Almost 50% MD

We bid farewell to the Essential Core today. The Essential Core represents the pre-clinical years, where we are learn the basics of medicine.

We completed our clinical final over this past weekend, with a series of patient interviews and physical exams. We officially ended our second year with a small group about common ethical dilemmas in older adults followed by an interview with an elder, who spoke about her life and the challenges she confronts as she gets older.

After the interview, we were joined by our deans and administrators, who congratulated us on making it to the half-way mark of our medical education. It was more of an early congratulations, since we still have to take our life cycle final and that other big test (the boards). In what has been described as a "milestone," we will now see a shift, where the center of education shifts from the medical student to the patient, as we move to wards.

With some games, a raffle and a burrito, we walked out of the lecture hall- to the library to study for the upcoming exams (it's like a marathon). As I walked away, I realized that were all about to go our seperate aways; this was the last time we would officially assemble as a class of preclinical students. Hard to believe.

We move from lectures and small groups, where information has been spoon fed to us, to the real clinical world, where we learn from our patients. The third year became more real after we received our rotation schedules on Friday.

We will face an entirely new learning curve ahead. I am excited and apprehensive. I'm just pacing myself through the next weeks to get through the boards.

After we complete our life cycle final on Thursday, we become third years with half of an MD.