If you know any second year medical students, right about now they’re at least freaking out about Step 1. Good words for this state are worried, scared, terrified, crapping their pants, praying, anxious, depressed, terrified and crapping their pants again.

 

For those of you lucky enough not to know what Step 1 is, it’s an exam. That doesn’t sound too bad you say. It’s an 8 hour exam. Okay, that could be hard. It’s an 8 hour exam based off two years worth of medical school material. That’s hard. It’s actually an 8 hour exam based off two years worth of medical school material which tests esoteric facts sometimes, and asks you questions which may seem simple but in reality are nowhere near.

It will present a case about a patient, who’s got certain symptoms. Somehow you recognize the disease. Excited you read on, to find that they’re asking not for the treatment, which you remember, nor for the side effects which you remember as well, but for the treatment of that side effect… (Course that’s only some of the tougher questions, but you get why medical students devolve into a quivering ball of anxiety with just the thought of this exam.)

So, we live in fear, going through new material, required sessions at the hospital and lectures that at the moment seem irrelevant to us completely. We chafe at any distraction from our prime study time, and are constantly anxious and jittery. Coffee consumption skyrockets, breaks consist of eating hurriedly in the face of work.

But, funnily enough we still don’t study per se. At least I don’t. Not enough.

At the moment the fear and the anxiety are there, but for some reason the motivation to really work is still missing.

Hoping it comes soon, with <90 days to the Boards.