Boards

the February 2008 physician licensure exam has just ended. about 3 days from now, the results will be out and this period (the waiting), is TORTURE to the examinees. looking back 6 months ago, i felt this same pressure and fortunately ended it with triumph. but i never wrote about the details about my 'boards' experience during my time. i guess this is the best time to reminisce...

(caution: boring material ahead. This is intended only for the author’s reading pleasure anyway. The main reason I wrote this is because I didn’t want to lose this wonderful memory.)

internship ended in April 2007 and i barely had 3 months to study for the August 2007 boards. but right before internship ended, i deviced a plan on how i was gonna go through reviewing. this includes surfing the net and asking people for feedbacks regarding the past boards and the best review materials, deciding on which review center i was gonna enroll and making a schedule for my self-review (of the 12 subjects in 3 months).

May 2007. Laid-back. This month started with me going to Puerto Galera with my co-interns. we stayed there for 3 days and celebrated the end of a chapter in our med lives. after that, i moved back to my home in Laguna where we had TV and internet and planned to stay there during the review. (good luck to me!) i watched tv from morning til night (that is 'mirmo' to rounin') but still tried to read something. but before i knew it, the month has ended with me not having finished reviewing a single subject.

June 2007. Panic. the 1-week UP review classes i enrolled in started a few days before May ended. Basically, the review was just a series of mock board exams per subject which were discussed at the end of the session. and like a real board exam, our percentile scores/ranking were obtained and posted! that UP review was not pretty much of a 'review' to me but mock exams merely but it sure gave me the motivation to study. after seeing the disappointing results, i realized that if i were to take the boards at that time, i would have failed. after the UP review, i immediately decided to move in to some place where there is less distraction). luckily, i found the best place--a quiet room in a church mission house in pasay. no tv. no internet. well there's a bit of music. i had this small radio and i regularly tuned in to mo twister's show in the morning. i did some gruelling review about 4 days a week. on fridays, my family would take me out to the movies (i got to watch transformers) or go dining or shopping before we go home in laguna. on mondays, i travel back to manila to get my arse back to reviewing.

July 2007. Cramming. it's not enough to read the reviewers once. but there's just too many of them. plus i havent even scanned on other materials yet and boards was only a month away. It was a hard time trying to think of which review materials to salvage since I cannot go over all of them anymore. And at this time, I was still buying review materials which I think were patok(effective). I was at the highest level of freakin out during this time and I frequently get palpitations. Exchanging text messages with friends were a bit of comfort to me. Also, about once or twice, my friends and I got together for a group study which always turned out to be a tanungan/lokohan session but it is from times like such that I gained strength and courage.

August 2007. Judgment day. (or days—2 consecutive Saturdays and Sundays). I cannot say I was prepared. I was definitely not. i can never be prepared. i lack the time and my brain just couldn’t take it anymore. im so freaking scared. I cried so hard when my parents called me up the day before the exams. I barely had sleep that night perhaps out of nervousness and because of people who kept texting me until 2am in the morning! =) i woke up at 5am, took a bath, ate breakfast, read a bit and at 6:30am im off to the testing center. I brought some reviewers with me and some Red Ribbon pastries and chocolates as my baon. This routine I did on all four exam days. The exams went a bit okay during the first day.

I overslept the night before the second day. I failed to review anything for the first exam. I ended the day with disappointment and went home in Laguna with a bit of hopelessness. The exams were difficult but what pissed me off was learning about a particular reviewer that could have been so patok had I reviewed it. So many things went to my mind. That particular exam was not really so difficult but anyone who got hold of that reviewer could easily ace the exam. The passing score for each of the exam depends on the average score of the examinees. The higher the average, the higher is the passing score. Now where does that put me?! But I thought I had to move on. There are 6 more exams ahead.

