Sorry for my recent absence(s). I’ve had a lot of life-stuff on my plate and the last few weeks of gaming left me a bit exhausted, since the chief’s family decided to cram two or three rotations worth of drama into one. When you change households to play the Temple of a goddess of death and feel relieved that things are bound to be more upbeat from now on, things are weird in your neighbourhood.
That said: Both of the High Priest’s toddler kids grew up and so did Diamond, his disciple. Grey is a rather cheerful, energetic girl, but she’s got nothing on Snake. Snake, contradicting every association we have with that particular animal, is the nicest kid ever, with both the Good and Friendly traits.
Med is different from any study I’ve done before and it was really hard to know what to study. Part of your job for the first part of second year medicine is to figure out what methods of study work for you. This isn’t the ‘right way’, it’s just my “cookie recipe” - by which I mean, cookies are awesome pretty much any way you make them, but this is how I do it.
I did not make these delicious looking cookies.
Basic principles
Go broad at first - have a basic idea of everything instead of diving down into the details of one thing at the expense of everything else
Try to see what you’re learning not so much as a science paper but as preparation for clinical learning in 4th and 5th year (and beyond).
When it comes to exams you’ll be doing things in case format, so it makes sense to keep your notes like that, at least in part.
Don’t try to memorise every detail on every slide. Focus on the lecture and module objectives!
Use the resources that your classmates link to on your page. There’s some awesome stuff floating around from past and current med students.
Anatomy give some great lab checklists - focus on being able to identify and understand things included in those checklists
Look at the appendices of your MSK lab book (when you get it) - they are gold!
Netters cards are pretty helpful for OSPE. So are the wrap up slides from Path - use them to test that you can identify the structures and pathologies involved.
Organising your notes
For every disease or pathology you learn about, you’ll be getting information from multiple different ‘subject’ areas at a time. Make yourself combined factsheets with everything you’ve been taught about a topic. An example of one I am making about meningitis is here - please note, it’s not finished (coz I’m crap) but will give you an idea about what I mean! If you use Google docs you can link between lecture notes and summary sheets within documents - I’m doing that a lot more this year.
On top of the disease summary sheets, I have block module documents (I just use Google docs) combining anatomy, physiology and clinical (radiology etc) notes. I pick out especially clinically relevant details and put them in a short “clinical summary” section at the top.
Pathology notes and disease-specific Micro notes go into the disease summary sheets mostly (with any ‘general’ non disease specific stuff in a combined pathology principles document. Other vertical modules, where lectures often relate to the block content happening at the time, I keep in separate documents so I can easily save them in multiple folders in my Google Drive to ensure they are available both when I am looking for notes about the block module and when I am looking for all the vertical module lectures.
Don’t neglect the information provided in your Micro labs, especially about procedures you performed in the lab. Know why you did them, what they told you, and include them on your disease summary sheets for the relevant conditions.
Pathology and Cases
I think Pathology is the most useful class in med, because it brings together content from all the other classes in a way that feels more clinically relevant. Do yourself a favour and take the time to fully prepare for it - don’t just skim read the slides half an hour before your tutorial, really spend some time understanding them. I do this by preparing what I can of my disease summaries in advance (and adding to them later using the wrap up slides).
Cases is similarly useful in synthesising information from other classes, but it’s tricky because they also throw an overwhelming amount of new readings etc at you. Don’t get too hung up about those - do them, but focus on how they relate to the tutorial questions in your case book.
Know your bugs and drugs
You are expected to be able to identify an organism based on gram stain and morphology (they might show you pictures for this), and any other organism-specific tests you perform in Micro labs. You won’t be examined on physically performing the tests but you need to know what they mean. Once you’ve identified an organism you also need to know how you would treat it. Make yourself flashcards for everything you know about the common bacteria - especially those in the appendices of your Micro lab book.
Know the antibiotics, and know their classes. Hit up a third year for a copy of the “bugs and drugs” cheat sheet to make a start on memorising the antibiotics, although since I believe one f your lecturers is new you might like to ask them if they think the sheet still covers the main things you need to know. Also, don’t just ignore the lists of most common causative organisms in different age groups/demographics - these are likely to come up in exams.
