Phew!

Well, I did it. I am officially done with third year. Today was my first day as a 4th year (MSIV).

This is pretty incredible. This is the year that my medical education truly becomes MINE, and not what someone dictates for me. I have basically all electives this year, and I made my schedule in terms of when I do what. There have been some glitches in the system, but I think it is almost settled. It is crazy to think that now I will be learning some things that my classmates will not be learning and might possibly never know.

I started on Toxicology today- so drug overdoses, poison ingestions, insect/snake bites, etc. This is a great rotation for a future ER doc (like me!) because a lot of things that walk into the ER, particularly in Phoenix due to the snakes and scorpions, are tox problems. I hear this rotation has great teaching and is really interesting, so I am VERY excited for it. It is also very laid back, which doesn't hurt :)

Even though officially I am an MSIV, I am reluctant to actually call myself that because I don't yet know the results from my Surgery and OB shelves/rotations. I feel pretty confident that OB went just fine, but the Surgery test was BRUTAL and every one of my classmates felt like they failed, myself included. I'm sure we didn't all fail, and I'm just praying that I'm one of the ones that passed. Some people say that we find out 2 weeks after the test (which would be this coming Friday), but with other shelves it took 4-6 weeks. So I could be on my second rotation of 4th year before I finally feel like I have actually finished 3rd year. I'll just keep hoping and praying that I passed!!