Today the mark breakdowns for us in MD2 for our PCP2 subject (the main one this year) were released. As I had expected, it was the OSCEs which brought my mark down. However, it is good to see the individual breakdown to analyze where I did well and where I did things badly.
For the MCQ, there was not much of an issue. I scored above average; just one point less than in the final progress test actually (both were out of 80).
For the SAQ, my score as a percentage was not as high, but it was still above average and just one point from the "H1" standard.
Now the OSCEs. Overall, I did worse than average, but this was a mixed picture:
There were two stations where I had actually scored above average. Now this is actually the first time I scored any OSCE stations above the average, so I was happy about this fact. These were the respiratory exam (COPD) and iron deficiency anemia (bowel cancer) stations.
There was one station where I had scored within a point of the average. This was the surgical abdominal exam (acute cholecystitis) station. After the exam I realized that I forgot to assess for rebound tenderness. I would have remembered if it was appendicitis signs but forgot for cholecystitis! Ah well.
Then for the other two stations, I scored below the average. Perhaps that is an understatement though - I scored below the "cut scores" (aka pass marks) for both of these. These were the headache history (SAH) and weight loss (T1DM) stations. Actually this is worse than I had expected to score. However, I do think that I have a tendency of narrowing in a diagnosis and not asking enough things to rule out other diagnoses, or in the weight loss station case, not even thinking of T1DM as a possibility in that station! I also don't know if I am particularly good at getting the "rapport" or "global" types of marks in the OSCEs for history taking. It is something that I need to work on for the future.
Overall, it seems like I have improved slightly on the OSCEs this time around compared to last time, although I have not tested to see if it is statistically significant. Last time my exams were worse than my history stations on average, but this year it seems to have reversed into the other direction. It seems like I will need to work on history taking in general for next year.
Anyway, scoring worse overall this year (by about 3-4 points) was mainly because the OSCEs were worth more this year and SAQ/MCQs were worth less overall. Actually scoring some OSCE stations above average for a change this time was a promising trend, but two history stations below the "cut scores" is a bit concerning. I will have to improve this into the future. Hoping for a turn-around like the Australian cricket team this summer. So far they have been quite spectacular!
Monday, December 16, 2013
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
[update] 2013 MD2 - results release, year in review and looking ahead
Today the final results were released for MD2. I did not do as well as I would have liked to, but I have passed quite comfortably. We have not received our OSCE marks yet, but it is most likely the OSCEs are where I have lost marks again this year. Ah well. At least it seems like I won't have to sit any supplementaries or repeat this year!
I guess maybe a reason why I would have liked a better result was because I did a lot better in the progress test. For the final progress test, I received a score of 70/80, which is a major improvement from the first one I posted at the start of the year! That said, the progress test is only testing on MCQs, and I think it is in the OSCEs where I have not scored that well.
In terms of knowledge and MCQs, I think that practicing BMJ onExamination questions was very useful in gaining knowledge. There is a free subscription through the medical school. Being interactive, it can facilitate learning more than reading over lecture notes or books. The other thing for exams is because the university repeats many questions, well... fill in the rest of the sentence yourself.
Generally speaking, this has been an interesting year, in the clinical environment and learning about things which are directly related to clinical management which build upon our basic sciences in first year.
There were a few highlights for me this year in medicine personally. There was once a patient who we were examining in a bedside tutorial, and everyone in our tutorial group took turns to listen to his heart. When it was my turn, he jokingly asked me: "are you too young to do medicine? How old are you? 12?" I laughed a bit at this, and said to him "Yeah, I'm probably the youngest in the tutorial group. Just switch around the two digits." The ironic thing is that back in the times of undergraduate entry, my age would be average for the first clinical year. It was only "young" because this was a graduate entry course!
There were quite a few times where doctors and other staff at the hospital asked us medical students what courses we did before medicine or what other life experiences we may have had prior to doing this. Although there was the occasional person who did something quite different, usually the answer from most students would be science or biomedicine/biomedical science. This was exemplified once when a dermatologist was taking one of our lectures. He asked everyone to introduce themselves with their names and what they did before medicine. Almost everyone in the lecture theater systematically said their name and indicated that they previously did biomedicine, biomedical science or science! It was quite humorous and ironic indeed!
Another thing which was the highlight in the hospital was when I was following the ward round of the Director of General Medicine. One of the patients did not feel like eating their food that morning, and the professor noticed the full bowl of food on the table. I was very surprised when I saw her spending the time and effort to spoon up the contents of the bowl and help feed the patient herself! Very remarkable!
Another highlight was that I was part of the winning team for the Inter-Clinical School Quizbowl Championship. In fact, this was a total accident! I was planning to attend the final of the competition so that I could eat some free pizza and learn some medicine from the quiz answers. I wasn't part of the team which was supposed to represent St Vincent's, but one of the team members was having a rural GP placement and unable to attend the final. One of the other team members suggested that I take their place. I was quite nervous when we were sitting there waiting during the first round since we played in the second and third rounds that night, and even more so when taking the position ready to answer the questions. But I managed to get the first question of that second round right, and quickly got settled and got a few random questions right in that round, making a contribution to the team. It's funny what happens sometimes when you least expect it!
Looking ahead to next year, I am not that keen on some of those rotations, although some others might be interesting. I start off with the mental health rotation, then aged care, then GP. Semester 2 will consist of women's and children's health. I am not looking forward to the first two so much, but the later few should be better.
It has been just over three years since I first made this blog. I am already halfway through medicine! Time has gone by very quickly!