Smash that OSCE
OSCE forms a big part of your final grade so it makes sense to dedicate a fair bit of time to studying for it. Go into your Clinical Skills tutorials every week having read the tutorial and already attempted the skills on a willing classmate or flatmate. I also make flashcards out of the clinical information in the Clinical Skills book (theory questions in your OSCEs could cover this info, plus I imagine I’ll probably need it in 4th and 5th).
Practice under time pressure and with the pressure of a “fishbowl” or an audience from very early on so that it’s not a shock when you have the time pressure and observers in the exam.
My best advice to prepare for OSCE itself is to form a small group (4 or so people) to practice together.Start this early. To practice for the interviews, each write one or two patient scripts/scenarios and get some willing friends/siblings/hall of residence friends/friendly third years to be your actors for a practice session in exchange for chocolate etc.
This is the final in a series of posts on surviving second year medicine. You can get links to the whole series here.
Diamond is diligently making beeswax candles, since their beekeeping products are going to become a secondary source of income for the Temple and the people that live in it.
Snake, however, is rather unimpressed with accumulating wealth in general, if his expression is anything to go by.
Unfortunately, the black wolf that Diamond brought with him when he started his apprenticeship was getting just as old as the rest of the original four, and sadly passed away.
Dark: “I have a terrible, wonderful secret that nobody must ever know, but you’re the chief! And my friend. So I’ll tell you.”
Spike: “Alright, I’m listening. Your secret is safe with me, promise.”
Dark: “You have to swear. On something important. You can’t tell anyone.”
Spike: “When have I ever told anybody’s secrets?”
Dark: “You told me that Spade yelled at Grip that he likes him and wants to be boyfriend and girlfriend, only both are boyfriends.”
Spike: “Pretty sure I used different words, but fair enough. I swear on my mother’s grave, on the dead-born child next to her, and on my father’s grave, too.”
Dark. “Okay. Are you ready to hear my secret?”
Spike: “Haha, sure. What is it? Did you eat one of the candles your dad makes?”
Dark: “I can do magic.”
Spike: “... like how?”
Dark: “Like a witch. I can make lights appear and it feels like I can do other things, too, I just have to figure out how.”
Spike: “... fuck. You’re serious. Shit ... er ... don’t tell anybody else. I won’t either. I swore, after all ..."
Dark: “You shouldn't say ‘shit’ so much, chief, or my dad is going to make you clean the outhouse. He always does it to me when I use bad words.”
Spike: “Well, your dad is a clueless- ... an idi- ... moroni- ... he can’t make me clean anybody’s outhouse, because I’m bigger than him. Now, about your secret - don’t tell your dad, either. That’s a pretty ... pretty big secret and you need to take good care of it.”
Dark: “Okay, I won’t. But ... can I ask something? Because you say it sometimes and I’ve been scared to ask up until now. I thought you’d think that I’m stupid because I don’t know, but now we have a big secret together and I’m not scared anymore. I wonder ... what does ‘fuck’ mean?”
After Diamond moved out, two things happened: Firstly, Harmony threw a party and invited Quartz, he went and immediately rolled the wish to kiss Knife, who is not only 30 years older than him, but also extremely married.
Secondly, StoryProgression assigned the role of Town Gigolo to Diamond.
Blood Moon, newest disciple of the Temple to the Guardian of Death’s Door, was actually really late for work. She’s taken over a little stand on the marketplace, where she’ll be selling honey and beeswax candles.
Disciple Diamond needed ... something. In many ways, moving to the temple had been the best decision of his life so far, but he no longer felt content. He liked the bees, he liked the birds, but he actually liked women a whole lot more. Quartz was so ... earnest in all he did and still foolishly devoted to his dead wife. Diamond had little to no desire to be like that. He was good at doing his chores, he liked hard work, but apart from that, the temple was no longer what he needed. Especially now, that disciple Blood Moon would take up some of his responsibilities.
