J's Mental Burnout & Exam Week

Midterms didn't go as well for me as they did for N. I did OK in neuroscience and genetics, but I need to do a lot better in physiology. The bright side is that I did well enough that I don't need to think about deceling. Aside from physiology being a hard test, I think a big reason for my poor performance was anxiety. I just didn't "feel" like taking the exam, if that makes sense. In fact I was really dreading it in the week leading up to the exam. There are several reasons for this, and to some extent they reflect what student life is like at SGU.

One huge disadvantage of attending such a large medical school is that you're around so many other stressed out medical students. Some of my friends were really negative leading up to exam week, gossiping about how the midterm was incredibly difficult last term, how many people deceled, etc. Others were so positive and overconfident that they came off as jerks. In fact, my roommate told me on several occasions how he completed over 400 practice questions for physiology.

No matter how disciplined you are as a student, hearing these kinds of things day in and day out does affect your mental health. I felt stressed out, I wasn't getting restful sleep, I was downing 4 cups of coffee per day, I hadn't gone to the gym in a week and a half, and my diet largely consisted of heat and eat food that I bought at IGA. I'm pretty sure that if I had centered myself mentally, I could have done a lot better on my exam. SGU isn't out to get you, neither are your professors, or your friends....medical school is just hard, and you can really be your own worst enemy during exam week. For finals, I'll really be trying to work on this aspect of myself. I'll let you know how it goes! -J

Term 2 Midterms: Physiology

To those that read this blog, I am sorry for the lack of posts for the past few weeks. We have been preoccupied with midterm week. Last week consisted of some ups, some downs, coffee, minimal sleep, and a lot of studying. On top of studying, SGU true blue campus faced intermittent internet loss and interruption of electricity for a few hours which led our AC to reset to off for a few days. I am so so glad that all those problems have been fixed. Although midterm week started off rough, it ended well! :)

After midterms, most students evaluate their scores and try to make changes on how they study to prepare adequately for finals. So, I thought I would dedicate the next few post to tips for term 2 midterms, how I prepared, and changes in my study plan for finals. Today's post will be focused on the Physiology midterm. I hope to have a post up about each one of the midterms by the end of the week! :)

Physiology
Physiology was our first exam of the week. The exam covered the first 5 units of material which include the following: cell, autonomic nervous system (ANS), pharmacology, muscle, and cardiac physiology. Our class accidentally got instant feedback on a score, which caused a lot of anxiety and anger. However, we had to remember that physiology was only one exam and we still had 2 more major exams (Genetics/Immunology and Neuroscience) for the rest of the week. Here are a few tips and methods I used to study for my physiology exam.

1) Cell, ANS, and pharmacology were all on the Unified quiz for Physiology. So, I thoroughly studied these units for a previous test. Therefore, it was easier to review for the midterm.
2) ANS: I had a huge table of all the drugs that we needed to know and put it up on my wall in my room. Because it was up on my wall, I looked at the chart several times a day and eventually I was able to identify names, functions, and category of drug. This is super helpful to learn the material because some of the drugs are applicable for the cardiac material as well.  For future term 2 students, the drug list is discussed in lecture only a few days before the unified quiz. So, start memorizing early.
3) Heart cycle: I hand drew a Wigger's diagram with each line in a different color and put it up on my wall in my room. A few days before the midterm, I read through the essential notes for that specific lecture to confirm that I had covered everything.  I also drew a complete pressure/volume graph with the potential changes that can take place (Clearly, my wall looked pretty snazzy last week, haha)
4) GRAPHS GRAPHS GRAPHS!!! I did not count how many graphs we had on our test, but WOW, it was a lot. KNOW GRAPHS.
5) I did a ton of MOTO questions. There are over 600 questions for the cardiac section. For future students, start working on those early.
6) For some reason, the material that was covered during the muscle section seemed like a blur compared to the amount of time that was spent on the cardiac lecture. So, I had to go over the muscle material quite a few times. I made a huge chart for muscle to help me understand the similarities and differences between skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle.
7) Not only understand the content in each lecture, but know how to apply it to different clinical situations.
8) Sakai quizzes (practice quizzes that the department posts online) were also helpful initially to assess my understanding on specific topics.

Based on my midterm score, am I going to change anything before finals?
Although I did fine on the midterm, I still have areas that I want to improve upon before the final. So, my two key areas of focus are starting practice questions earlier and paying very very close attention to graphs that are highly emphasized in class.

Feel free to let us know if you have any questions. Our next post will be about the Genetics/Immunology midterm and hopefully will be up shortly. Hope everyone's week is going great! :)