Official MCW Class of 2009 Thread

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ouch. okay. yeah, that + raynaud's = teh suck

raynauds-disease.jpg


Is it always this severe?
 
I think my advisor's "Any pass is a major red flag" is going to bite me now that OB/gyn apparently hates me worse than I hated it, and gave me a pass. Dr. Lund emailed me and told me that I could come to his office to discuss some of the comments written about me. I still have not received my grade sheet, he just told me my grade. I'm a little afraid.
 
I think my advisor's "Any pass is a major red flag" is going to bite me now that OB/gyn apparently hates me worse than I hated it, and gave me a pass. Dr. Lund emailed me and told me that I could come to his office to discuss some of the comments written about me. I still have not received my grade sheet, he just told me my grade. I'm a little afraid.
I liked Dr. Lund the two times I met him.
 
Maybe if you let ice be poured on your hands.

I just usually havea noticeable demarcation of red/pale on my fingers with blue underneath my fingernails.

YOW! Mine certainly never do that; I have like future wannabe Raynaud's. (I myself want it not to be.)

And even *I* wouldn't put my hands in ice water if I didn't have to. I used to stand in ice water for minutes at a time after dance workshops, but no coldiness on the hands, please.
 
Congrats Xandie! One more test down.

Andy, that sucks about the tire. Bleh. Good luck on your CPR grade. :luck:

Ashers, don't worry about it too much. What's done is done, and just concentrate on CPR, take a break and gear up for the big 3. Talk to Dr. Ninomya maybe? Perhaps he has some words of wisdom.
 
Ashleigh, I only passed OB/Gyn too. One point away from high passing. Remember in orientation when Dr. Lund was saying that if you want to honor the rotation you should try to get all 7's, 8's, and 9's on your clinical evaluation? Well I did and apparently it didn't count for squat.
 
i really sorta stopped caring about grades awhile back. Makes me happy.
 
i really sorta stopped caring about grades awhile back. Makes me happy.

I try not to sweat them, but the whole one point away from the next highest grade thing really ruffles my feathers.

PS: I friggin' hate PBL. I could probably really benefit from it, because I'm totally horrible at searching literature, but I can't stand being up at 11pm totally frustrated because I can't think of a good PICO question that will give me something to work with. Blarghhh.

PPS: I just realized that I had my 3000th post 26 posts ago. Dropped the ball on that one, I guess.

PPSS: I'm in the top 200 highest postcount members of SDN. I think I just died a little inside.
 
Nerds.

I don't care about grades, except in very specific circumstances. However, missing the high pass on surgery by 0.1 points (a 79.9 does NOT round up to an 80, my friends) did annoy me just a touch.
 
So if you were at an interview in, say Atlanta, and met another interviewer who had to be in Nashville the next day as well, you'd offer to share your rental car with them, wouldn't you.

Especially since you could maybe both save a little money, right?

So how is it that the person I drove to Nashville thinks that buying me a $10 dollar dinner at a Cracker Barrel (not much choice on the road in TN) is a good enough gesture, especially considering that said person saved at least $110 by not having to drop off their rental car in Nashville, not to mention the daily base rate for her car. She didn't even offer to pay for gas!

Now to be fair, I didn't make much of a big deal of it at the end of the day yesterday, because I'm a nice guy, and I was going to have to do that drive anyway, but seriously. Who does something like that?

I'll see her again at another interview on Saturday.

Should I bring it up, or not?
 
Should I bring it up, or not?

It wouldn't be my tendency to bring it up unless you had explicitly discussed a financial arrangement beforehand. However, if it were my wife in your shoes you'd better believe that applicant would be hearing about it. I guess I'm either too nice or too much of a pushover to say anything. I would just consider the whole situation some good karma points that will benefit you sometime later on in life.
 
So if you were at an interview in, say Atlanta, and met another interviewer who had to be in Nashville the next day as well, you'd offer to share your rental car with them, wouldn't you.

Especially since you could maybe both save a little money, right?

So how is it that the person I drove to Nashville thinks that buying me a $10 dollar dinner at a Cracker Barrel (not much choice on the road in TN) is a good enough gesture, especially considering that said person saved at least $110 by not having to drop off their rental car in Nashville, not to mention the daily base rate for her car. She didn't even offer to pay for gas!

Now to be fair, I didn't make much of a big deal of it at the end of the day yesterday, because I'm a nice guy, and I was going to have to do that drive anyway, but seriously. Who does something like that?

