Reflections on the first year

That's one year down, with four left to go. We finished our last exam and got our results just about three weeks ago, and my brain is finally functional again. What can I say about the first year? A series of one word adjectives spring to mind: intense, rewarding, frustrating, scary, overwhelming, challenging. I notice that there are quite a few seemingly negative adjectives there, but they're not intended as such. Rather, they're to impress that the first year was an experience that has completely changed my outlook on medicine, education, and life in general.

I should mention that just before my third term started, I did two weeks of a required placement on a sheep farm in Lancashire (which is part of the historic Yorkshire Dales, for those of you who are fans of James Herriott), itself an eye-opening experience which I'll say something about later. However, I made the slight mistake (in hindsight) of finishing that placement up just two days before third term was set to start - and as a result, I started the third term with a massive energy deficit.

Advice (unsolicited): when booking placements, leave yourself a week (if possible) between the end of the placement and your next commitment - you'll be tired.

So third term was short short short, only six weeks of actual teaching (and the last one was so sparse with lectures that the total might as well have been five weeks). But those six weeks were very very very full of information. We ran the entire nervous system, from cranial nerves to spinal nerves, and all the pathways betwixt and between. I think that earlier in the year I mentioned an introduction to the nervous system that took a week of first term. The material of that week was essentially comprised in the first lecture or two. So the three weeks of neurology was voluminous. I have a very strong biochemistry background, so when we were studying the alimentary system in term two, I was able to draw a lot on that to help comprehend the lecture material. However, with the nervous system, I had very little previous knowledge to work with. Which is where the part about "changing the way I look at education" comes in.

Medical education is often described as putting a fire hose in your mouth and turning it on. It's cliche. But it's not too far from the truth. You're not going to be able to take in everything that is given, and the three weeks of neurology taught me that. Some of it was intuitive, and some of it still evades me. That's ok - I've managed to get past the conceit that I'll be able to master everything, which as someone who has until this past year never not mastered anything I actually cared about, was not the easiest. However, if you can learn that particular bit early on, you'll be well served. Which is not to say that you can't try to master everything - goodness knows that I tried to do so, and will continue to try and do so. But my expectations for results are somewhat more realistic than they were going on.

Oh yes, results - they are after all what school is about, right? I'm not so sure I agree with that any more either. I passed my end of year exams (85% of the final grade - zoinks!), and passed fairly well by the RVC's standards. So I get to move on to the second year. I only failed one test the entire year, and achieved some fairly impressive scores along the way, as well as some fairly middling average scores. However, what do those results actually say? That there are some subjects that I am more comfortable with, that there are some assessment methods that I'm more comfortable with. Well, I could have said that without the tests. So here's what it comes down to: the tests (for the most part) are not how they measure your precise knowledge of everything that's been taught (although if you think about it, they do test a fairly good amount of it). The tests are how they measure your learning process, your thinking process. Since the stated goal of the RVC is to produce competent practitioners and life-long learners, then necessarily they need to assess our ability to learn. So the passing results (and good grades) which I achieved are nice, but they're secondary to the fact that I've started to grasp how to think about and learn this type of information.