boards
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Finals 2009
The colored spaces are almost gone for this year! See the 23rd? That’s where I start 8-10 hour days studying for boards. The fun just never ends.
You are viewing stuff tagged with boards.
Despite my idea that I wasn’t going to write more about it, I might as well record this thing for posterity. I’d like to describe in detail, both for myself, for my wife, for my future children, what it was like to survive “the worst hazing in all of medicine.”
The first thing you must understand is the way that licensing works. Licenses are doled out by states, and certain fiefdoms have been established around the US where you have to take a certain test to practice dentistry there. So, you do not receive your license, that is, your legal permit to do the job of a dentist, from your dental school. You receive it from the state in which you plan to work. Thus, upon graduation, you receive your school’s diploma and then you submit materials to apply for a license. I think that all of us working in Minnesota will apply for “Licensure by Exam”. That requires the following:
I actually started crying for joy last night, jumping up and down and hugging Mykala. I had my hand up in front of the screen for a few seconds after I’d logged in, hoping for the best and bracing for the worst. We took a closer look at the numbers… and then called to confirm them this morning, which is when I finally let the last adrenaline-fueled knot in my chest uncurl. I don’t know if I’ll write more about it because, frankly, I’m ready to be done tagging things “dental school”. But, the news: I passed my final FINAL final set of boards. Worrying, waiting, for four years… I finally got to say to Mykala and my parents today: “I’m out of the woods.”
We are five days away from my final final final (final) board exam: “Central Regional Dental Testing Service, Part IV & V”. In this one, I spend 9 hours at the school working on patients, proving that I can do selected procedures at an acceptable clinical level. Doing the procedures isn’t hard, it’s the proving that you can do them that can be tricky. There’s a lot of paperwork, and a lot to coordinate.
Before I was a senior dental student, I used to pull up their schedule online just so I could jealously admire it. “What must it be like,” I wondered, “to no longer have to go to class and just to show up in clinic each day?”
Now, I know — it. is. awesome. Through all those days and nights of studying and stressing, I’d tell Mykala “but hey, fourth year is really great!” At the time, she was understandably skeptical. But hey, this year has definitely lived up to expectations; the decrease in day-to-day stress is unbelievable. As students, we’ve started to get more leeway from our supervisors, in part because we’re rapidly talking and opining more and more like doctors and less and less like students. When people are working under your license (as we do with the dentists at the school), I’m sure it’s easy to give an almost-doctor more wiggle room than an overwhelmed second year student. So that’s nice.
My hands trembled as I opened the letter today. PASS. With an 84, exactly the score Mykala had guessed I would get. (Boards are scored 49-99, 75+ is pass, and I haven’t talked to anyone who got over a 90). All the studying, drilling, worrying are behind us (I’ve given Mykala 42 of my 84 points).
14 hours are left until day one of my two-day hell-test sponsored by the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations. And when I say “sponsored” I actually mean “questions written to mess with me” because I still had to pay $360 for the privilege of taking this thing. My wife has made every food (all the foods) in the kitchen for a delicious dinner tonight:
Yesterday, I reviewed 1000 flashcards in 3.8 hours. The day before, around 900 in 4.1 hours. I’m to the point where, as I’m going about my day (especially when I awake), random words and phrases pop into my head. I’m not kidding, here are some examples: Sturge-Weber angiomatosis. LD50 for fluoride is 5mg/kg. Necrotizing sialometaplasia. Canalicular adenoma.
I’m 96% done with the 1440 NDBE Part II study cards I assigned myself in August. I’ve scheduled exam on October 10 and 11. I feel nervous — I think I’m on schedule, but I don’t know for sure. I’ve typed up almost 2000 digital flashcards into the Anki system. By transferring the information from the study cards to electronic cards, I can use the spaced-repetition algorithm to make my final weeks of studying extremely efficient. There is so much information: I feel I am trying to carry a gallon of water in my hands.
Ok, it’s set. I take my third set of boards (NBDE written, Part II) on October 10 and 11. By my count, that’s just over 2 months from now. I have a large box of “decks” — 1440 flashcards made by some very smart (rich) company and distributed by the Minnesota Dental Association. They have some errors in them — let’s hope I don’t memorize any of the errors.
Almost forgot to mention: National Dental Board Examination, Part 1 = PASS! Honestly didn’t expect that one, since illness and burn-out severely curtailed my winter break studying efforts. Nevertheless, PASS it is. EXCELLENT! And since I’m not looking to specialize, I needn’t stress out about the score itself.
I just took the National Board Dental Examination, Part I. And here’s the thing… the freakin’ thing takes over your mind. I was talking to a few of my classmates who also took it early, and I wondered aloud if they were experiencing what I had been: “In all of our lectures, do you keep picking up random facts and thinking damn, THAT’S what the answer was?!” They said that they too were experiencing this. They agreed: it is an unpleasant side effect of answering so many questions — your brain is constantly searching for the answers.
“Kopplin’s Coffee creates some of the most brilliant coffees, tasty teas and delicious hot chocolate in the Midwest.”
Winner of “Best Barista” and “Best Coffee Shop” in the Twin Cities in 2009. We’re going! As soon as I get these boards taken next week.
The colored spaces are almost gone for this year! See the 23rd? That’s where I start 8-10 hour days studying for boards. The fun just never ends.