll get what I need, pass the class, forget about it and move on.

Speaking of moving, I better get going here. It's probably going to be past 5 a.m. before I hit the road as is! Wish me luck! :)

Two pics today! (am I procrastinating or what?) The building is the Purser Center where I'll be taking my JP exam in a couple hours. The other picture is the lake on campus I drive by every morning although it's usually not that bright outside since I get to school so early the sun isn't even close to coming out.

I did study and listen to my Dx Imag II lectures *all* day yesterday. Even when I went out to eat, I kept my earbuds in and listened to dxi tutoring lectures. I'll do what I can but, it's *almost* like the pressure is off because I've worked so hard during the semester that I'm in kind of a gravy position right now.

Tri-6, Wk14 Day 397 - Friday :) ~ OSCE! ~

So far, so good. I'm still waiting on grades from the practical we took Tuesday although it seemed to go well ...you never know for sure until you see the final grade.

I am booked on patients for Tri-7. We're only allowed to have 3 patient request but, I got a 4th which is now on a waiting list and a 5th request from an upper tri intern who wanted to transfer a patient to me today.

As nice as that all is, I still need to get through finals then pass all the comp boards on Jan 13th. Even with Irene Gold Board reviews (National Boards as opposed to Comp Boards) I'll have a full 3 weeks off before Irene Gold starts on the 7th of Jan.

I'm not sure why (or how) I'm still up. I woke up at 6:30 yesterday afternoon and never got back to bed except for the 15 minutes I snuck in from 3:30 to 3:45 this morning.

OSCE

OSCE are the competency boards coming up. OSCE stands for Objective Structured Clinical Examination. From what I've learned so far, Medical Students take the USMLE (steps 1, 2 &3). USMLE stands for United States Medical Licensing Examination and it's quite identical to what we refer to in the chiropractic world as National Boards but, we say Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4 as opposed to Steps. Both the Medical and Chiropractic students take OSCE boards as part of their Part 2 National Boards (or USMLE Step 2 CS ) ...CS is for Clinical Skills.

Well, ...I'll continue figuring this out after my finals are over. I still have to get & pay $535 cash (Money Order) so I can take Part II as well as get an updated picture and have my application notorized and that's due this coming Tuesday.

We have 26 OSCE stations plus a written exam (general clinical knowledge I'm assuming) and a written examination with radiographs, in addition to those 26 stations and all that makes up the Competency Boards. I'll do that on Jan 13th.

In March, I'll spend one weekend testing to complete Part II of National Boards. Fortunately there's a lot of material so I can learn more about all this. I've also found some videos on YouTube.

Tri-6 Wk14 Day 396 - Thursday

I've been having some reoccurring non-school related thoughts lately. I'm wondering if there ever gets to be a time in life when the number of people you've loved and cared about who are dead exceeds the number of people you care about you are still living. The cache of dead people know who have been a part of my life keeps growing and it's not just that but the rate of people entering that spot in my brain seems to increase with each passing year. While that can make for sad thoughts I suppose it's better than contributing to that cache.

Things are a little different when the accustomed support systems are interrupted. From my CCR practical today, I can say with much certainty that virtual patients are not nearly as valuable for learning technique as are real patients.

It's 2:30 in the morning and I have two finals looming. One, is Div V and the other is Neurology.

Physically, I can fell the effects of additional stress on my body during this time of the semester. Overall, it's probably better than most any other semester. I think maybe having other momentous and grave situations presenting themselves during this semester has quelled the otherwise self imposed importance of school in general.

I remember way back in Speech 101 ...about 25 years ago ...I gave a talk based on Dale Carnigies book called How to Stop Worrying & Start Living. I think one of the chapters in that book mentioned something about living in Day Tight compartments and not to let the maladies of one day spill into the next. I should probably also remind myself of something I wrote down the other day from Carlyle, to not perceive what lies dimly lit in the future and to do what lies clearly at hand.

Ugh ...the school's website is down. They really need to do something about these kinds of things happening during finals. I've had three semesters in the past where I was cut off from the school's wireless internet during finals, we've got a bookstore out of items I need but they don't want to order more supplies until after inventory so they don't have to count any additional items and now the Logan website is down .... grrrrr....

On the plus side, the school did get a bunch of amazing new copy machines. These copiers have USB ports so we can quickly scan documents straight into out jump drives. Essentially, we don't ever have to pay for copies anymore because the scanning is free and we can always print out what we need at the library.

