Passed My First Medical School Exam!

Yay!! I'm officially a medical student! - or at least now I feel like one?
Well, for the first many weeks, I almost felt like I was kind of hanging around, playing doctor. Of course, I'd study, but mainly because I had no idea what to expect. Now that the one exam that probably defines medical school (Anatomy) has come and gone, I feel a little bit more at home.

Don't let people tell you it's easy:
Every time I get caught studying in my room by a 2nd year, they tell me, "It's pass/fail! Why are you studying? Enjoy! Have fun!" It's not that I don't like having fun with other people (tennis, frisbee, ballroom dancing, musical, and a bijillion interest groups), I just actually want to know these things. And I mean, how often will you get a chance to cut open a cadaver? This is only something that's gonna happen this first year. I might as well make all the mistakes now so that I don't do it so often on a real person.

The Anatomy Exam:
I'd say that the exam was pretty hard, but they graded pretty easily. The format of this exam was unlike anything I've had before. Since there are about 30 tables, each with a cadaver on it, all the students were split into 4 groups (each group, about 30 students). Then, each person goes to a table, and had 2 minutes to answer the question(s) at that table. Then you rotate. Wow, I didn't know what to expect. I guess I should've known from the practice exams, but I didn't realize how QUICKLY 2 minutes passed. I was especially lulled into a sense of security with my 1st question. It was really easy and I stood there doing nothing for nearly 2 minutes. But then my 3rd question had parts a-j! Ack! I think I only got to d, and put random structures down for the rest of them! There was another question about the heart, I got flustered, and pretty much ran out of time before i answered anything. Another time, I accidentally labeled my answer sheet a, b, c, b, c, d, e....and I got so confused when I answered all the questions and realized questions went to f and my answer sheet went to e.
But despite all these unexpected little details, I did fine. :)