My STEP score came back!

I have all these ideas for post and not one of them is going to happen! I wish I could elaborate them all into fully-fledged posts, but I can't because 1) I don't have time, 2) when I do sit down to it, I can't slow down mentally, and 3) I'm thinking in short abbreviations and in the fragments of sentences we use in progress notes, so I can't write well.

We will now publish about six posts which, while half-baked, have GOT to get out of the "pending" box.  Here's number one.

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I had completely given up on hearing about my STEP score, and was awash with the busy-ness of third year when I got an email from our class president one Tuesday night. It was in the tone of a very intense pep-talk, and I was confused until there were enough sentences like “this is an important score for all of us,” and “it’s a big day tomorrow” so that I figured STEP scores must be coming out tomorrow. Then I promptly forgot this and worked most of the day on Wednesday without being able to check the number.

At 1:00pm, all of my classmates who are on this rotation were together and relatively idle after lunch. Everyone else had checked their scores, so I picked up my phone to check my email and find out mine.

Well, I got as far as checking my email. My phone loaded the (six) new messages and then I had to admit a patient. (That was one of the four Wednesdays we have a shift from 1pm to 11pm in admissions after a morning working at the hospital.) I came back from the admission and stood in the corner by a cubicle with my phone to check the score report.

I jumped through a few hoops (had to find the ID to get myself into the website, guess my password, etc) and then opened the PDF of my score report on my phone. I looked at the number and felt diaphoretic. It was a very, very good score.

Around me, the admissions office buzzed and whirled. I felt sweaty and weak and shocked! God had given me an extraordinary gift. A score like that meant that I will almost certainly get a good residency, and it is even likely that I’d get one of my first choices. Wow! I was shooting for average and scored really well!

I didn’t tell any of my fellow students my score. I hesitated even to post about it here because I know some of my classmates know about this blog. I’m hoping, though, that third year is swallowing everyone’s time and that no one will see this.

I heard my peers talking amongst themselves about their scores. I was amazed that some people who seem to study more than I do got lower scores than I did. I must have just guessed correctly on all the questions I guessed. Then my classmates started talking in hushed tones about people who’d scored ten points below me. Finally, they mentioned that one of the men in our class had scored ridiculously high--they mentioned the number, which was one point below my score. I stayed silent. It would have been completely inappropriate to share my score, and I would have been really uncomfortable if anyone asked. I just stuck to repeating that OB/GYN needs an “average” score, that I was aiming for a 223, and that I was pleased with my score.

DEO GRATIAS!