Totally understand. And after Friday's test the next couple days are my "brain-off" weekend.
One note, in case I forget to tell you later....
Don't forget to have a blast this summer. It's the last time off you'll really have for a while. But, if you have a chance to review a few things it wouldn't hurt
🙂. Work hard when you come back for second year, though. The hardest test we ever took was the 1st PBL test of 2nd year. For some reason, the "powers that be" decided to put a scare into us. The average for that test was a 72-- about 30 people failed
😱. Most people did about 10 points below their average. Was the test just that hard or did 150 people get dumber over the summer? You be the judge. There were a lot of depressed, angry and mixed-up people wandering around for a while. To be fair, the last test of the semester was super easy, so things worked out well. But, that feeling of having to catch up to even get back to your average kind of sucks.
The moral of the story? Have lots of fun.... but get right back into it running next year. There really is no break before you get started with rotations next year. It kind of depends on how you schedule your boards, though. Yeah, I'm sqeezing in a week of vacation, but depending on your rotation schedule, you might not get vacation for a while. I get my vacation in March of 2009. Note-- if you take one of the all-year spots at Florida East you'll be on a 12-month schedule with no vacation scheduled that year at all
😕.
Note to the incoming first year students:
Do anything and everything this summer that isn't medical related. If you have a job, work hard and save some money-- you'll need it. If you don't need money..... go some place and have loads of fun. Yes, you're really excited to get started right now and you'll want to think about med school all the time-- I was that way-- but try to relax. Dragonwell was right about the time thing. During Anatomy you'll have to take something out of your schedule just to make time to pee on occassion. Fortunately, though, your multi-tasking skills don't take all that long to develop. Just use them wisely. The ability to watch Southpark at the same time that you read Histiology is not an effective useage of your time
🙂. Stick to business until you get a few good grades under your belt, or you may find your self looking for something else to do in life. As Dr. Liuzzi will tell you many times, "Subway is taking applications right down the street."
😉