I'll see her again at another interview on Saturday.

Should I bring it up, or not?


That is weak sauce. tacky. Did you have to stop for gas while driving?
 
I wouldn't bring it up, because I'm kind of a pansy like that, but at the same time, how rude!! If you want to, you could. I drove Tina Veek from York, PA to BWI (maybe half an hour out of my way, but nothing major) and she gave me $30. And we're friends, so I would have done it for free.

Was she at least decent company for the trip?

I'm now in Connecticut. I love me a good Holiday Inn.
 
Well, I hope she was good looking, because I think the eye candy was all you're going to get. She seems awfully clueless though.
 
I wouldn't bring it up, because I'm kind of a pansy like that, but at the same time, how rude!! If you want to, you could. I drove Tina Veek from York, PA to BWI (maybe half an hour out of my way, but nothing major) and she gave me $30. And we're friends, so I would have done it for free.

Was she at least decent company for the trip?

I'm now in Connecticut. I love me a good Holiday Inn.

She was ok for company, but we're not going to be BFF. In the end, it's most likely that I won't bring it up, since I'm a nice guy (I'd like to think), and we didn't have a specific arrangement (although she said she'd help out with the car).

The thing is, Urology is a small community, with ~240 matching per year. So it's likely that I'd see her at some conference or other in the future (or we could even match together), and I'd rather not have overt bad blood with someone.

But I have a good memory.
 
Question for the M4s: in terms of residency applications, would it be better to honor a few rotations (such as your target field) and pass the rest, or would high passing everything be better?
 
Question for the M4s: in terms of residency applications, would it be better to honor a few rotations (such as your target field) and pass the rest, or would high passing everything be better?

I don't know the anwer to this (and I'm not an M4, obviously), but I think you're setting up a false dichotomy in your question. One of the nice things about 3rd and 4th year is that you only have one rotation at a time, so you don't have to prioritize your studying as much as 1st and 2nd year (which inevitably leads to shafting one class in order to do good in another). I'm not saying you can honor everything, but it's not out of the realm of possibility to honor a few rotations and HP the rest instead of just passing.

I already screwed myself out of that scenario, though, so what the hell do I know anyway?

Edit: Actually, I probably should take most of that back. You do still have to prioritize your studying, but now the choices become studying for the shelf vs. reading up about your patients to impress the attending vs. doing the bulls*** PBL assignment so you can participate in small group vs. sleeping so you can stay awake in the OR the next day.
 
Edit: Actually, I probably should take most of that back. You do still have to prioritize your studying, but now the choices become studying for the shelf vs. reading up about your patients to impress the attending vs. doing the bulls*** PBL assignment so you can participate in small group vs. sleeping so you can stay awake in the OR the next day.

surgery is easier in that regard: you do have to study for specific topics for getting pimped in the OR, but unless they switch the exam to a shelf, it's nice to know you just gotta study the powerpoint lectures they give you. Unlike medicine and peds, where you basically need to memorize a 3 inch thick text AND know your patients.

Oh, and a great way to impress your surgery resident is to nail an IV start on an end stage renal disease patient with only one viable arm for access after the nurse has already missed twice. Particularly when that IV access is the only thing keeping him from being able to go home. +2.3 awesome points to me.
 
I don't know the anwer to this (and I'm not an M4, obviously), but I think you're setting up a false dichotomy in your question.
Yeah, I know. You could honor everything or fail everything as well. I was just wondering that if you had to choose one of those, which would be the preferable scenario?
 
Yeah, I know. You could honor everything or fail everything as well. I was just wondering that if you had to choose one of those, which would be the preferable scenario?

Then I would pick HP everything, because it would pretty much mean you are an average student (HPs are handed out like candy in the clinical years). Multiple passes would bring your academic abilities into question, although a PD from another institution might not be so familiar with the grading conventions and could be more impressed with some honors and mostly passes.
 
I'm not sure how you would manage to do that, as every rotation is different and you make it sound like you can choose to do one or the other.

Honor everything you can, high pass everything else, pass anything you can't possibly high pass. Basically, do as well as you can in everything.

AKA, there's no answer to that question.
 
Let me translate Prowler's question for you from M-2ese:

"Please discuss something hypothetical, impractical, and contentious for me so I don't have to think about studying for finals right now."
 
