Missionary Orthopod in the Making

So on Sunday I was at the National Medical Association (NMA) meeting in Las Vegas. The NMA was formed many years back when the AMA wasn’t allowing blacks doctors to join their group. It was truly amazing to see just a sea of black doctors roaming around greeting each other, laughing, and reminiscing about old […]

So right now i am on my Internal Medicine rotation and overall it is very chill right now. Basically I go in to the doctor’s office at 8 a.m. and I see patients until 12 noon. Then I go for lunch and in the afternoon to medical specialty clinics.  Like on Monday, after lunch, I […]

Getting my Step I score and then talking to my fellow classmates reminded me about an important concept called CONTENTMENT. I mean when I saw my score I was absolutely ecstatic, just jumping off the walls because it was much higher than I thought it would be…I just knew I had been blessed by God. […]

So I’ve finally calmed down about recieving my Step I score and all I can say is Thank you Jesus! Honestly, when I walked out of that stupid test I felt like I scored a 200 or a 217 because it seemed like I was guessing for many of the questions but it definitely worked […]

I got my Step 1 score!!!!!!!!!!! I’m in the 240+ range and I am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Lord is so amazingly good….I really am just so humbled and speechless. I’ll write a little more when I calm down.

So this week was my first week of 3rd year and so far I really love almost all aspects of it. I actually started off on outpatient (meaning not in the hospital and more so in a doctor’s office setting) for Internal Medicine so right now I am pulling 9-5p days with my weekends being […]

From reading my last post it may seem like I went straight from finishing Step I to my 3rd year orientation but that isn’t the case at all. I bought a video game and played it til I beat it…I went to the beach and burned my notes from the first 2 years…I went out […]

So I took Step 1 yesterday and that test was truly challenging. I’m not sure how I did, but I’m praying in faith that it matches my practice test scores. I got my CBSE in and it predicted between a 245 and 250, which is still quite unbelievable to me, but whatever. I won’t find […]

So I’ve taken a couple of practice tests and the scores coming back are unbelievable to me, but I’m trusting that God actually makes these things reality. UsmleWorld offers 2 simulation tests (4 hours, 192 questions each) that are supposed to hopefully be harder than Step 1. I took the first one and they predicted […]

I must admit that studying is pretty hard these days. I know I need to hit it hard, but my brain keeps feeling overloaded. I break for 10 minutes, and then can only study for 15 minutes before I need another break. Honestly I feel like I’m just about maxed out…I can’t wait until I […]

After any serious battle or tribulation, you must treat yourself. I have already preordered my treat, and it is set to arrive on June 19th: Yeah baby!!!

The picture says it all: It feels so good to be done. Now I plan to really try to go over all the section in First Aid that I feel weak in. Only a couple more days left.

I am so freaking sick of this Step 1 study crap already that I can’t even find educated words to describe it. Although I only have about 98 questions left out of the 2,035 Step 1 Prep questions from USMLE World, I am starting to feel more and more demoralized by the difficulty of these […]

So today I took the Comprehensive Basic Science Examination (CBSE) that basically every medical school in the U.S. gives their students. The CBSE is supposed to test and evaluate how well you know all the basic science you should have learned in your first 2 years of medical school. So in essence, the CBSE is […]

So this past Tuesday marked the last test that I was required to take by my school…so I’M DONE!!! Last night I went to sleep without setting an alarm, which I havne’t don’t for the past month or so. It felt so good just to sleep; of course I still have Step 1 coming in […]

I woke up this morning not happy. We still have classes here at LLU and I have about 27 days until Step 1. I have finals starting this week and I’m stressed, tired, and truly sick of all of this. I know I should be grateful and glad for the opportunity to be in medical […]

So at the time of my writing this post I have exactly 1 month 3 hours and 5 minutes until I take Step 1. During this time it is impossible to talk to any second yr. medical student that doesn’t have this test on their mind for a good part of the day. There is […]

I’m typing this currently from my blackberry so forgive me if there are spelling errors. When I started college the preident’s wife, Dr. Baker told all of the freshman to start strong because it is much easier to maintain a high GPA than to increase a low GPA. I took her advice seriously and did […]

So yesterday about 3 hours of my night was taking up in a mandatory CPR class. I’m actually glad that I took it because before this if someone collapsed in front of me I would have had no idea what to do. Now if someone collapses in front of me, I probably still won’t know […]

Well it is is 1:30 a.m. and I just woke up. I went to be around 8 p.m. last night and my body decided it had had enough sleep. I don’t mind though because I have tests next week that I am not ready for. I made the mistake (or maybe not) of studying so […]

I currently drive a 1992 325i. I got it in my 2nd year of college and I instantly fell in love with the car. Even as a sophomore I was pretty sure that I wanted to be some type of surgeon so I decided to get some personalized plates that would mirror my interests. My […]

So yeah, I didn’t exactly know that the General Surgery Basic Science conference actually started at 6 a.m. and not 7 a.m., so I missed that. What did happen at 7 am. though was the Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conference where surgeons from all the fields (vascular, CT, general, peds) present patients who they either […]

So technically I’m a little behind the game in this Ortho stuff because I have no medical school research experience. People say that you can count the research you did in college for residency, but the smart ones know that for a competitive residency you need to get yourself on a project in medical school […]

So I think that I may have the Orthopedic surgery bug. I’m not sure where it came from but I just woke up one morning sayin, “Maybe I should do ortho.” Now this really actually started to cause me a lot of distress because I tend to have a one track mind, so when I […]

I got my first choice, and my wife and I have the same schedule so everything is pretty nice right now. Now I just need to pass this stupid year to get to the rotations.

So I hit a major milestone today. I finished reading First Aid for Step 1 2008 today. I will probably need to re-read it 2 more times before the actual test date, but for now I’m happy where I am. Now I plan to go through as many USMLE World question as i can, and […]

I’m on spring break, and I’m about to get my wisdom teeth taken out. They are putting me under which now that I think of it, I’m kind of scared of.

I almost forgot today was match day since we had tests. At LLU the students stick their face on the map where they matched. Check out the pics to see where folks went.

Why did got give us kidneys? Medical school would be 1000x easier if we had no kidneys and if I didn’t have to learn about renal pathophysiology. I know its important, but it makes my brain work after studying since 6 a.m. this morning. Our renal pathophys test is tomorrow at 1 p.m., so keep […]

I truly realized the importance of good counsel this week. Because of the good counsel I received from various 3rd years, my wife and I have made several changes to how we plan on scheduling our 3rd year rotations and when to take Step 1. My medical school has something called the National Auxillary, which […]

So the Dean of Academic Affairs came in to talk to us yesterday about getting ready for 3rd year. As part of that speech, they told us about an online section on the school’s website where we had to rank our choices for our 3rd year rotations. To be honest it felt very good to […]