Month:

Even though I started preparing for second year final exams 1.5years earlier, I still was stressed during all the exams. Yet again, I had worked very hard and I believed that I deserved some vacation time. But this time it was different, I definitely had learnt my lesson after first year and I improvised my study time table with previous experiences. Just like in second year, I started studying from the first day. Also, I decided to have some fun in third year.

I went as deep as the sea floor and as high as the mountains in India, along with a luxury trip to the busiest place for Indians in Middle East(can you guess?*). Along with vacations, I went to attend cartooning classes and cleared my music junior exam. Apart from all this, I renewed my interest to read novels, doodle and surf the web. For a bit of academic touch, I tried studying Kaplan notes along with my friend. Since I was not able to study anatomy,biochem or physio in second year(due to overload of study material), I tried again to study those 3 subjects. Even though I was only partially successful, Kaplan notes and USMLE prep gave me hope for the future that I don’t have to byheart the textbooks forever. I did too many things in third year and writing all about them won’t suffice to say that, I never let an opportunity pass by.

One carry-home message from my third year prep is that, I had read every chapter of all the 3 subjects(PSM, Ophthal, ENT) well before 3 months of third year final exams. In the end, I was just revising the topics though I remembered nothing. But revision was easy once I finished underlining the first time.

As far as individual subject progress goes: How much ever I tried to tackle my favorite PSM, it wasn’t possible. So I had to resort to brief reading and giving my personal touch to answers(the beginning of many more). I was lucky to have been placed in a good unit with a good teacher who used to show every case in OPD for findings in Ophthal. Clinical cases helped me learn the Ophthal terminology and clinical features soon. Since I was interested I surgery, I thought that I liked ENT by default though it didn’t work out that way. This was the tough nut in third year but it had to crack with exam pressure.

On the whole, third year taught me that I can have fun in MBBS if I managed my time.

* it’s Dubai, UAE

PSM: Preventive and social medicine, ENT: Ear, nose and throat/otorhinolaryngology, USMLE: Unites States Medical Licensing Examination, OPD: Out Patient Department.

Once I recovered from my first year exam shock, though I passed, I knew that I needed to strengthen my study strategy to survive my next set of final exams. I believed it was beginner’s luck which helped me pass MBBS first year exams. My one year of vacation was sufficient to pull me back into the game. Without wasting even a second, I was studying parts of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry which I had skipped. Finally, I was understanding the subjects by referring to Netter’s, students’ Gray’s, Guyton and Satyanarayanan. Just like other Indian students, I too believe the fact that, students memorize for exams but study later to understand. That is what I did and even the terms didn’t seem to be so confusing anymore.

My savior subject in second year of MBBS was Pathology and Robbins was the Gita. I spent 6 months familiarizing pathological research and even though I didn’t understand a word, I tried to read research articles. I thought by the end of 6 months, I would magically learn Microbiology and Pharmacology but it didn’t work out that way. So I tried strategies to become proficient with the various terms of micro and pharmac, for which I took another 6 months. By the end of a year, I had studied Pathology but was in the beginner level for Micro and Pharmac, and all I knew in Forensic was what I had seen in post-mortem postings. 

How I learned Microbiology which included General Microbiology, Bacteriology, Virology, Mycology and Parasitology is a huge mystery. My strategy to learn Micro was to get used to the bacteria names alone first, followed by noting down all the criteria to classify bacteria, and I made a table for all the special investigations required for diagnosing a bacteria. Once I had a complete idea of the bacterial world, I did the same for virology. My Micro textbook had a simple and concise portion for Mycology and for the first time ever I understood Micro at the first read. Later I chose to raise the bar for Micro by reading Panicker and loved the illustrations given there. That is when I realized that Micro was a beautiful subject and our opinion depends on the source we read from. 

As I was getting comfortable with Microbiology, Pharmac was another lunatic world. Using the same strategy as micro, I made a note of all drugs names in a small notebook for my easy reference. I watched online videos and used google extensively to familiarise myself. Though the indications for use of any drug was easy to grasp(thanks to patho and KD Tripathi) I never could learn the adverse effects and contraindications for all group of drugs. And the vast anti-microbial spectrum for each antibiotic was a huge pain. Finally, I gave up the day before my pharmac 2nd theory paper and it’s still puzzling how I miraculously scored more than 50%. 

With all the tricks I had, patho, micro and pharmac were manageable but I was out of ideas to study forensic. It was then when I found this amazing app ‘Random Number Generator’. Though I wanted to read the Forensic textbook, I didn’t want to have false expectations and blindly bought Singi solved questions papers book. My one and only guide book in whole of MBBS. With the app, I used to select a particular page number and study only those questions on that page. Yet another wonder, I passed forensic too. 

The reason why I’m surprised to have passed any subject in MBBS is that my study standards until PUC were pretty high and MBBS was a whole new game. I had to change my perspective, formulate new plans and lower my expectations to study, perform and to guess results. So by the end of 4th term, my mantra was to get 50% or more. It has helped me survive till final year now.