Depends on what you're going into. I can't really tell you if my passes (surgery, psych) are red flags, since I'll never know why I didn't get interviews at certain programs. I doubt that those were the reasons, however.
 
Getting booted out of a new OB patient's room because she doesn't want a male student in the room is like a double bonus - not only do I NOT have to sit through a boring interview translated in spanish, but I also get the sympathy from the resident for getting the boot, too!
 
Getting booted out of a new OB patient's room because she doesn't want a male student in the room is like a double bonus - not only do I NOT have to sit through a boring interview translated in spanish, but I also get the sympathy from the resident for getting the boot, too!

I had a patient in Racine that told the nurse OK to a med student, then got annoyed with me asking questions, asked if I could do a brief PEx, etc, and she was like "Why doesn't the real doctor just come in?" That got me sympathy too. I just wanted to be like "you could've said you didn't want any students."
 
Getting booted out of a new OB patient's room because she doesn't want a male student in the room is like a double bonus - not only do I NOT have to sit through a boring interview translated in spanish, but I also get the sympathy from the resident for getting the boot, too!

internally... i am like "hellz ya...20 mins of free time" when a patient doesnt want me in a room. Im suprised that the attendings havent figured that im not bummed out when i get denied.
 
internally... i am like "hellz ya...20 mins of free time" when a patient doesnt want me in a room. Im suprised that the attendings havent figured that im not bummed out when i get denied.

LOL. I know. Seriously. I've been denied by patients for being a girl twice, and once because the person was in a hurry, and she just wanted to see the doctor and get out, not me then the doctor. Doesn't bother me at all.
 
Let me translate Prowler's question for you from M-2ese:

"Please discuss something hypothetical, impractical, and contentious for me so I don't have to think about studying for finals right now."


m2 discussions:
1) get question wrong
2) discuss 10,000 hypothetical situtations in which the wrong answer could be correct.
3) fail to learn anything clinically important
 
m2 discussions:
1) get question wrong
2) discuss 10,000 hypothetical situtations in which the wrong answer could be correct.
3) fail to learn anything clinically important
Never mind that the clinical scenario didn't offer any information that would have differentiated between the two choices....
 
Never mind that the clinical scenario didn't offer any information that would have differentiated between the two choices....

There was a point where I wanted to stand up and shout, "I will GIVE YOU some points off my exam scores if you will just SHUT UP!"

Not that I can afford it, but please. Just shut up.
 
There was a point where I wanted to stand up and shout, "I will GIVE YOU some points off my exam scores if you will just SHUT UP!"
to me? or just in general? I liked how she went on a lengthy explanation of how to differentiate the two, and I asked "Was that in the reading?" She just kinda went "uhhhhhhh....."
 
M2s, you have me so lost right now. Is this path gossip? If so, do tell.
Yeah, TBL.


Question for the class o' 2009 - was Dr. Olds pretty straightforward in his parasitology questions? it seems like it from his notes...
 
to me? or just in general? I liked how she went on a lengthy explanation of how to differentiate the two, and I asked "Was that in the reading?" She just kinda went "uhhhhhhh....."

Well, kind of in general, but I was about ready to kill the next person to speak when you spoke up. Darn those laws and ethics and stuff!
 
I rarely speak up in large groups, but that question REALLY ticked me off.

I think had I not been too damn lazy to look in the neoplasm section of the notes, I might have gotten it. The answers in TBL are never in the notes, and it will never be perfectly fair, and I can live with that, though I must complain in the hallways afterwards like everybody else. But I would like the questions brought up in TBL to advance my learning and be questions about the pathology, like how often do patients with cancer present emergently like that. I believe that questions that are basically about what the heck she was thinking when she wrote that question, although very natural questions, should be asked after I have mercifully been allowed to leave the room.
 
Question for the class o' 2009 - was Dr. Olds pretty straightforward in his parasitology questions? it seems like it from his notes...

As far as I recall, straightforward would be a fair assessment. Make sure you know the life cycles well, esp. for malaria.
 
And know to treat both partners for trich... that's just good life advice, really.
 
Oh yeah, and since Don and I don't really have a thread (we do, but honestly?), I wanted to post this here. I am tired of writing thank you notes! I actually enjoy the process, since I spend the time really thinking about that interview and remembering and it helps me to put everything in perspective, but still! I'm on number 26 and I don't even want to know how many more I need to do.

Back to the grindstone.
 
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