The Day of Mockery
It all depended, as Dr Head so aptly put it, on whether "mock" is a verb or an adjective.
Dr Head is the cardiothoracic surgeon with whom I spend the vast majority of my time these days. Near retirement, he is an amazing surgeon and a favorite teacher. A few years ago the annual teaching award was named after him and he was banned from ever receiving it again since he had won it so many years in a row.
Today was a day to be dreaded, and hopefully survived with some shred of dignity intact. It was the day of mock orals.
In bygone years, all specialties had oral examinations at the conclusion of residency. Becoming a certified specialist in that field was contingent upon passing one's boards. Over the years, many fields have gotten rid of the oral exam, opting instead for multiple choice tests. Surgery, notorious for lagging several decades behind other fields when it comes to implementing change, continues to require passing an oral exam in order to be board certified. (Though they also require passing a multiple choice written exam.) So therefore, at some point approximately three years from now I will spend half an hour with some big name in the surgical world. He will present case scenarios to me, and based on my answers will decide whether or not it is safe to turn me loose upon the world.
In preparation for this test, the pass rate on which surgical residencies use as a barometer of the efficacy of their training, our program has semi-annual mock oral exams for 4'th, 5'th, and 6'th year residents. Being a newly minted 4'th year resident, I was undergoing this process for the first time. The word "mock" in the title of the event was rather disconcerting. I raised this concern to Dr Head last week who then made the aforementioned comment.
I underwent 30 minutes of examination in 3 seperate rooms, for a total of 90 minutes of grilling regarding the diagnosis and management of surgical diseases. It was a dizzying, whirlwind tour through case scenarios involving severe burn injuries, choledocholithiasis, cholangitis, Boerhaave's syndrome, temporal lobe seizures, gynecomastia, cirrhosis with bleeding esophageal varices, gastroesophageal reflux disease, breast cancer, and Crohn's disease. No case was straight forward. If any complication could occur, the attending guiding the discussion made it happen to see what you would do to manage it. My patient with routine cholecystitis therefore turned into a patient with cholangitis due to choledocholithiasis requiring a series of procedures I have yet to ever see or perform, but wound up attempting to describe in some detail
All of the people in my class taking it for first time, myself included, were certain that we were going to bomb it and make total fools out of ourselves. We spent the last week frantically reading. Upon running into one another in the halls, we'd inevitably quiz each other on some esoteric topic such as the gastrinoma triangle that we've never seen in any patient but were convinced we'd be asked about.
And then amazingly, it was all over. The sky was brighter. The trees were greener. We all had an extra bounce in our steps. I don't think any of us did as poorly as we thought we would, but certainly did not do good enough to pass the real thing which we'll face in 3 years. For the time being it is comforting to know that we can hold our own with people who have been in practice for years in a conversation about complex surgical issues.
Today upon meeting Dr Head after it was all over, he asked me how it had went and whether it had been an adjective or a verb. I gushed that it had all really went better than expected, and that there weren't more than one or two cases where I totally floundered. With his characteristic quick wit, he replied that "They must not have asked the right questions then."
Dr Head is the cardiothoracic surgeon with whom I spend the vast majority of my time these days. Near retirement, he is an amazing surgeon and a favorite teacher. A few years ago the annual teaching award was named after him and he was banned from ever receiving it again since he had won it so many years in a row.
Today was a day to be dreaded, and hopefully survived with some shred of dignity intact. It was the day of mock orals.
In bygone years, all specialties had oral examinations at the conclusion of residency. Becoming a certified specialist in that field was contingent upon passing one's boards. Over the years, many fields have gotten rid of the oral exam, opting instead for multiple choice tests. Surgery, notorious for lagging several decades behind other fields when it comes to implementing change, continues to require passing an oral exam in order to be board certified. (Though they also require passing a multiple choice written exam.) So therefore, at some point approximately three years from now I will spend half an hour with some big name in the surgical world. He will present case scenarios to me, and based on my answers will decide whether or not it is safe to turn me loose upon the world.
In preparation for this test, the pass rate on which surgical residencies use as a barometer of the efficacy of their training, our program has semi-annual mock oral exams for 4'th, 5'th, and 6'th year residents. Being a newly minted 4'th year resident, I was undergoing this process for the first time. The word "mock" in the title of the event was rather disconcerting. I raised this concern to Dr Head last week who then made the aforementioned comment.
I underwent 30 minutes of examination in 3 seperate rooms, for a total of 90 minutes of grilling regarding the diagnosis and management of surgical diseases. It was a dizzying, whirlwind tour through case scenarios involving severe burn injuries, choledocholithiasis, cholangitis, Boerhaave's syndrome, temporal lobe seizures, gynecomastia, cirrhosis with bleeding esophageal varices, gastroesophageal reflux disease, breast cancer, and Crohn's disease. No case was straight forward. If any complication could occur, the attending guiding the discussion made it happen to see what you would do to manage it. My patient with routine cholecystitis therefore turned into a patient with cholangitis due to choledocholithiasis requiring a series of procedures I have yet to ever see or perform, but wound up attempting to describe in some detail
All of the people in my class taking it for first time, myself included, were certain that we were going to bomb it and make total fools out of ourselves. We spent the last week frantically reading. Upon running into one another in the halls, we'd inevitably quiz each other on some esoteric topic such as the gastrinoma triangle that we've never seen in any patient but were convinced we'd be asked about.
And then amazingly, it was all over. The sky was brighter. The trees were greener. We all had an extra bounce in our steps. I don't think any of us did as poorly as we thought we would, but certainly did not do good enough to pass the real thing which we'll face in 3 years. For the time being it is comforting to know that we can hold our own with people who have been in practice for years in a conversation about complex surgical issues.
Today upon meeting Dr Head after it was all over, he asked me how it had went and whether it had been an adjective or a verb. I gushed that it had all really went better than expected, and that there weren't more than one or two cases where I totally floundered. With his characteristic quick wit, he replied that "They must not have asked the right questions then."
posted by The Mad Hatter at 5:53 PM
2 Comments:
I'm glad you did well, but I hope it would have given you some comfort to know that however you did, you have a Mom and Dad who like and admire you regardless!
I'm glad you did well. I am now relieved that all I have to do is make the unending thousands of editorial corrections on 231 pages of dissertation. That seems extremely less stressful than your oral exams. However, I suppose that comes from the fact that it is extremely less crucial if I make a grammatical error than if you make a surgical error.
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