The blog post graph still has this annoying glitch which displays some years incorrectly, so I have corrected them in the diagram above. Although my blog views are higher than I would have ever imagined when I started the blog, I have lost readers recently. This would have been unexpected for me at the start of this year since I thought that people would be more interested in clinical medicine over preclinical medicine. However, the requirement to protect the confidentiality of patients precludes us from sharing too many of the interesting events which sometimes occur on the wards. I have erred on the safer side in not posting too much where confidentiality can be impaired, and thus I have not made as many posts this year compared to last year.
Perhaps another factor is because I have made some more posts about politics this year due to the election, and the "Scrap the cap" campaign issues. I have a feeling that many of you are not so interested in politics. But politics is quite important and as the scrap the cap campaign has highlighted, policies have quite a significant impact on our future not only in medicine but also in life in general. As such, I will continue posting on these matters whenever I feel it is necessary. However, given the electoral cycle, it is unlikely that I will post as much on these matters next year.
Regardless of all these factors mentioned, I guess I have to lift my game to make my blog more engaging to everyone in the future to get back to where I was before!
Finally, to everyone who enjoys reading my blog and commenting, thank you very much for your continued reading. I hope you continue to enjoy reading my blog into the future!
I guess maybe a reason why I would have liked a better result was because I did a lot better in the progress test. For the final progress test, I received a score of 70/80, which is a major improvement from the first one I posted at the start of the year! That said, the progress test is only testing on MCQs, and I think it is in the OSCEs where I have not scored that well.
In terms of knowledge and MCQs, I think that practicing BMJ onExamination questions was very useful in gaining knowledge. There is a free subscription through the medical school. Being interactive, it can facilitate learning more than reading over lecture notes or books. The other thing for exams is because the university repeats many questions, well... fill in the rest of the sentence yourself.
Generally speaking, this has been an interesting year, in the clinical environment and learning about things which are directly related to clinical management which build upon our basic sciences in first year.
There were a few highlights for me this year in medicine personally. There was once a patient who we were examining in a bedside tutorial, and everyone in our tutorial group took turns to listen to his heart. When it was my turn, he jokingly asked me: "are you too young to do medicine? How old are you? 12?" I laughed a bit at this, and said to him "Yeah, I'm probably the youngest in the tutorial group. Just switch around the two digits." The ironic thing is that back in the times of undergraduate entry, my age would be average for the first clinical year. It was only "young" because this was a graduate entry course!
There were quite a few times where doctors and other staff at the hospital asked us medical students what courses we did before medicine or what other life experiences we may have had prior to doing this. Although there was the occasional person who did something quite different, usually the answer from most students would be science or biomedicine/biomedical science. This was exemplified once when a dermatologist was taking one of our lectures. He asked everyone to introduce themselves with their names and what they did before medicine. Almost everyone in the lecture theater systematically said their name and indicated that they previously did biomedicine, biomedical science or science! It was quite humorous and ironic indeed!
Another thing which was the highlight in the hospital was when I was following the ward round of the Director of General Medicine. One of the patients did not feel like eating their food that morning, and the professor noticed the full bowl of food on the table. I was very surprised when I saw her spending the time and effort to spoon up the contents of the bowl and help feed the patient herself! Very remarkable!
Another highlight was that I was part of the winning team for the Inter-Clinical School Quizbowl Championship. In fact, this was a total accident! I was planning to attend the final of the competition so that I could eat some free pizza and learn some medicine from the quiz answers. I wasn't part of the team which was supposed to represent St Vincent's, but one of the team members was having a rural GP placement and unable to attend the final. One of the other team members suggested that I take their place. I was quite nervous when we were sitting there waiting during the first round since we played in the second and third rounds that night, and even more so when taking the position ready to answer the questions. But I managed to get the first question of that second round right, and quickly got settled and got a few random questions right in that round, making a contribution to the team. It's funny what happens sometimes when you least expect it!
Looking ahead to next year, I am not that keen on some of those rotations, although some others might be interesting. I start off with the mental health rotation, then aged care, then GP. Semester 2 will consist of women's and children's health. I am not looking forward to the first two so much, but the later few should be better.
It has been just over three years since I first made this blog. I am already halfway through medicine! Time has gone by very quickly!
The blog post graph still has this annoying glitch which displays some years incorrectly, so I have corrected them in the diagram above. Although my blog views are higher than I would have ever imagined when I started the blog, I have lost readers recently. This would have been unexpected for me at the start of this year since I thought that people would be more interested in clinical medicine over preclinical medicine. However, the requirement to protect the confidentiality of patients precludes us from sharing too many of the interesting events which sometimes occur on the wards. I have erred on the safer side in not posting too much where confidentiality can be impaired, and thus I have not made as many posts this year compared to last year.
Perhaps another factor is because I have made some more posts about politics this year due to the election, and the "Scrap the cap" campaign issues. I have a feeling that many of you are not so interested in politics. But politics is quite important and as the scrap the cap campaign has highlighted, policies have quite a significant impact on our future not only in medicine but also in life in general. As such, I will continue posting on these matters whenever I feel it is necessary. However, given the electoral cycle, it is unlikely that I will post as much on these matters next year.
Regardless of all these factors mentioned, I guess I have to lift my game to make my blog more engaging to everyone in the future to get back to where I was before!
Finally, to everyone who enjoys reading my blog and commenting, thank you very much for your continued reading. I hope you continue to enjoy reading my blog into the future!
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