Wow, time passed by so fast! Before we knew it, we’ve reached the end of Semester 3 (the 1st semester of Year 2)! After one more semester, Year 2 will be over and in a blink of an eye, we’ll be in clinical years next year!
If we could describe year 2 so far by one word, it would simply be draining. Semester 3 is infamous for being the hardest semester of pre-clinical years and we definitely agree that’s the case. It was such a jump from Year 1 in terms of the amount of depth and content we need to know. We covered Mind and Movement this semester. Despite being so tough, the content was very interesting to learn about.
PBL
PBL cases for this semester became much longer and more complicated.
Because of this, we get more time to finish the cases. In year 1, our PBL would run from Monday-Friday but this year it runs from Tuesday-Monday of the next week. This isn’t necessarily a good thing because even though we need more time to work on PBL, we feel like we’ve lost our weekends. After a few weeks of working non-stop without relaxing weekends, we started feeling burned out at one point.
In terms of the content for the cases, we loved learning about the disorders of the mind. This semester, the cases tie in nicely together with Communication Skills sessions and Physiology/Pharmacology practicals. For example, while learning about the eye, we would learn how to examine the eye using the ophthalmoscope and test color vision in the practicals. We feel like it would’ve been better if we get more practice for communication skills and Phys/Pharm since the number of face-face teachings have been cut down. But, it is what it is.
Anatomy
We don’t even want to talk about this. The amount of Anatomy we need to know for this semester is insane. In addition to the head and neck, skull and the components of the brain, we need to know all about the lower limb! We would spend hours and hours going through the content each week and there are just so many structures to remember. Levator veli palatini, tensor veli palatini, styloglossus, stylopharyngeus, this list goes on and on…
We’re now trying to remember all the Anatomy for our upcoming exams and it’s been really painful so far.
Assessments
Our semester test and OSCEs are still going to go ahead and they’ll both be face to face. We’re studying for the exams now since they’ll take place at the end of January.
Studying for them makes us realize just how much the amount of content is all over again. Anatomy revision is killing us especially but, hopefully, we’ll get through it and do reasonably well.
With the lockdown and all the things going on around us, it is at times hard to focus on revision but we’re pushing through. Please wish us good luck for the exams and we wish you guys do well in your exams too!
P.S. Everyone will tell you Sem 3 is tough and it is, but it is not unmanageable. With a bit of time to get used to the new schedule and good time management, it will become easier. Sem 4 is apparently a lot more manageable so we’re glad to be able to take a breather, we’ll update on this after the academic year is over! Wherever you are in the world, stay safe and stay healthy!
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