Oh, hello you - long time, no see!

Now, what is your name? Can I remember ANYTHING about you? I know I spent a lot of time talking and reading about you, and have seen what you get up to, if only I could remember!! 

Yes, I am talking about study topics in medicine - although it could apply to casual acquaintances in real life, too, couldn't it? 

The other thing that happens is that you hear a name and just can't put a face/image to it - this happens in medicine, too. 

I have recently started scaling up my revision in preparation for exams (yaddayadda) and I have the above mental conversation with any number of topics semi-regularly. In this age of teach-yourself-medicine, it is quite easy to drop the ball a little without realising it. 

Back in the (real) working world, you have a number of set tasks that you have to manage by the end of the day/week/month, people to work with, and you are employed to do fill a very specific role. Studying graduate medicine is much more amorphous and ill-defined, and I would have to warn somebody who needs strong guidance and is not a self-starter that graduate medicine would be their worst nightmare.

The thing is that you get to the end of semester and revise things, and generally find a lot that you thought you knew at the time, but actually just read about and promptly forgot. I don't mind finding this, as long as it is BEFORE the exam. However, finding it during the exam is not so bad, either - I figure that I should be able to get some points by scraping together what I do remember, using logic, and can pass because hopefully most of the things that I was reintroduced to during revision will help me through in the other sections. 

After all, not knowing one thing on the exam is no biggie. Not knowing a few things on the exam is fine, too. Not knowing ANYTHING on the exam hopefully means that you are in the wrong exam room. :)