Nobody likes the feeling of failure.

_DSC4897, originally uploaded by youheng1.

gee. for the first time in med, im facing (certain; give and take 95% confidence interval) Failure.

With the capital F so don't spare it... don't even try to comfort me with the "nah you won't fail" tack because in general, missing the diagnosis by a MILE counts for something.

of course i'd like you to believe that there were mitigating factors at hand and so in reality.. ah hah... mitigating factors DO exist.

I came down with:
1)Cough, Cold (with production of clear mucous), Fever, Sweats, Jointache, Neck stiffness, mild hypertension 135mmHg, tachycardia and general lethagy. (diff dx pls) :)

2)Then happily loaded up on Chloramphenamine with package inserts which read in easy to understand language: *warning may cause drowsiness*

So well, thats life for you: take an exam with having done ZITCH mugging and SEDATED.

Personally, i think we can safely say, its associated with a poor prognosis. Say like 100% fatality rate in 5 years. HAHA.

I've submitted my MC but i don't think the patho department is going to accept it - because i STILL took the paper and thats what ive been hearing from them. (WHAT WAS I THINKING?) The deans office staff gave me the impression that it was still possible to sit for but disregard the test...and so i did. On hindsight, i should have been wiser and listened to my gut. I guess, you really don't think straight when you're under.

Some points i can bring out of this:

Firstly,
Ive tried EVERYTHING you can do before an exam:

1)Studied for exam (well) check!
2)Studied for exam check!
3)Studied for exam plus Alcoholic influence check!
4)Did not study for exam check!
5)Did not study for exam and had emotional turmoil check!
6)Did not study for exam and was under the influence of drugs check!

Secondly:

WTF is wrong with my Patho tutors? Why focus on TB for every damn pot and ignore the rest...all i could see in the exam was TB, TB and more TB. I think many will share this gripe to varying degrees.

Bronchopneumonia: ahah! TB
Liver Metastatic spread: ahah! TB again (scatches head and begins to worry)!

Its not that the specimens were bad...far from it. i was actually rather puzzled over the presentation of the lung TB due to its location in the lower rather than upper lobes...but if you don't revise and if the only message you take away from patho tutorials happens to BE tuberculousis.. then you know where im coming from.

As a point in fact, i got BOTH slides correct which just goes to show how badly inadequate the tutorials were.

Thirdly:
Diverticulosis. Ha Ha. the diagnosis of?

some people had a tumourous mass on the sample and i saw it too (large in fact!). what were they supposed to think?

Personally, mine had some discolouration and odd micro-reddish infiltrates which i thought was some kinda cancer...bad idea...

summing up. don't take an exam when you shouldn't or are just not mentally capable of doing so. poor prognosis, highly malignant.