Yikes ~ well after 3 a.m. now ~ better get moving.

Tri-6 Wk14 Day 395, continued

The strategy paid of well today. I put all I could into the Phys Dx written exam and didn't do anything for the Phys Dx Lab practical until lunch time. I wasn't even sure what the practical exam was covering today. I started studying for that at 11:30 today and ended up with a 24.5 out of 25! Yeehaw!

The big thing now is CCR. Ideally I wouldn't sleep for the next two nights but, that isn't going to happen. I'm dead tired as is and really need some sleep.

There might be an all nighter for Neurology on Thursday night. I know of people with all A's & Bs except for a lone D in neurology which is as low a grade as you can get without failing the class.

No grades have been posted for Diversified but I think that went well. Hopefully, I'll do well on the Div V final friday.

Monday is Jurisprudence & Dx Imaging. I could really use a ton more time for Dxi. I should be fine though. JP is my lowest grade but, i have double extra credit to still be added in and I'll do what I can for that final.

Tuesday is Phys Dx & EENT -

Wednesday Pediatrics & CCR -

both EENT & Pediatrics are taught by Dr. DeGeer and both will require respectable amounts of study time.

Phys Dx is one that get's a lot of people. I gave myself a little bit of a cushion with exam 3 and I'm hoping for even more of a cushion from today's exam (#4). I only need 35 more points to pass that class and I don't think a 25 out of 30 is out of the question for today's exam which means I'd only need 10 points or 33% on the final to pass. ....maybe even do a little better than pass, then get a bit of a boost from the lab portion of the class. A C+ might be the best I could get ....yup - a B is mathematically impossible but ...there is the lab portion ...which is at a 96.5% and counts 25%. We'll see.

Gotta get to bed.

Tri-6 Wk14 Day394 & 395, Tue & Wed - 500 Days Left!

As of today - only 500 days until graduation after 2 years & 6 months of taking classes for both the ASP & DC program :)

My only focus has been for our Phys Dx II written exam today. I have not reviewed for our Phys Dx lab practical at all. Call it strategy, if I don't pass the lecture portion of the class then the Lab doesn't get counted at all and the Lab grade is much stronger than the lecture portion.

Probably of larger concern is the CCR practical tomorrow. Again, I don't have that knowledge anywhere near the level I'd like it but, I think I can manage something adequate by tomorrow's practical. Diversified and Neuro will take center stage starting around 2 p.m. tomorrow.

I haven't even looked at anything for the following week. I know our last day is PT and Patient Communication. That will be my easiest day of the week. Dx Imag II is then coming up quickly on Monday at 11:30 a.m. I think, however, that I won't have to completely blow off studying for my Dx Imag II Final quite as much as I did last semester when all my focus went into Phys Dx. I've got a decent 87.67% average in Dx Imag now - only 0.23% from a B+. I think I have the ability to get a high enough grade on the final (96%) to get an A in the class but probably not sufficient time to prepare enough.

My study skills have improved a great deal, especially with Dx Imaging and I'm trying to relay that to the rest of my classes as well. I think Dx Imaging is maybe formatted in a way that's most absorbent to me. 'During my last Dx Imag class I was able to create a synopsis of the entire class on a single note card.

I need now to remember the words of Thomas Carlyle who said, "Our main task is not to perceive what lies dimly lit in the future, but to do what lies clearly at hand."

Today's picture is a lateral view of the skull and cervical spine.

Tri-6 Wk14 Day 393, ~ Mel ~

Today at school ended with one of the greatest lectures I was fortunate enough to hear. Our guest speaker was non other than Dr. Kettner. I was going to blog about that today but, on the way home I received sad news that my aunt Mel died today.

Many of my memories of Mel revolve around how beautiful she was. I remember long dark hair and her marriage to my Uncle Tom was one of the first weddings I remember way back in the 70s.

Tom's phone is busy, I'll have to keep trying to get through to offer my condolences. Mel died much too young as a result of complications associated with systemic lupus erythromatosus, SLE or, Lupus for short.

I've got three pictures on my refrigerator with myself, other members of my family and Tom & Mel. I saw them last Summer in August, got to see them again over my last break when I visited family in Minnesota then again when they visited my parents.

On that last visit we all went to one of the last Cardinal baseball games of the season. We all went to the Bank of America room and had free food and drinks throughout the game. It was one of the best times I've ever had at the ballpark and was hoping we could make it an annual event.

I just checked my "Mel" email folder. Since visiting last August, I've received 970 emails from Mel. She will be missed.