On the 3rd day, same routine I did. Nothing really to note for except for the increasingly difficult exams and this person I met at a fastfood. I was falling in line at the counter to order my dinner, when i caught this guy wearing polo shirt and white pants, in front of me staring at my white blazer. I assume he was checking my name in there. Then he asked “Doktora, madali ba ang exam?”. Thinking that we was a co-examinee I replied, “mas nahirapan ako ngayon kesa nung first week”. The he said “ah ganun ba. Naku! Ano ba pangalan mo? {my last name}? Aabangan ko pangalan mo sa dyaryo ha.” I laughed it off as I he went away. I didn’t know what to say. Was that a compliment? That even left me some more pressure. After that, I realized he was not an examinee. My friends told me it could be a premonition.

Last day of exam. By this time I was so mentally stressed out and emotionally drained. I wasn’t able to eat my baon anymore. im getting sick of mamon and chocolates in between breaks. That day I was only waiting for the clock to strike 4pm.

Oh and how could I forget about the superstitions:

1) once you finished, go straight home and don’t look back. Looking back means youre ‘coming back’(for the re-take)—-Well I hanged around for a bit at the testing center after the exam to wait for my other friends hoping that we could go out to detoxify or something.

2) break your pencils. Not breaking it implies that you might be using it again for the re-take.—-I didn’t break mine. I passed my pencils on to my lil cousin for her highschool entrance exams. The proctors were handing out letters asking us to donate our pencils but I left the room early so I wasn’t able to donate some of mine.

3) wear something red. Red means good luck.—I didn’t do this either. I brought a red ballpen with me though.

4) Bring Red Ribbon mamon. I don’t know where this one came from.—This one I did but only because I like red ribbon pastries.

Post-boards. Relieved. After the exam my friends and I went straight to St. Jude Catholic Church in Manila. Im not catholic though. as expected, the sermon was about the exam. At the end of the service, the priest asked us examinees to go to the front so he can pray for us. I remember him praying to God for strength for people who will not receive a good news after the results are out (something like that) and suddenly some people were emotional. But just like I told my friend, we may have lacked the time to review, we may have guessed on most questions and we may seem to have less chances of passing but we cant do anything about it. the exams already ended and the most that we can do is to pray and to not entertain these negative thoughts. And so after the mass, we headed to a friend’s house, had a sumptuous dinner her mother prepared and went home.

The next day, I woke up late, tried to relax, watched cable tv at the church mission house and went to trinoma mall with one of my buddies. We had pizza and then went to see Ratatouille. I very much liked the movie and pretty much had a blast but as soon as I went home, I lost that feeling. I could not pretend to be strong anymore. I could not convince myself any longer that I have a good chance of passing. I cried my heart out that night and slept all the fear away.

Day 2 after the exams, my parents fetched me from the mission house. We said good bye to the caretakers and they took me out for shopping and good food. And then home sweet home at last. I was numb by this time. There were rumours that the results are going to be out that night. I waited until 2am but there was none. False alarm!

The verdict. At 9pm on the 3rd day after the exams, my family and I were coming home from a prayer meeting when buddy sent me a text asking me if I could go online to see if the results are out. They heard that the results are already posted outside PRC and that the security guard there told somebody that the passing rate was only 54%! How reliable could that be?!! As soon as I got home, I went online but still got no results. I was nervous, excited and a bit restless at the same time but I was expecting it to come out at 12 midnight so I tried to relax until I got another text. It said “Congratulations {insert my full name here}, MD!” I didn’t know what to do first: check my name online or call my friend. Anyway, I had my dad do the first. I called up my friend and she said they went to the Manila Bulletin and made a scene there after learning that everyone in our circle of friends passed! Finally I saw my name on the results online. Then I answered call after call until the next day. I thought about that premonition and the Red Ribbon mamon! Seriously though, I believe God brought me to this career and so He brought me through it. From day one, Ive been thinking that this is a calling and this is more than enough reason to pass. Still up to this day, I have been so thankful.

September 2007. Thankful. This is us at the oath-taking.

Good times...