Subaqua Sternal Rubs

an actual post on this blog! To catch everyone up, yes, I passed Step I, and now am doing my first clinical clerkship in Pediatrics in Brooklyn. After a long time of being without, I finally got internet in my apartment today, so you are all being graced with a new post. Unfortunately, though it will have to be a bit short, since I have my final exams (oral and written) in Pediatrics in a week. Though I promise I will be updating more regularly shortly. Really, I swear!

My hands are shaking so much it's hard to type. Just on a whim, I checked OASIS to see if there was any news on my Step I score. Turns out it was mailed yesterday (so I should have it in plenty of time to start rotations). With my heart pounding, I tried the "OASIS trick" where you try and register to take Step I again, and I got this message:

Our records indicate that you have already passed this Step or Step Component or the equivalent NBME® Part. The USMLE Policy on Reexamination generally does not allow applicants to retake a Step or Step Component if they have already passed that Step or Step Component or the equivalent NBME Part.

While I won't know my actual score until I receive the score report in the mail, I really don't care what it is right now: all that matters is that miraculously I seem to have passed.

It's official, I no longer have to submit myself to radioactive toxic waste in Dirty Jersey:

Hi Carsten!

We have been able to accomodate you at NY Methodist Hospital for cores. You will receive confirmed placement shortly.

Clinical Placement Coordinator

Now that I have my confirmed placement, I have to start looking for apartments quick - I start August 28th. Crazy thing is, I can't find anything decent for under $1,500/mo in Brooklyn! If anyone knows anybody that died in NYC recently, please let me know!

That's all I can say about my USMLE Step I exam experience: It's Over. I knew some without looking at the question, I knew I should have known some, and I had no idea what they were talking about on some of them. Of the latter, I just hope they were among the 50 "experimental questions" and not among the 300 questions that were scored.

I took the exam on July 20th, and there is nothing to do now but wait a nebulous "4 to 6 weeks" for my score report to see if I was able to cram enough useless information in my brain over the last two years to satisfy the National Board of Medical Examiners. I call a lot of the information useless because no practicing physician knows half of it (I know, I asked!). They say you really learn medicine in the clinical years by doing. I'm definitely looking forward to this, provided I passed that minor roadblock on the way.

Posting should pick up again soon. I spent the last week on Lake George camping without internet access (hence the delay in posting), but I have a few shifts scheduled in the hospital ED and on the ambulance over the next few weeks to provide me with at least some fodder for this blog.

Today I got a nice letter from the ECFMG (Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates), who are the fine folks who handle all the paperwork and register me to take my USMLE Step I exam. The letter starts off:

Dear Dr. Stracke:

Well that's nice of them - they gave me a field promotion, since I didn't think I graduated medical school for another 2 years…

The letter goes on to say:

Your score report for USMLE Step I/Step II is available.

Even better news! Now not only do I not have to graduate medical school to be a doctor, but I don't have to take the licensing exam either! I just hope that my score report shows that I passed the exam (even though I am not scheduled to take it for another month.)

Sorry I kind of zoned out there for a bit. If you haven't guessed, I have safely made it home. I spent a week "relaxing" (working at the hospital and riding ambulance), but now I am in the midst of my US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step I studying. (Note the new countdown timer in the sidebar. Though why does my life always seem to revolve around countdowns?) Anyways, posting on here will be sporadic for the next month and a half, as I spend most of each day in the books. (Posting about studying can't be that interesting, I mean it's not that interesting to begin with.) I plan on resuming a more regular posting schedule after the exam is done, and I start my 3rd year in Clinical Rotations.

It's official — I am finally done with the Caribbean forever. Though it wasn't with the usual German efficiency (8.5 hours vs. normal 3), grades for yesterday's Pathophys exam were up, and I officially passed. I am really to exhausted to write much, and hot (since I am in the lecture hall without A/C - disconnected internet at home), but needless to say I am ectstatic about finally being a 3rd year (well, I guess I do have that pesky Step I still in the way). Going out to a celebratory dinner tonight, then I have two days to pack and get ready, and then my flight home is Monday morning. Can't wait to see everyone!

to being done with Basic Sciences. Passed my Pharmacology final today, just one more exam (Pathophysiology) on Thursday which I really can't fail, and I will finally be DONE! Finally moving on to clinicals. I can't tell you how excited I am.

And then I remember I still have to take the USMLE Step I.

Anyways, 6 days, 10 hours and 59 minutes until my flight takes off, and I leave the Caribbean forever. (Or at least until I come back for a vacation in 10 years…)

You know you are mentally ready to go home when:

-you start running out of bismuth subsalicylate (Pepto-Bismol ®) from eating your own cooking.
-you start driving on the wrong (or the right, depending on how you look at it) side of the road.

For some reason, the Business Office here at the Kingstown Medical College made a singular check for all SVG CPR instructors out in my name for the recent recertification sessions. So, couple of days ago, I had to go into the capital city to cash this massive check (EC$1,576) at a bank. After my tenth time around the block looking for a parking space, I was in the right hand lane, and attempting to make a right hand turn. On that block, the parking is on the right hand side of the street, next to the fruit and vegetable market. Somehow my brain thought that meant I should be turning into the right hand lane, and unfortunately I had forgotten that this section of the street was two-way traffic, and I had just turned into the on-coming lane. Luckily there were no "Reggae bus" drivers speeding at 800mi/hr, and I managed to squeeze into the correct left lane with no damage to the vehicle, other than a few glares from other drivers.

In other news:

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember my doubtfulness about the replacement for my lost ATM card ever making it to St. Vincent? Well, it turns out that the people in the Customer Service department at my bank didn't believe me when I said that no one in SVG has a physical street mailing address, just a P.O. box, so they mailed my replacement card home instead. Thanks guys, that does me a lot of good there. Their big reason why they couldn't mail it to my P.O. Box? "No one will be there to sign for it." Well, guess what? There was no one home at the time my replacement card was delivered, and a lack of a signature didn't prevent them from leaving it unattended on a porch. Funny thing is, if they had sent it to my P.O. Box here in St. Vincent, they would have gotten a signature from one of the secretaries at the school to whom all express packages for students are delivered. Oh well, I guess that is what happens when you let someone with a G.E.D. run things.

Today I experienced another Customer Service debacle with my cell phone company. Since the beginning of the term in January, my phone has been on a "Seasonal Suspend" plan for $5.95/mo to allow me to keep the account open, as well as my phone number. Usually, customers are only allowed to be on this plan for 3 months out of a year, but exceptions were made for me, so I usually ended up on the "Suspend" plan for 10-11 months out of the year while I was away at school. The company's generosity ended this month when I was automatically put back on the $39.95/month plan. When I emailed the Customer Service department, it took them about a week for them to realize that they needed to have voice contact to straighten things out and extend my "Suspend" plan the extra month and a half I would still be out of the country. The first agent was great, and actually called me long distance, since the local phone company here doesn't allow toll-free access to 800/888/etc. numbers. Unfortunately, he couldn't help me, and as usual, I was transferred to about 3 different people before I got to someone who could authorize an extension of the "Suspend" plan. However, he told me he would not be able to give me the extra month and a half, because my account has been suspended for so much of the last two years that the company was "loosing money." Tell me how a company can loose money by getting paid every month for no services being provided other than refraining from hitting the delete button on my account in the database. Now I get to pay a lot more for services not being utilized. Well, I could look at the bright side of things - it's only one extra month, and my phone will be ready to use when I get home (no waiting for re-activation).