Tri-6 Wk13 Days 391 & 392, Thurday & Friday

Mentally, I started my weekend early, as of Thursday night by staying up later than normal and marginally studying. On Friday, everyone in class received letters stating how we did on our first 5 competency board examinations. I did pass all 5 sections, as I'm sure most people did. The most useful part of the letter was that it showed the remaining 21 sections we'll need to pass on Jan 13th as well as a written exam pertaining to all the clinical classes we've had to date and a diagnostic imaging examination.

I need to get my strategy together for successfully getting through the rest of this trimester.

• 12/06 - Mon - 5 Extra Credit points for Jurisprudence just for showing up!
• 12/07 - Tue - Diversified V Final Practical
• 12/08 - Wed - Phys Dx Exam 4 & Final Practical
• 12/09 - Thu - CCR Final Practical
• 12/10 - Fri - Diversified V & Neurology Written Finals

Focusing on next week is enough for now. The only place where I could potentially get screwed over is with the Diversified practical.

.....focus ..... I've been off on tangents ...warp theory and the Alcubierre drive, the X-37B Orbital Space Vehicle which just returned to Earth Dec 3, after 224 days in space, skin tight space suits which help keep astronauts bones strong, and a great new site I found called scienceinseconds.com.

OK, so while there is a chance of getting screwed over in a class my tangents would seem to elucidate that I hold the greatest potential for getting screwed over by not focusing and applying myself.

I need to memorize my diversified moves as well as my CCR moves. I need focus and repetition. I may use a Saturday blog to track my progress. Time to get to it! (finally!)

Tri-6 Wk13 Day 390 -

We finished up our last Tri-6 Competency Board today! Only 15 more to complete the first Thursday of next Trimester to officially become a student doctor :)

I was looking over the Health Center manual today. It has the addresses of all the locations we could possibly be stationed for our last year at Logan. Regardless of where I go I'm pretty excited about the prospect of making it this far. I checked out mapquest.com to get an idea of how much driving I might have to do if I get put in the St. Peter's office. My daily drive would be a little over 111 miles. I drove a little shy of 100 miles when highway 64 was closed and by the end of Tri-3, I was very hypertensive with normal systolic readings peaking well over 200...it was a cumulative thing. I wonder if valium would have helped? LOL Regardless, I never took anything because I figured the long daily traffic jams where a major cause and, in Tri-4, after the main highway opened back up my blood pressure went back down to my usuall 120/80 or less. I'm not sure what toll 111+ miles per day would take on me physically. I guess we'll cross that road when we get to it.

Studying was fair after I got home today. I spent about an hour and a half watching diversified videos and then spent time on CCR going over Ortho moves.

I paid for Irene Gold today and still need to get (or find) a picture and $535.00 to finish registering for Part II National Boards test. Looks like I'm paying a little over 89 cents per question (660 questions on Part II) If you add in Irene Gold, it's about $1.32/question we're paying. :) hehehe

Oh, my intern request got maxed out today. We're only allowed to have request by 3 students and the rest will be assigned. Two of my patients are Tri-4s ...oh - so they'll be Tri-5's when I get to care for them. I was thinking I'd be giving complete physicals to those two. My other patient will be a Tri-1 or 2.

I really need to switch to decaf. It was close to 1 a.m. before I fell asleep last night (again). I'm going to bed early, just not falling asleep.

Two weeks from tomorrow I'll be done with Tri-6. I don't think there's any class that can hold me back. Of course, I'll need to be very diligent with my studying between now and then to get the best grades possible.

I looked over my schedule for next trimester and we've got some heavy hitters (ie, good) teachers lined up. I know we'll be seeing Dr. Sanders again for endocrinology, Dr. Kuhn will be getting 5 hours of our time for a Gastrointestinal class and, apparently, the person who taught Dr. Kuhn, a Dr. Keottner (?sp) will be teaching our next Diagnostic Imaging class. I also saw Dr. Bozarks name listed with our AK or Applied Kinesiology class. I believe she has a diplomat in orthopedics and she also has over 25 years of experience with Logan.

Today was pretty darned nice. We had two hours of Physical Diagnosis followed by two hours of Diagnostic Imaging (dxi). I think I actually started to understand a few things in dx i today. Dr. Kuhn kind of left me in the dust after Monday's lecture. There's so many classes I need to put more time into.

Today's picture is of a ship traveling at warp speed, which is how fast I feel information in our classes is coming at me sometimes.