COMLEX Level 3 Thoughts

For the COMLEX, I prepared using USMLEWorld, Master the Boards by Kaplan, and the Simmons manual for OMM. I answered every single Qbank question in USMLEWorld and read Master the Boards twice; sadly, I neglected the Simmons manual until the last 1-2 days before the test. That turned out to be a mistake; somehow, in my OMM review, I completely neglected the section on counterstrain and trigger points. There were a good number of questions on the COMLEX asking about how I'd use counterstrain in treatment, and I wanted to kick myself. I remembered "fold it, hold it" but not whether I was supposed to fold around it or away from it. *sigh* It was helpful knowing the innervations for sure; that stuff is always high yield. Overall, however, the COMLEX was, once again, poorly written. The questions were either very easy (i.e. asking how to treat hyperlipidemia when there was only one cholesterol drug in the answers), reasonable, or outright ridiculous like asking which law allows doctors to ____. Where, in what textbook, would I get that info from?! So while I don't think I failed, there's still a part of me that's uneasy about how things might turn out. We'll see what happens; I should get my residents in the next 2 months.

Afterwards I joined several friends for drinks downtown. Unfortunately I do not have the greatest EtOH tolerance and was bright red after 1 and a half beers (one of which was only 4% EtOH). Still, it was nice to be done, and to celebrate my turning 27 (belated) and being done with the COMLEX, I'm going skiing this weekend and attending a Philadelphia Orchestra concert next week. The orchestra concert promises to be awesome; they'll be performing two pieces I'd played in the University Orchestra at UT and I love hearing pieces I've played before.

The downside is that after a wonderful month of ambulatory medicine (which gave me tons of time to study for the COMLEX), I'll be returning to the wards full-time on Monday. Fortunately the medicine team I've been assigned to has been rumored to be laid back, so I don't expect too much trouble. I'm extremely grateful that I've not had been assigned any months of heart failure (which everyone dreads b/c the attendings are pretty malignant; one likes to threaten people's medical licenses if they don't do as they're told). I'm better off away from all that =P