medical school

laphet ime

If she gets a rabies vaccine before she's symptomatic (and that's assuming the cat even has rabies), she's good.

And if not, send her to Milwaukee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_protocol

ianad but before i clicked that i was going to recommend putting her into a coma because i heard about that girl on some stupid npr show. before i heard that i didn't realize quite how bad rabies is!

plasmon, you taught kaplan in the past, right? i hesitate to turn this into SDN, but here it goes: what kind of consistency should i be looking for on these practice tests before i have a good idea of what my score will be? i'm doing very well on the practice exams, but the range is so wide i really have no idea what to do with my scores, or how fluky they are. i understand the concept of the bell curve and how once you're a consistent 10/11 test taker, a couple of good guesses makes it much easier to jump up a point or two relative to 7/8/9 students, but the full-length (kaplan #3) just kind of scared the shit out of me. i got a 13/14/15, which i just feel like is not where i am yet (or probably ever, given that my exam is in 3 weeks) -- my last 2 were 11/11/10 (though this was a month ago) and 12/13/10 (earlier this week). i guess it was just a harder test with a more generous curve, but that score is so ridiculously high as to be meaningless to me, bio in particular. i think i'm a solid 11/12/11 right now. i plan on taking the other two required FLs next week, but after that, are there any tests that you think are better than others? i'm not gonna have time to take all 15 other ones or however many there are

do you remember FL3 being particularly outlier-y? i've heard stories about #11, but not 3

ime, particularly as a recovering english major, a teensy bit of extra effort and consideration on the language portion paid huge dividends. like, i was getting 11-12 and finishing with loads of time to spare, and once i forced myself to go more slowly and pay attention i was getting 13-14 consistently

otherwise i have no recollection of what happened with the MCAT

i'm sort of perversely enjoying getting into a groove with taking these tests, though, they all unfold the same way. physical sciences i hate, not because it's difficult but just because of all the math/thinking involved. i always use every second of the time there. verbal is actually pretty fun; i find myself enjoying most of the passages and sometimes forget I'm taking a test, so i have to watch my time sometimes there too. bio is just a crapshoot, it seems to be the section most dependent on recall knowledge, so i just go into it crossing my fingers that they test areas where i'm strong.

^^^p much how i felt about it, too

I taught for Princeton Review, and that was >10 years ago now.

I don't know anything about Kaplan's tests, sorry. But if you scored a 42 right after a 32 and a 35 it seems the curve was in your favor on that last one.

Even so, you're consistently scoring in the double digits in all sections. That should be more than enough.

I always found it hard to score more than 12-13 in verbal reasoning, 'cause I'd end up skimming, racing through it, and debating/arguing with the questions. I don't think my scores ever changed much with practice. Many of my students didn't improve much on that section either, once they got the basics of testmanship down.

I didn't bother to re-learn the organic chem in the biology section (which I'd done years earlier), so I never beat 11 there. The rest of bio was easy enough even though I'd never done a biology course, just memorization.

I loved physical sciences, that's what I ended up teaching for TPR along with VR and the essays. That's the section where extra time spent working through problems was most helpful, and I just loved the mental gymnastics.

Do they even have essays anymore? It was a stupidly simple format but I don't think I ever had more fun writing something for marks.

Main advice I'd give is to work toward the big day as a performance. Don't spend too much time drilling the details, and especially don't do too many practice tests, you'll wear yourself down. Make sure you prepare physically for the day, like an athlete getting ready for a competition -- get some sleep, exercise, fresh air, music or whatever you get your mind cleared and focussed. If you have routines for tests, follow them.

Don't stress about your score on the full length practice tests, focus on your performance in that situation as a test taker. Do them under as exactly similar conditions as possible, so you'll be right at home on game day. For you, the goal of a full length practice test shouldn't be to predict ahead of time how well you'll do (for diagnostic purposes) -- you're clearly good enough -- it's to maximize your performance on the real thing.

i luv discrete questions

If memory serves, the test is designed to have a standard deviation of 1 point to either side, on each of the 1-15 sections (fun fact: this is why the essay is scaled entirely differently, because it can't be standardized as well), so in theory it's designed that you could have a 6 point swing in either direction, though it'd be much more likely to float within a narrower range (like 2 points).

