Oral Boards and my Birthday

Since the beginning of PA school, there has been this test that people dread. That test is oral boards. It is something that we start studying for months to weeks in advanced. This test takes place in the last term of PA school and it is your final for clinical medicine III. There are multiple diseases that you have to studying and your grader choses two to test you one and you have to verbally go though, definition, etiology, epidemiology, pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, diagnosis/ labs, treatment, and complications. All in 15 minutes per disease. We also get a chief complaint like "cough", and have to spit out 20 diseases or so that cause cough. You have to make sure that when you rattle off 20 things that cause a cough that you throw in oral board topics so that you can get your final diagnosis. COPD is an oral board topic, these topics can change every year, and that causes a cough for example.

Yesterday we had oral boards and it was extremely stressful. The day was filled some crying due to all the emotion built up for this event. However scary it was, our teachers tried to relieve as much stress as possible, some even handed out candy. In the end we PASSED! It is so exciting that the test we most feared is now behind us and we only have 2 finals left before we go on rotations! Last night we all went out and celebrated this accomplishment. Also, yesterday was also my birthday, so we celebrated that as well. It was so nice to go out and relax with my classmates. We all hugged one another and took pictures, it was a great night. I am proud of everyone and how far we have come! What a great birthday present this was.