However, as promised, here's my synopsis of year 2 at PCOM. Again, disclaimer that this may not apply to all classes, I'm currently going through this, so my views on things may change a few months from now, etc.
Year 2 (or, "Congrats, you've survived Year 1. Take It Easy for a Bit, But Get Ready for a Test That Will Make or Break Your Future Medical Career.")
Term 1
See all your classmates and greet them as if you haven't seen them for 5 years, even though it's only been 2 months. Ask them what they did over break, and when they say, "I was completing a medical mission/traveling in [insert exotic, tropical location]," try to control the bitterness apparent in your facial expressions and tone of voice when you say, "Oh, that's cool! I was here. Spent days in a windowless room doing data extraction for research, staring at a computer until my eyes bled. Came home and watched reruns of "White Collar." Y'know." Be an orientation leader and act like you RUN this school (because, let's be honest, as a second-year, you guys are the cool kids on campus), and impress all the newbies. Smile and hug your classmates that you've only said passing "hi"s to because you want to appear super popular. Pretend that you definitely were not that wide-eyed, overeager M1 that took the wrong elevators and freaked out when you saw it only went up to the third floor and the anatomy lab's on the sixth.Gastroenterology: Everything goes in one end and comes out the other (if it doesn't, that means there's a problem). There's one exam at the end of 6 weeks, which means there's no imminent threat for the first four weeks (giving you time to do worthwhile things, like chaperone your 20-year-old sister and her friend at a Selena Gomez concert...and yes, I meant "chaperone," not like I know all the words to "Who Says" or anything), but make sure you're still studying, because it's going to hit you right around week 5 that while the GI tract is basically one long tube, there are a LOT of things that can go wrong, and guess what, they all present the same way.
Reproductive-Genitourinary: The "fun parts." Stop bringing food to class, because you don't know what images are going to be projected (including when your OB-GYN professor says, "I have a surprise for you," and turns out it's a series of up-close-and-personal birthing videos). See all the guys cringe during the male reproductive trauma/cancer lectures. Swear to never have children because it involves literally tearing your body open so that another human being (that looks like an alien when it's born, those primetime dramas LIED) can live and prosper. Text your mother thanking her for giving you life so that you can accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with the hope of maybe paying it off before your kids go to college.
Term 2
Endocrinology: Three weeks of hormones. Get inappropriately excited when your father says he has thyroid nodules and keep poking, I mean, palpating, them until your mother yells at you to stop.Clinical Basis of Neuroscience: CMBM, Part 2. Well, not as bad, but it feels like it. The brain is a wonderful organ, but I have no idea how all those pathways run through one mass of grey and white matter. With the M1s in CMBM and the M2s in neuro, the winter term isn't the most jovial for the DO student body.
Term 3
Random Clinical Courses: EENT, Pediatrics, Geriatrics, Surgery, Emergency Medicine. Anything and everything they can give you right before you go on rotations. Feel like a badass imagining saying, "Oh yeah, just give D5NS at 125 cc/hr with 20 mEq of K" to your attending, because you sound like George Clooney on ER. Between these classes and boards studying, it's all a blur.Post-Term 3 (finals are the last week of April, rotations start June 11)
BOARDS. That's all I'm going to say. Maybe during a boards nervous breakdown, I'll post about what they are, USMLE vs COMLEX (yes, I'm taking both, if you want to open up that can of worms), my (and my friends') study plans, etc. But seeing how I didn't even know what USMLE or COMLEX stood for when I started, I doubt you'll need to worry about it.Full-Year Courses
OMM: Same old, same old.
PCS: This year, you get down and dirty: pelvic exams and DREs (though not on each other), phlebotomy (this one you do on each other; just find someone you REALLY trust and hydrate beforehand), and suturing (this one's next month, I hope it's not on each other). Standardized patients are the same as always, but they throw a couple of curveballs, such as the cranky patient or the patient that hates doctors. My tactic is to keep smiling--they'll either be forced to smile back, or they'll think I have something funky going on upstairs, and suddenly their low back pain doesn't seem so bad anymore.
So ends second year. With 2 months until my boards, it's a rollercoaster of emotions (from, "I've worked hard for the past two years, this shouldn't be horrendous, right?" to "I'm seriously going to fail. FAIL. I'm going to FAIL my boards. Then I will NEVER get a residency and then I'll have to be a HOBO. How am I going to pay off my loans as a hobo?!"), but I look forward to that first post-boards blog post when I get to tell all of you that the 8-hour, 400-question apocalypse (x2) came and went and I'm still standing (barely).
