They measured my head...

for my graduation cap yesterday! We had registration yesterday for the last year of medical school, and in addition to the financial aid station, tuberculosis skin test station, and CPR certification station, there was a graduation station! They measured our heads for cap sizes and took down our names exactly as we want them on our diplomas! How exciting! I've known my schedule for next year for awhile, but here is a quick run-down...it is glorious!

July: Step 2 CK (clinical knowledge) study time. I'm taking an online class for credit while I study for my test, which is July 26th. Right now I am studying every day as much as I can! (although I will admit that today I was mildly distracted by the MJ memorial--I thought it was great, he really was a legend, and many of my favorite artists performed!)

August: Acting Internship in Pediatrics. I will work with an inpatient team at ACH as more of a "team member" than "student". I'll have a little more responsibility than when I rotated through Children's as an M3. Also on August 27th I'll take the second part of Step 2 (CS-clinical skills) in Atlanta.

September: Allergy and Immunology at Children's. This was recommended to me by my advisor, apparently the Allergy and Immunology folks are good people to know if you want to be a resident at ACH!

October: required rotation in Orthopedics, Urology, Anesthesia, and ENT. One week of each.

November: Infectious Disease at ACH. Very useful rotation, will cover all kinds of good topics on an inpatient team. Infectious Disease docs are consulted for weird and hard to manage infections.

December and January: OFF!!! That's right, many glorious days of sleeping in and being lazy with no tests to study for! Also during this time we'll be traveling a lot as I go to different hospitals for interviews. I'm really excited about being off the whole month before Christmas too!

February: Primary care month at ACH. I think it is one week of general peds clinic, one week of ER, and two weeks of subspecialty clinics (like asthma, cardiology, etc.)

March: OFF again!!! And again nothing to study for. Also, Match Day is March 18th--this is the day when all M4's find out where they are heading for residency!

April: 10th block course. Our whole class comes back together for a wrap-up course of med school, and a crash course on actually being doctors.

In order to have so many months off, I am taking two longitudinal courses (they meet once or twice a month) that I am very excited about. One is a Pediatric Pharmacology/Toxicology course that will be very helpful in deciding what medicines to use for common conditions. The other I am SO PUMPED about: I'm teaming up with two other friends to be leaders of a small group for an M1 course called Introduction to Clinical Medicine, where we'll be teaching the new med students how to do history and physicals! It should be really fun!

And graduation is May 16th I think! It's that weekend anyway! Another great thing about fourth year besides getting to pick your own schedule and having lots of time off is that every course is Pass/Fail! Hallelujah!!!

Our floors are officially finished in the kitchen! Jordan finished the trim last night. They are wonderful and every time I look at them I smile! Made all the difference!

Looking forward to the end of this week, for the much anticipated arrival of BABY FLANNAGAN!!!!!!!