[update] Midyear exam and OSCE done.

Yesterday and today, I completed my midyear OSCE and written exam. It was a struggle to prepare without having a swotvac/cram week. That said, the exams were not worth a large proportion of our final mark, so the timing isn't too unforgivable on the university's part.

For the OSCE yesterday, it was my first ever OSCE. I did a lot of things properly, but there were some things which I forgot to do. For instance, I forgot to wash my hands until almost the end of my clinical examination (oops) and didn't remember to make the actor lie down before palpating the carotids (to avoid the tensing up of the sternocleidomastoid muscle).

For history taking, I was reasonably comfortable talking to the actor about her abdominal pain, but forgot to ask about smoking and alcohol history, and I didn't list the symptoms of common bile duct obstruction apart from jaundice and pain properly (pale stools, dark urine, itch).

Ah well. As long as I don't make the same mistakes again, it's OK. After all, this was my first OSCE, and it wasn't worth too much.

With the written exam for FBS, it was quite difficult. I was reasonably confident with more than half of the questions, but there was a significant number of questions which I was unsure about or almost clueless about.

That said, others in the course that I have spoken to have also found the test to be difficult. Maybe the end of year exams won't be hard in comparison then, given that the class average for the subject was above 70% last year. I guess that way is good. I think it's better to have harder tests before the final so that we don't get false confidence before the final exams.

Anyway. That concludes all my exams this semester. There's two more days left for med this semester, which will include some revision lectures scheduled after the midyear exam. Such a strange thing to do.

For those reading still with exams to do, study well and I wish you all the best for them.