I Think I Failed but Maybe it was Exactly What I Needed
The morning of Monday, November 9th, I gave up for the first time ever while studying for an exam. When I say give up, I mean that I knew I wasn’t completely ready for the exam, but was unable to stay up stay up all night long to make sure I was as close to ready as possible. It was 1:30 am and I was tired and my brain hurt from all the studying the past few days. So I just gave up and rolled into bed.
I walked into the Anatomy / Hematology exam at 8:30 am that morning already knowing that I was going to fail this exam a reasonable proportion of the time. My guess at the time was that I was probably about 75%+ to fail. Some people might say that I walked in with a defeated attitude, but trust me, that is not like me at all. I like to think I am pretty honest with myself about reasonable expectations, and my assessment was that my reasonable expectation was a fail. Unfortunately, my assessment was close to spot on.
The Hematology section was actually pretty good for me. There were 15 multiple choice questions, and I found them pretty easy, so I’m not worried about that. What I am worried about is my performance on the Anatomy portion of the exam.
The exam format was a bell-ringer, and it was my first time doing one. For those of you who have never done a bell-ringer exam before, the way it works is that the exam is made up of a bunch of stations (in my case, 60), and each station has something like a prosection (professional dissection of a cadaver, e.g. a heart)), diagram/photograph (e.g. a cross-section of the abdomen), radio-imaging (e.g. X-rays), or stand-alone questions. You get 1.5 minutes to look at the specimen/image at the station, and then there are about two questions on your sheet that you need to answer about it.
The vast majority of the questions were “Identify this” or “Identify that”. Which basically meant that the most and best preparation for the Anatomy component of the exam was spending time in the anatomy lab looking at our dissected cadavers as well as diagrams from the text books, and being able to name things. For someone who did not take the anatomy labs that seriously and didn’t even spend much time in the lab leading up to the exam, you can imagine how screwed I felt as I went from station and station and not being able to identify things right away (remember, you only have 1.5 minutes, and trust me, that goes by super fast).
Long story short, I knew I was screwed for the Anatomy portion within the first 10 minutes of doing it. My approach to the exam was just plain bad (poor work ethic, combined with not focusing on the right thing). I’m predicting a good mark on Hematology, and something like a 40% on the Anatomy portion of the exam. I heard that the Hematology and Anatomy sections might be grouped together for one mark, and so I’m hoping that happens and it saves me in some way.
If not, and if I do fail the Anatomy section, I’m not sure what will happen. 70% is a pass, and 60-70% is remediation – what happens if I get below 60%? Good question, if you know the answer, let me know =).
How do I feel? Feel pretty stupid, for one. A bit worried about what the consequences might be too. Questions like “if I fail, does this go on my transcript? Will this screw me over long term?”. We ask ourselves a gazillion questions whenever we screw up, despite the fact that what we should only worry about is the future, since we can’t change the past. Whether I failed or not, at this point, is kind of irrelevant in terms of what I can do about it. All I can do is damage control now, learn from my missteps, and make sure I don’t screw up in the future.
I’ll be honest, my thoughts were much more jumbled and messed up at the time. While I was struggling to study Anatomy the week before (and by struggling, I mostly mean struggling up the will to open my notes), I started questioning whether I should even be here. Why wasn’t I more motivated to study like my peers? Is that a function of my poor work ethic, or an underlying lack of interest in medicine? Was my poor exam performance subconscious self-sabotage to get me out of here?
I’m still trying to figure all these things out.
My Advice for the Anatomy Bell-Ringers
Anyways, maybe I failed, but that’s no reason for you future UofT med students to 
. I’ll give you my candid opinion on how best to prepare for this exam.
First thing is to realize that being able to identify anatomical structures in both the actual body, as well as in diagrams, is most important. Sure, in lecture we learn specific innervation pathways for various organs, or various functions of things, but the vast majority of the questions you will be asked are simply about identifying.
So slack off in lecture if you want, fine. But don’t slack off in the lab. Make sure that you’re ready to learn when you’re in the lab, and be willing to review stuff afterwards if you’re not sure. It is way easier to learn anatomy progressively overtime than to try and cram it all in one day. And, well, the anatomy labs close a few days before the exam, so you really do have to prepare ahead of time.
