The Big update

I've been pretty busy lately. I have exams coming up next month (11/3-6, 3 3 hr long essay/multiple choice/lab exams, 2 4 hr long NBME neuroscience, neurobehavior exams), but I had to put some time aside to prepare for the Medical Student Mentorship Program's (MSMP)1st Annual Ethics Workshop.

The idea was proposed by one of our senior officers and I immediately jumped at the opportunity to help organize it. I made a shortlived effort to start up an Ethics club last year; I realized that I didn't have the time and energy to commit myself to another club since I'm already an officer for MSMP and the Family Medicine Interest Group (FMIG). We put together a Problem-based learning case on ethics. I found this great case about Andrea, a "locked-in" patient from an article in the Discover Magazine's Vital Signs column. "Andrea Beauchamp" helped the students talk through such difficult topics as advanced directives, access to medicine, universal health care, and physician assisted suicide.

The Ethics Workshop was a great success; a local MD/JD came out to give a primer on medical ethics and opened the room up for questions. At first, no one really asked anything, but then a few brave people started asking some really good and insightful questions. I was impressed! We split up into small groups to work on the cases.

I hesitate to post the case here online... most of the text is taken verbatim from the Vital Signs column. I will email the case to anyone who is interested. We put in some tutor prompts and background information and it is a good ethics case for anyone from pre-med to doctorhood, IMO.

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On a completely different note, I got the results for our practice NBME exam last week. It's the big exam that we take at the end of the second year to qualify for medical licensure. I got a 66/100 (a weighted score), which translates to a 190/300 (185 is a passing score, anything above 220 is considered competitive, I believe.) So... without any formal Board studying, I passed!

Woo hoo! :) The only downside of that is the ego boost and dangerous overconfidence that comes with hubris. crap.