It appears that Disney has bought Marvel... Does this mean there could be a Spiderman ride at Disney and Universal?
Cardio test is done, and it wasn't too bad. Now I have to blitz to get ready for Heme/Onc, which should be the harder of the two by far. Only two days left.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The end of an Era
No I'm not talking about Ted Kennedy. The PBS show Reading Rainbow is going off the air after 26 years, which is longer than I have been alive. A sad day for us all.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Moving Along
My first "mini" block is almost over and I am gearing up for tests next Monday and Wednesday. Cardio has been a great course, mainly because our instructor is excellent. Heme/onc... well lets just say it is hard.
One year into medical school, I have essentially become a professional multiple choice test taker. One thing you must learn is how to grind through, and exploit, poorly written test questions. In medical school, most of the professors are NOT full time teachers. They come in for a month or two out of the year and teach their material. The questions they come up with have taught me that multiple choice test writing is a skill that comes to some naturally, and others not so much.
My friend Patrick found this sarcastic quiz online that highlights what I mean.
My tests are filled with questions like these, where half the battle is making sure you understand what it is you are being asked. Oh well... 4 months to go!
One year into medical school, I have essentially become a professional multiple choice test taker. One thing you must learn is how to grind through, and exploit, poorly written test questions. In medical school, most of the professors are NOT full time teachers. They come in for a month or two out of the year and teach their material. The questions they come up with have taught me that multiple choice test writing is a skill that comes to some naturally, and others not so much.
My friend Patrick found this sarcastic quiz online that highlights what I mean.
Can you answer these 6 questions about multiple-choice questions?
1. I opened a course on a topic I know nothing about, clicked through without reading anything, and took the assessment. I passed! What does that suggest?
- I am a genius!
- The assessment was too easy.
- Maybe the course was too easy, too.
- Maybe the course didn’t even need to be written.
- b, c, and d
2. In a multiple-choice question, when is the longest answer the correct answer?
- Rarely
- Sometimes
- It’s almost always the correct answer, and it’s often stuffed with new information that should have gone in the main part of the course but we forgot so now we’re putting it in the quiz because we can’t possibly leave out the tiniest detail
- Occasionally
3. When is “All of the above” the correct answer?
- With alarming regularity
- When we try to cover too much in one question
- When we use a question to teach instead of assess
- All of the above
4. When is it NOT a good idea to avoid negative questions?
- Never
- Sometimes
- Always
- What?
5. How often is the correct answer a?
- Usually
- Frequently
- Often
- Almost never, because if a is the right answer, then the learner doesn’t have to read all the other options we spent so much time writing and revising, and where’s the ROI in that?
6. We can confuse learners when we:
- fail to actually complete the sentence we started in the question.
- inconsistent grammar in the options.
- sometimes we veer off into another idea entirely.
- wombats.
My tests are filled with questions like these, where half the battle is making sure you understand what it is you are being asked. Oh well... 4 months to go!
Source: http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2007/08/can-you-answer-these-6-questions-about-multiple-choice-questions/
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Back to Work
As most of the people who read this blog know, Lisa and I were back in Michigan for almost all of the month of July. We spent half the time with Lisa's family, including a week at a cottage in Holland on Lake MI. The other half of the time we spent with my family, including a week in Disney World. Lisa and I had tons of fun back home and were happy to get out of the Houston heat for a while. The best part of the trip was getting to see family and friends, since we haven't had many chances to get back to Michigan since we moved down a year ago.
Unfortunately, my break came to a quick end. The Monday after we got back I started Block 7, which for right now involves Cardiology and Hematology/Oncology. One good thing about school this fall is that they have changed our test schedule in a way that I think will be less stressful. Baylor classes in previous years have had 10 weeks of classes in block 7; the first four weeks were dedicated to cardio and heme/onc as I have right now, with the remaining time mostly devoted to respiratory and renal. Then they would have a big week of exams over all of the subjects after the 10 weeks. This was hard because you finished taking cardio and heme/onc classes a full 6 weeks before the tests, and then you had to dig that information back up and get ready for a test in a very short period of time. The same thing would happen again in block 8, except it was even worse because the block ended with 10 exams over the course of 3 weeks, including the big end of basic sciences exam which you had to pass to move on to clinics (and several people did fail every year).
So, because of the wonderful complaining of the students above us, they changed it so that we have a test after each individual class, instead of just at the end of each block. So my cardio and heme/onc exams will be at the end of August, instead of mid October. I think this will encourage us to work at a more consistent pace and relieve stress during exam periods, even if there will be many more of them.
My new preceptorship for this fall is actually in the hospitals instead of at the Baylor clinic. While the cystic fibrosis patients I saw last year were very interesting, being in the inpatient setting is a good change. In the first week I saw a patient with diffuse/systemic scleroderma, and a very sick patient with newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS. The emphasis for this fall is to make sure we are comfortable enough with the physical exam to be somewhat useful on rotations and learn more of the abnormal findings that we should be looking for.
I think that this semester will be challenging but fun, and with only about four months to go before rotations, the light is visible at the end of the tunnel.
Lisa has one more week of break before going back, and I think she is excited for this coming year. Her program has been completely restructured, so instead of having a big group all at once for several hours a day, she will be pulling kids out one at a time or even going into the gen ed class rooms to work one on one.
Sorry for the long post!
Unfortunately, my break came to a quick end. The Monday after we got back I started Block 7, which for right now involves Cardiology and Hematology/Oncology. One good thing about school this fall is that they have changed our test schedule in a way that I think will be less stressful. Baylor classes in previous years have had 10 weeks of classes in block 7; the first four weeks were dedicated to cardio and heme/onc as I have right now, with the remaining time mostly devoted to respiratory and renal. Then they would have a big week of exams over all of the subjects after the 10 weeks. This was hard because you finished taking cardio and heme/onc classes a full 6 weeks before the tests, and then you had to dig that information back up and get ready for a test in a very short period of time. The same thing would happen again in block 8, except it was even worse because the block ended with 10 exams over the course of 3 weeks, including the big end of basic sciences exam which you had to pass to move on to clinics (and several people did fail every year).
So, because of the wonderful complaining of the students above us, they changed it so that we have a test after each individual class, instead of just at the end of each block. So my cardio and heme/onc exams will be at the end of August, instead of mid October. I think this will encourage us to work at a more consistent pace and relieve stress during exam periods, even if there will be many more of them.
My new preceptorship for this fall is actually in the hospitals instead of at the Baylor clinic. While the cystic fibrosis patients I saw last year were very interesting, being in the inpatient setting is a good change. In the first week I saw a patient with diffuse/systemic scleroderma, and a very sick patient with newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS. The emphasis for this fall is to make sure we are comfortable enough with the physical exam to be somewhat useful on rotations and learn more of the abnormal findings that we should be looking for.
I think that this semester will be challenging but fun, and with only about four months to go before rotations, the light is visible at the end of the tunnel.
Lisa has one more week of break before going back, and I think she is excited for this coming year. Her program has been completely restructured, so instead of having a big group all at once for several hours a day, she will be pulling kids out one at a time or even going into the gen ed class rooms to work one on one.
Sorry for the long post!
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