goodbye icc year (part 3)

By the afternoon of April 12, Tuesday, all of my grades for integrated clinical clerkship (ICC) year finally came in so yes, by then ICC year was officially over. I was pretty happy with my grades and I got my highest GWA in med school so far, still not enough for me to qualify as a college scholar, but I was satisfied, especially because for the most part of the year, I had to really read books to be able to perform in preceptorials and small group discussions and pass exams and of course, there weren't much lectures anymore. I'm also happy with my grades because they were based not just on knowledge but also on [clinical] skills and attitude.

More on the topic of clinical skills. So ICCs have this exam at the end of the school year called the Grand OSCE (objective structured clinical examination). It's a move-type exam and this year, there were 16 stations, with no rest stations. These were the stations this year: pediatrics, surgery, internal medicine, ob-gyne (two stations each for these); and family medicine, community medicine, psychiatry, dermatology, ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology (ORL), rheumatology, orthopedics and rehabilitation medicine (ROR), and hand washing.

While having lunch that day before the exam (my exam was scheduled at 1pm; I was in the last batch to take it), I was so nervous that I was tachycardic and my hands were trembling like crazy I actually thought of drinking some cold beer to calm my nerves (haha!) but then again, it's never acceptable to face your consultants smelling like alcohol, right? So anyway, I went to the venue half an hour before the exam to be with fellow nervous examinees. I know that I prepared for it but you know, it's a practical exam and you don't know beforehand who your examiners are going to be and what their moods are and what exactly they would ask you so it's like you could never really be prepared for it.
My greatest fear, I think, was doing horribly at the ORL station because I've liked that specialty since I was a freshman. It didn't help either that by the time I got to that station (it was my 15th station), the examiner who was there was a consultant whom I found scary when she became our preceptor once at the OPD. What made it worse was that when I was already examining her oral cavity and tried to do indirect laryngoscopy, I wasn't able to because the patient's tongue was really big and she barely opened her mouth! So you could just imagine my happiness when the consultant said to me: "Except for some difficulties with the examination of the oral cavity and the laryngoscopy, you did a very good head and neck exam." I wanted to skip and sing to the next station with joy. I found out later that the consultant already told the resident earlier that the patient indeed has a big tongue and wondered why such a difficult patient was chosen for us.

After the exam that afternoon, I had a meeting with some sisses regarding a project. Somehow, my personal advocacies since I was a high school kid (I think), came out. And apparently my passion for it was evident. I could not go into the details of that project just yet as I'm still working on it. But yeah, ICC year helped me see that choosing to go into medicine could actually help me in certain things that I want to promote and fight for. ICC year also made me realize that the person that I was some eight years ago hasn't changed much, or at least, my distant life-goals are still pretty much the same as they are now. I just hope that ICC year has given me enough heart and humanity to make me get through clerkship year (which I heard could be pretty alienating and could pretty much kill even the biggest idealists' optimism).

Unfortunately, ICC year wasn't that swell in the other aspects of my life. For once in med school, academics actually kept me sane as other parts of my life just really went topsy-turvy. Just when I thought I've overcome my trust issues, some shitty things happened that slapped me right in the face. I haven't felt that betrayed and hurt in a long time. I guess that's when you know that certain people actually matter and that there's a part of you in them and vice-versa. The anger is long gone as I really could never stay angry for long (it's too tiring and it's too destructive) but no apologies have been said so I'm not sure if I've actually forgiven but I doubt if I could ever forget or trust the way I used to, ever again. But as they say, when a door closes, a window opens. Some relationships may have gone sour (though I'm still hoping that in time, things will be ok again) but I was also able to build and strengthen meaningful ones as well.

Overall, ICC year was a great year for learning in the classroom, in the hospital and in that great university called life.