Dear Medical School/Medical Ppl Thread,

Can you think of any good reasons to be a hospital social worker that I might be overlooking? Because at this point I am just biding my time to gtfo.

My experience, to date:

Hospitals (at least my acute-care, for-profit, urban teaching hospital) equate social workers with discharge planners

Discharge planning is the ne plus ultra of "social work"

Discharge planning involves very little actual social work

Why hospitals employ licensed social discharge workers is curious on the surface. Below the surface, having LICSWs on the payroll has everything to do with accreditation and billing and zero to do with the actual skills required to do the "hospital social work" job

The situation may be different in inpatient psych? I dunno those social workers are note even in my (Case Management) department.

U.S. healthcare is so fucked up I mean can I even

Fuck this I am in no way inclined to pursue a job as a hospital social worker but hey I just wanna put it out there to see if anyone might have a counterpoint

Also I had not anticipated this AT ALL but I find the hospital environment rather dull tbh.

i can only speak from my own limited experience, but social workers as bona fide discharge planners doesn't seem like an outrageously unfair assessment of their work in hospitals, at least on medical floors. if you've got your heart set on working in hospitals, as you said it might be worth your while to look into providing your services on specialty floors; gbx might be able to tell you more about inpatient psych work, but i can tell you there is probably a lot of interesting and possibly fulfilling end-of-life and family meeting type stuff on oncology floors as well

also personal update i have my first interview in november, woo-hoo!

we have LICSWs that do ED assessments of psych patients as part of the admissions process

btw gratz, kk, lemme know if you get up to g3isel

great news, kk! And yeah, I am seeing that IP psych/ED psych SWers have a different job than floor SWers, who I mean c'mon why do you need an LICSW to do discharge planning? Answer: you don't. Why this is a requirement is one of many things that is so fucking fucked up with hospitals. If anyone works in a hospital where this is not the case, please tell me!

Anyhow I have been accepted as a fellow in a geriatric social work program and this is where I wanna be, so all is good. My next internship will be in a non-profit hospice where I will have my own caseload with home hospice clients, which I think will be way more social work-y than my current hospital ICU placement. What I've learned in this setting is awesome, but also that I need not hang out here much longer.

also hey I see now that as an ICU patient you are a bag o' chemicals to manage; it is so rare to find a critical care doc who thinks otherwise. My time on the ICU has just so turned me off all of U.S. medicine that spouse and I are no shit moving to Finland to retire and die.

That's the scariest thing I've read in a long time.

godwilling I won't find myself in an ICU anytime in the next 50-odd years but if I do I sorta think I'd prefer that the people keeping my systems functioning are as unemotional as possible.

compose yr advance directives, ppl

and gbx thanks, and i will! my first interview is at UVM (i live here) but i did apply to g3isel too. btw if you ever find yourself calling in a prescription to a k1nney drugs in vermont and the person you talk to is kevin then that is probably me

oh i guess this is as good a place as any: last night a guy with a diabetic foot infection walked in with a prescription for vanco capsules. don't do that, doctors

dude i write for k1nney in VT all the dang time

yeah i'm all over the place but that's who i work for right now. funny small world story i actually have a pharmacist coworker who's an M1 at g3isel now, she works at the lyndonville store. i used to work at that store a lot but not so much lately

I spent this week on the inpatient psych ward!

As a social work intern, not a patient.

Also shadowed the ED psych social worker.

my 2 cents of observation/lyfe experience is that psychiatrists are either totes cool dudes/chicks or ppl who have er challenging personalities that some might suggest are Axis II ish

not a lot of "meh" people i.e. ENT dudes/chicks

also most social workers are not very good

also should I be a transplant social worker, word on the street is that this is a sweet gig.

should I check into an inpatient psych ward if all I really want is to have people pay attention to me and make sure I eat for a couple days?

NOOOOOOOOO

at least not the psych ward at my hosptial

protip if you decide to go that way: plan to spend 20+ hours in the ER and then you'd better have a convincing story of suicidal or homicidal ideation and/or delusions that interfere with your activities of daily living. Otherwise you'll be sent back home. If you have no home, you will be sent back to the streets with a suggestion to check in on shelters tomorrow before they get full.