Personally, I didn’t take my anatomy labs as seriously as I should have and that was my down fall. I should have come prepared to lab, so that I would be more aware of what was going on, and would be able to take in all the information. When other members of your lab group are presenting their own dissections to you, already knowing what you’re looking at makes things a gazillion times easier. At the very least, you should take the time to go over the stuff on your own after so the lab session wasn’t a waste of time. I did neither of those things before this first anatomy exam.
Trying to Turn Over a New Leaf
All that said, I am tying to change things. Now that I know that I need to be more focused in labs, I’ve started to come to labs more prepared – and boy, has it made a massive difference.
It’s an amazing feeling to not feel like an idiot (lol). But seriously, it’s amazing how much more enjoyable the experience is once you have a clue what’s going on. Before, I would honestly dread going to the lab because I just felt stupid there. I realized that I didn’t dislike dissection – because when I dissected the other day, but was completely prepared, I really enjoyed doing it. Like I honestly had a really good time (I guess it helps to have a fantastic lab group that’s a lot of fun though). In any case, I realized dreaded being clueless and looking out of place, and not necessarily being in the lab itself.
Blog Activity
I’m pretty disappointed in my activity with this blog, especially answering your comments/questions/emails. I don’t think I’ve answered any emails/comments since September or something and I feel pretty bad. I really need to get around to that stuff. So if I didn’t reply to you, don’t be offended, it’s not personal – I’ve been rude to all of you (lol).
I’ve been thinking about whether I could force myself to write at least weekly or something, but I’m not really sure how to do that. If you have ideas, let me know.
Have another exam coming up in just less than two weeks (Embryology, Histology, Ethics). So I gotta start putting my face to the textbook for that. But this is going to be a fun week – going to a Raptors game Friday night. Haven’t watched a single game this season (not even on TV), so that should be epic.
Hope everyone’s having a good first semester!
Related Posts:
- Roller Coaster of a Day
- End of the 1st Semester of Medical School
- So This is What It’s Like to be “Below Average”
- So I had my clinical skills exam today…
- And so Medical School Begins… Day 1
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Comments
Ah, you sound exhausted. I can relate; I just started university and my grades are dropping drastically. Don’t worry too much about the replying and emailing – take care of yourself first! Good luck with everything!! 
Hey I was just curious if in your undergrad years you would take really birdie courses such as “Listening to Music” or the equivalent at York.
Hey, don’t feel too bad about it! Of course, I’m not at med school and I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, but it’s in the past and there’s nothing to do but to accept it and move on. I know how you feel after knowing that you bombed an exam.
And boy, Anatomy Bell Ringing Tests sound exhausting!!
Hey Nadine,
Thanks! You’re absolutely right – you just gotta move on.
The bell ringers weren’t that bad actually, in the sense that time really flies by. They are kind of stressful though – it’s not fun getting to a station and having no clue what’s going on, and realizing you have limited time to come up with something.
Wow, med school sounds so intimidating after your description of the bell ringers. So, why didn’t you study for that exam? Is it because you were too busy doing other homework? Do you think you could’ve studied more or were you simply too busy.
Hey Josh,
Sometimes, I think that fear is exactly what we need in order to better ourselves. But i think I have too much fear.I fear that I am not gonna do well on my exams, I fear that I am not working hard enough compared to others, and I fear i am not passion enough towards my goals….
I have too much fear, and It seems like i am not improving at all. I don’t know why, maybe doing bad on one exam is okay. Just self-reflect, and you will do better next time. But i find this is not usually the case, I find myself continue to do bad because I fear too much ! I constantly thinking about if i do bad again.. and this will happen. But in the end, I still do bad ….
Its good you realized that you are below your expectations and you are planing to do better next time. But do you ever fear that you might do bad again if you didn’t have enough time,etc. ? and how do you recover from those fears ?
thanks,
Hang in there Josh, it gets better. After a year in medical school, I often feel as clueless as when I first started. However, you do learn to cope with more information, deal with more stress and use your time more efficiently and wisely. Best of luck!