I had arranged to study on campus with my friend CA and I got a call from one of my colleagues, JJ, that the e-mails had been sent. I passed! Thank God! and I was glad she did. The issue for me was whether I passed.
My pulse started racing and my mouth was dry. Before I knew it, I was almost breathless and I couldn't hear the music over my heart pounding in my chest. In my state of sympathetic overdrive, I decided to pull out my laptop while I was driving after I switched on my wireless modem. After the symbols of connectivity showed up on the screen, I opened Entourage, the e-mail client. After a few moments, it grunted stating there was no new updates. At that point I realised all the beeping was from the cars behind me.
I pulled the car over and restarted the modem. Maybe its a connection issue. Again, grunting from the e-mail client. I decided to go through hotmail and sign in - after an agonising two minutes, it signed in and there was nothing in my inbox. My blood pressure must have been through the roof.
There was little choice - I called the co-ordinator. The internet has been down for about thirty minutes. I'm sending out the results one at a time. I'm sure you'll be fine. That sort of reassurance isn't really reliable, especially in my state of mind. I thanked her in my breathless state and started making my way over to meet CA.
Drenched in sweat, I saw CA waiting there for me and I explained what had happened. She had a similar experience with her examination results. After drowning my anxiety with 600mL of water, we spent half an hour trying to find a quiet place to study. All the library rooms were booked out and there wasn't much we could do other than study in our anatomy museum - a very peaceful place.
After an hour of watching some lectures, I checked my e-mail again and it read Congratulations, you have successfully passed all the summative assessments in PWH.
I was able to relax now. It wasn't a "hooray!" because of all the tension that accumulated over the past hour, but indeed it was very relieving to hear that news. We exchanged phone calls and messages with results; so far it seemed that we were all satisfying the Faculty's ridiculous assessments.
I made a few phone calls after work today to some of my friends to see how they went in their exams. SW just finished Psychiatry and he too had passed. However, he knew of at least 9 people who was unsuccessful in the O&G OSCE assessment. By that time on Sunday I had already heard of a few people failing as well and that meant about a dozen people had to re-do the OSCE at one of our metropolitan hospitals.
The problem was that even colleagues in the rural schools had to travel to metropolitan Sydney to attend the second round, meaning that they would lose hours if not a day of much-needed study for the exams just over a week away. This ridiculous principle also applied to colleagues that were unsuccessful in other specialty assessments.
Of course it would be too courteous of our Faculty to schedule the re-sit assessments after the week of final examinations. That would obviously make so much sense that it would be inconsistent with their repertoire of stupidity and protocols of idiocy.
My description of how I feel can only be described as bittersweet: I'm relieved that I have passed my speciality assessments but depressed about my friends and colleagues having to re-sit for the second time just before the final exams that determine whether we are eligible to be final year students. The final assessments are also very difficult as they more than likely examine disciplines that we have not been exposed to at all, meaning that certain disciplines that we may have studied are not relevant. But that's a whole other story.
All the best to those having to sit the second round assessments. I hope they pull through. I really do.
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