You may get a shitty boxed lunch after 8+ hours in the ER. Guy I saw in the ER and then the next day on the psych unit remembered me as the person who brought him a sandwich but could only offer diet ginger ale because we only had regular coke, not diet.

I spent this week on the inpatient psych ward!

As a social work intern, not a patient.

Also shadowed the ED psych social work

my 2 cents of observation/lyfe experience is that psychiatrists are either totes cool dudes/chicks or ppl who have er challenging personalities that some might suggest are Axis II ish

this seems about right

I have finished my internship in hospital social work (primarily ICU, some med/surg floor experience, some ED and inpatient psych).

I will not do hospital social work ever again.

I will not willingly be hospitalized.

I think our (U.S.) hospital system is irreparably fucked.

I start as a home hospice social worker next month.

Surely this will be better.

Favorite quote from an Esteemed Psych Attending: "these people don't need our compassion, they need our intellect."

Fuck. You.

Anyhow good luck to docs of ILX. I do believe that you are all actual *helping* people in a profession that is all "oh I want to help people" but c'mon, let's not equate docs with nurses, teachers, social workers, EMTs, etc.

hi ilx medical ppl

I have completed 480+ hours in the ICU of a large teaching hospital in a major U.S. city.

After this experience, I have zero intention of becoming a hospital social worker.

Tomorrow I start 720 hours as a home hospice social worker.

I hope I like it. I like long term care, so that will be my back up.

"Being Mortal" may be an obvious "must read" for medical ppl, but I think it is so worthwhile. It is for me.

gbx how do you do IP psych. It is the saddest most unfulfilling thing I experience at the hospital.

All of the hospital stuff, actually.

Hospital: avoid. AVOID.

i've only done six months of inpt psych, all last year. i just now (like, hours ago) finished six months of the inpt psych consult service. the former was definitely more frustrating, but a lot of that was buried under the workload that comes with being an intern -- you spend more time writing notes and making phone calls and such and very little time with patients.

i enjoy my outpatient clinic (which is at the VA), in part because the VA (at least our VA) actually has those social services that are more likely to improve a patient's quality of life than my tender ministrations. like if someone is depressed or w/e because they've been out of work or don't have transportation, there's fat lot of good that a script for zoloft is gonna do. but then again i can send them down the hall to any number of offices that will get them connected with ppl that can help them with employment or a ride or something, which is so, so, so much more difficult at a private hospital

also the inpatient social worker at our VA (CHAD WE LOVE YOU CHAD WHY ARE YOU LEAVING) is a fucking miracle-worker, and has shored up my belief that, in mental health at least, the SWs are almost certainly doing more for our shared patients than the actual docs

but my god on our consult service we had a patient on medicine, a 62yo man with the most profound dementia i have ever encountered, who has been medically stable for literally ONE HUNDRED DAYS and cannot find a place to live because, outside of the hospital, he would require p much 24/7 attention because he is still so very physically fit and active and prone to wandering. in the hospital he spends 75% of his time in a g-d net bed (which, if you haven't encountered one, is the saddest thing ever). it is completely messed up, and the SWs on medicine have been working very hard for months to find somewhere, anywhere, that can care for him appropriately

Ugh, what a sucky situation! I am not familiar with a net bed. Sounds awful. 100 days, dear god.

hi dere I am taking an adult psychopathology class

I have *feelings* about the DSM

What are YOUR *feelings,* docs of ILX?

where's the thread for mental health consumers to share their feelings about the DSM

but I'm also curious about doctors b/c my sense is that in general the feeling is "yeah those symptoms are accurate for, like, maybe half of patients"

it's mostly heuristic, and for billing tbh

so this is happening

have gotten two offers so far, about which i am ecstatic, tho they are probably toward the bottom of my wishlist** given what is still possible. am very much hoping i hear some good news from vermont (where i live and which i love), where i was wait listed :/

am currently at the mouth of dart (hi gbx), everyone wish me luck tomorrow on my interview

**man, my list of schools to apply to would look so much different if i could do it all over, i really had no idea what i was doing

oh snap, good luck man

Great news and good luck!