I'm still hanging in there

Just a quick post for anybody who reads this blog to let you know that I'm still hanging in there. Exams are very close, and the Study Bunny has me locked in a cage in the corner with only my notes for company. He keeps threatening to hook me up to a caffeine drip, but I tell him to sod off because I don't go in for that stuff any more.

This is an interesting stage of medical school for all of us little first years. We are currently studying hard for our first big exam. I am surprisingly not as stressed as I thought I would be, however I think that this is because I am relatively confident that I will pass. I tell myself this because stressing excessively will result in me burning out, and there is just no point in that. I am here to live as well as to study medicine.

Ironically it is my paranoia and insistance on studying the whole way through that has resulted in me being more relaxed now. I'm not saying that it will lead to brilliant exam results (I almost never get those) but it means that I'm feeling more human.

If I pass and finish the degree, I'll become a doctor, the same as the person who freaked out and got straight high-distrinctions and the Dean's Medal. As the old saying goes, P=MD. (It isn't that I don't care about learning a lot - I do care. It is just that I am interested in learning as much as I can to be a good doctor, not so that my knowledge translates into an excellent test score.)

I'm still enjoying learning the things that we are, even this close to the exam. This probably means that I have some major psychological coping mechanisms in place, or that I am in the right place doing the right thing. I can't wait for next year, when we cover more pathology and more clinical information.

Other people in my course aren't coping so well with the stress of it all, but I am hoping that they will calm down after the first Big E is out of the way. Hey, it's just an exam. They should come and hang out and study with me for a bit. We'll be fine. Study Bunny says so.