First anatomy exam

The first anatomy exam was, in fact, less of a debacle than I expected it to be. Of course there was test-anxiety galore (for everyone--enough to take me out of my shell and spontaneously fear/anticipation-hug two people in the hallway outside the dissection suite), and the test itself, well, it was engineered for maximum fun--if you were a professor watching, I guess. It's what I'd imagine a social psychologist would arrange to look at the effect of stress on anal-retentive, type-A individuals.

Put 30 of them in a room at once, where they can see each other scrambling and scribbling (or, if they get to a question they do know, standing idly and making everyone nervous because obviously that kid knows everything and I don't know anything and he's going to end up head of neurology at Brigham and Women's and I'm going to have to go live in a box).

Have at least 5 parts to every question. Incorporate as many different colored strings as you can into the question--the same goes for colored pins. If you have large and small pins in the same color, use both of them (I spent 30 seconds on one of the questions yelling in my head, "There is no mother #$*^ing large white pin!")

If you pin an organ that's easy to identify, make sure that identification of said organ is not a question for which students may receive points--rather, ask about vascular structures associated with it, or disease states, or its embryonic origin (that'll show the little bastards to skip embryology lectures).

Allow only 2 minutes per question. Use a buzzer to indicate the 2-minute intervals. Make it loud, so as to destroy concentration and work anxiety up to a fever pitch. If you have a student with long Q-T syndrome, see if you can put him into fibrillation with the combination of stress and buzzer. While not quite as dramatic, you may also be able to get someone to hyperventilate or faint.

Actually, while I'm speaking tongue in cheek, the anatomy exam was tough but fair. Nothing especially esoteric or ambiguous was pinned; there weren't any questions that were nebulous. There was even a 'rest stop' during one of the 2-minute periods with a bowl of small candy bars (proof that I'm "in the army now"--I took one of the candy bars and ate it. Outside lab, of course, but still...as one of the other students said, "Dude, that's dissection suite candy." I just think it was very nice of the TAs/profs to bring it in). And I passed, well above the requisite cutoff, thankyouverymuch, and when I picked up my paper (It may have been a little obnoxious, but I don't apologize) I did a little jig in the hall.

And now it's time to start studying for midterms, week after next. Oh joy. But seriously, there's nowhere I would rather be than here.