Reflections from a lifelong learner on a Sunday off from Grady: "Bored" Review

A view to a kill-- my kitchen table this morning
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Re-upping your sho'nuff and bonified status

Turns out that they don't just let you go to med school, then go to residency, and then just doctor for good. Well, I take that back. If you finished your training "back in the day" then that's exactly what they let you do. They call it "grandfathering" in. Like, literally, you might be a doctor who's somebody's grandfather or grandmother, so by virtue of all your gray hair, blood, sweat and tears (and maybe visual disturbances and possible computer illiteracy) they let you be official forever. (It's probably fair, considering those guys all trained before anyone cared about duty hours, feelings, feedback, or anything else touchy-feely.) For the rest of us, every 7 to 10 years we must be tortured with taking boards again. They call it re-certification. Uggghhh! (You mean to tell me that they think we might forget the twelve trillion facts we learned a decade ago?! How rude!)

That's what I'm up to right now--preparing for my boards. Yup. I have to take an all day, computerized test that gives me the sho'nuff and bonified stamp of approval for ten more years. And now that I'm studying, I think the powers that be just might be on to something. Turns out that maybe you do forget a thing or two in a decade (even if you've been practicing.)

Here's the problem: Studying ain't like it used to be. I used to throw on some sweats and my favorite t-shirt, don a ratty baseball cap and a pair of clogs, and then schlep all my notebooks over to the nearest coffee shop for some hard core studying. Back then, you woke up, you needed to study, and you went and studied. Period. With notebooks and paper--not laptops (crazy, I know, med students!) And while we did have cell phones in the year 2K, that was back when each talk-time minute was dear, so your studying wasn't interrupted by your girlfriends calling to ask you random things like, "Hey girl, do you know how many fat grams are in a filet o' fish" or "Does a frappachino have milk in it?" Nobody was texting you, sending you multi-media messages or youTube links, and there was no temptation to check email or facebook or surf the net on your iPhone (or your laptop for that matter as there was no wi-fi.) Oh, and did I fail to mention? No little crumbsnatchers were marching around your study-zone singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" at the top of their lungs, or demonstrating their very best kung fu kick that you must--Mommy! Are you looking?--stop what you're doing and watch. Now it's all different.

The two minute window where Isaiah said, "Mommy, I have to study, too."

I'm trying to study, I am. But I am also an almost forty year old woman with two rowdy preschool age boys who have looked out the window every day this weekend, saw "Mr. Sun" wake up and are asking what they're going to do today. Normally, we'd be skipping into church right now or planning a delicious pancake breakfast somewhere. Instead, I am at the mercy of the Nickelodeon channel and my dear husband (who I promised I'd let sleep for a bit this morning.) On top of that, I've discovered that I'm kind of bored with board review. I'd much rather blow bubbles with the kids than blow the whole day being completely humbled by factoids that I can't seem to narrow down correctly. Uggghhh.

Reality bites. . . . .

Yep, reality is mother (especially now that I'm a mother.) I didn't finish my training "back in the day" so I'm going to be taking my lumps on Tuesday along with several thousand other poor, unfortunate almost-forty-and-over-somethings who need to remain sho'nuff and bonified. I've decided that surely they must be equally as distracted and bored with board review, and surely the test-writers took this into account when doing their test-writing. (At least this is what I am telling myself as my studies get interrupted by temper tantrums, sticky fingers, and daydreams. . . .)

Wish me luck. :)

Studying circa 2010 with vultures circling the table. . . .

. . . .and singing and dancing around the table. . . .