The second year of medical school . . . They said that it was suppose to get easier. I believe that they were wrong! Maybe it was just our own personal circumstances. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe, just maybe, I am not the only one that thinks that the second year was harder. When talking to people who were a year or more ahead of me, I had been warned about 5th quarter. I had heard that the coursework would get tougher, the exams would increase, and that I would see less of my medical student; however, others told me that it would not be as difficult on the whole family has the first year and transition were. I think that those people lied!
Okay, so maybe we just had a bad start! During the finals week of my husband's 4th Quarter, our son had to be rushed to the emergency room and stay overnight at the hospital. The reason . . . he was not getting enough oxygen. We are still not exactly sure why. After many tests and multiple doctors, we still do not know the cause. We probably never will. We just hope and pray that it was a one-time deal. Because of our little guy's sickness, my husband ended up not being able to have his little week vacation in between quarters to prepare for the dreaded 5th quarter. He had to finish taking his postponed finals over this break so that he could be with our son while we were dealing with the mysterious sickness. A decision that looking back on, he or I do not regret! After all . . . family is our number one priority and always will be.
As time wore on, we finally were able to relax about our son's health. We no longer were waking up every hour in the middle of the night to make sure that he was breathing okay. He appeared to be a strong, healthy boy and all the tests agreed. My hubby was then able to focus more of his attention on his studies. During this dreaded quarter, we often only saw him for dinner. He would come home, eat dinner, and head off back to the school to study some more. I was staying busy myself with my ever-changing job and being involved in SAA. When he was home, it was usually because I needed to be somewhere for an SAA event. So, you could say, we really did not get to see each other that often. Boy, was I glad when the end of that quarter finally was here!
Sixth quarter was probably the easiest of all quarters from the medical school aspect! It helped to make up for the lack of time spent together the previous quarter. However, once again, a difficult time hit us during his finals week of this quarter! An early Sunday morning in February, I received a phone call from my devastated father that my grandfather had been killed by a drunk driver a few short hours before. Though most of the time I am okay with being so far away from family, it was times like these that I wished I was closer. I tend to be a private person when situations like these hit and preferred not to talk about my grandfather's death or how I was personally dealing with it. We flew back home for the funeral and to be with family. That was VERY difficult, and it was hard that it was only a short trip. We had meant to spend my husband's spring break traveling to what would be our new home in Michigan, but once again, he had to spend his break studying and finishing up his finals. We ended up postponing this trip until a week later and shortened our trip to better accomodate the little time that we had left to fit in our schedules. Now, I make it sound like all these family emergencies really put a glitch in my husband's medical school plan. As I said before, family is our number one priority. It always has been and always will be. However, with that said, I would like to state the obvious here. Medical school is hard enough. When times like these arise, things that are completely beyond your control, it only makes things more difficult. We try to make the lemonade, but I don't like to sugar coat it and sometimes, it can just be hard to keep all the bitterness out of it!
Seventh quarter . . . not a bad quarter class-wise; however, this was the time that the pressure really started coming for the Step 1 Board Exams. My husband does not feel that he is very good at these types of tests and really began to stress out. He was really worried about his classes, but these boards were always looming over him. At first, I didn't completely understand. Then, he explained to me how important these scores can be in determining his (and, ultimately our) residency location. The quarter was over in a flash, but we began seeing less and less of our medical student once again. Every waking hour, he was off studying for the board exams. I was still dealing with the death of my grandfather because of the criminal trial that was going on back home. And, on top of it all, I was beginning to worry and stress myself out about the upcoming move. We once again had to deal with reserving a moving truck, finding a place to live (that would be able to meet our limited budget), finding a new job, and one of the hardest things of all, finding childcare for my son. That was a lot of "stuff" on one plate! I wanted to spend as much time with my new-found friends in Kirksville before we all went our separate ways again. I was finishing up my job and wanted to spend more time with my son. There was so much I wanted to do and had to do, but could not find the time to fit it in. Looking back on the first two years, this was THE hardest time. It was difficult being away from my husband so often, we all know how moving is a stressful event in and of itself, and to add all the "extras" just complicates matters so much more.
On the bright side . . . we got through the boards!!!!! And, my husband did very well on them!! I couldn't be more proud of him!!!! One last hurdle . . . eighth quarter. This was definitely a hurdle because I still do not understand why we had to wait around for this quarter. It was a lot of little details regarding rotations and most of the time, my husband was not even there half the day. He even had a week off right in the middle of a 4 week quarter. Seriously, what was the point? We did get to spend a lot more time together and catch up though . . . something we definitely needed!
Now, on to rotations . . . yippee!! Where the fun really begins!! :)
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3 comments:
Oh yeah rotations- so fun!! Don't kid yourself- it just seems to get harder the farther you go! I really miss 1st adn 2nd year a lot sometimes!!
I loved reading about your re-count of the last two years. I feel like the only people who can understand what it's like are those who went through it. I'm grateful I wasn't alone. I feel emotions when you talk about 5th quarter, and boards. So glad that's over!
It's got to feel great to be looking back on the first two years. Look at what great milestones you've passed. Sure, you're nowhere near finished, but look what you've done! Look how far you've come!
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