The gravity of the situation didn't immediately hit me.
Walking out after finishing the last part of the year
four comprehensive final exam, my first feeling was relief.
Then Ken turned to me and said, in a shocked-but-proud
tone, "We got our MDs!" Hey, I thought, yeah, we did!
I still had the MCCQE to write,
but for all intents and purposes, I'm an MD. Picking
up the diploma is just a formality.
The MCCQE quickly dampened my elation.
Even though I felt like I was learning new material
and solidifying old knowledge, I came out of the licensing
exam thinking 'what the heck was that?' I couldn't remember
having written a more difficult exam in my life. So
much so that when some easy questions did appear, I
second guessed myself. Did I really screw up the previous
set that badly? Before the exam my fellow students and
I joked about getting questions like, "What colour is
blood?" and "The femur is a bone, muscle or nerve?"
The jokes didn't seem so funny anymore.
THROW
ME A LINE
Multiple choice and short answer questions alike, most
of the time I felt like I was drowning in a sea of fathomless
knowledge. I'm hoping that the Medical Council of Canada
doesn't really expect us new trainees to come out knowing
the answers to those clinical scenarios, because I sure
didn't. I knew where to look the information up, but
it just wasn't available on instant recall. I hope that
doesn't mean I'm going to be a crappy doctor. I'm sure
I didn't waste time in medical school, so when was I
supposed to learn these facts anyway?
Reminding me that I've never failed
an exam before, my friends and family reassure me that
it would be highly unlikely that I should fail this
one. Nevertheless, I still won't be resting easy until
my marks come in saying that I passed. It's like waiting
for the MCAT results all over again. Statistically,
and this is all that I have to rely on at this point,
no one at my university has failed the MCCQE in five
years. In fact, we have scored top marks in recent years.
I wouldn't want to be the first one to break that record.
Still, walking out of that exam
felt good. It was just like the last final exam in undergrad.
The sun was shining, I was finished and feeling good
that summer holidays were upon me! But unlike before,
I don't have to go back.
Do I feel different? Was it anticlimactic?
Actually, I do feel a little different. I don't feel
like an actor playing a doctor anymore (like I sometimes
did in medical school). But no, it wasn't anticlimactic.
It felt momentous and I'm still excited — and I
still feel good.
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