I’m continuing to enjoy an incredible breadth of cases in neurosurgery – deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s, the orbitozygomatic approach for a middle fossa tumor, ventricular explorations, and laminectomies are some of the latest cases I scrubbed into. With only a week left before two months of pediatrics, I’m hoping…
The first day of any new rotation is always tough, but today was utterly painful from a logistics standpoint. We started rounding at 5:30am, but instead of being able to reset my password for computer access, I had to wait till later in the morning to redo all the paperwork…
Two weeks of anesthesiology certainly flew by, and given my interaction with the residents and the nature of the field, I’m really considering it as a career. I should have my USMLE Step 1 scores back within the next two weeks, so that’ll definitely play a role in deciding what…
Over the last week, I’ve worked closely with five different residents, and each of them has provided me with a great deal of knowledge regarding the career of anesthesiology – both from a med student perspective and in practice. I’ve intubated patients, drawn up and administered agents like propafol, fentanyl,…
After a 4+ month hiatus, I returned to the operating room and had a blast! I spent the day shadowing an awesome anesthesiology resident in the neurosurgery O.R. who explained everything from pre-op and ventilation to induction and reversal. He also walked me through the common agents used in general…
Rosai-Dorfman is a very rare condition with unknown etiology characterized by histiocyte-rich lymphadenopathy throughout the body. I had never encountered this disease process before my preceptorship on Thursday and was eager to learn a bit more in spite of its low prevalence.
Now that Step 1 is over, I’m beginning my group B selectives – two weeks of anesthesiology followed by two weeks of neurosurgery. Although I’m very excited about both, its been several months since I was last in an operating room (or in the Texas Medical Center, for that matter).…
The night before the exam, I slept a total of 2-3 hours. After midnight, my mind was racing with everything I learned over the last few weeks. It’s like I was consciously consolidating information; my heart was racing and I had a horrible headache. Why my brain chose to sacrifice…
Tomorrow I’ll be taking the most important exam of my life to date – the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1. I’ve spent countless hours reading and completed thousands of practice questions, yet there’s an underlying sense of eustress (see what I did there… using my behavioral science)…
Over the last 48 hours, I’ve completed UWorld’s SA #2 and NBME #7, scoring equivalent scores of 265 and 259, respectively. While I’m humbled by these results, the real exam is 75% longer than any of the practices I’ve done, so endurance might become an issue on test day.