I’ve done it. Today I found out I passed the last exam of medical school and I’m happy. Sure, it doesn’t compare to sitting medical finals at the end of 4th year but, still, it was a national exam that fifth years across the country were required to sit and pass. With this good result it means, once I qualify in July and start my job in August, I can officially prescribe drugs and treatments. I can be useful on the wards and a real asset to my team.
These past few weeks since the start of 2017 have been fairly busy for a 5th year. Not only did we have the Prescribing Safety Assessment exam to prepare for, we also had our mid-term portfolio review. Just because we have no exams to sit this year it doesn’t mean we’re free from formal assessment! In many ways, we’re assessed more and across a range of different domains.
We were asked to choose 3 cases and 2 clinical incidents that we were most proud of in our portfolio. In a 30-minute interview our assessors would choose one of each for us to present. It gave us an opportunity to showcase our work and talk through the processes we thought of when completing the case/incident report. It was a nerve-wracking time.
And in between all of this, we had our third of 5 clinical placements to attend and this brought with it a new set of portfolio documents to complete. On Friday I finished my 7-week attachment on the Acute Medical Unit at Furness General Hospital. It was the last time I’ll be placed in Barrow-in-Furness. Saying goodbye to the sight of the hospital as I drove away would be another memorable moment for me as I transition from a 5th year medical student to a Foundation Year 1 doctor.
As a year group, we have only a few weeks to wait until we find out which region of the country we’ll be working in come August. Hopefully it’ll be good news for all. In the meantime though, I’ll be counting down the days and waiting in anticipation for an update on what my future holds.