Step 3 Day 2

I slept better on Tuesday and Wednesday night than I had ever slept before any board exams. I expect that trend to continue from now onwards. I went over the solutions to all the practice case scenarios on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, and watched at least 4 episodes of He-Man to try and calm myself down.

I walked into the testing area on Thursday and it took an excessively long time to get the test started. In retrospect, it was probably around the same amount of time it took previously, but it seemed like so much longer because I was sitting in the waiting area with a bunch of nervous people who wouldn't strike up conversations about themselves or about the tests they wanted to take. They weren't all fearless like yesterday's residents who were confident in their abilities and just wanted to take the step 3, pass and get it over with so they could get back to their lives. These people were sitting there and sweating and shaking as though they had something to lose.

Everything went smoother on the second day, but I was still jammed for time for a certain number of blocks, and I totally bombed the last case scenario, couldn't remember what to do and didn't end up helping the patient, but that was one scenario out of 12 and I was only looking to pass. The rest of the cases, as far as I could tell, went well enough. I am optimistic.

I decided to drive home right afterwards and got my first speeding ticket in Canada. I've decided to retire from speeding (to my European friends, I got the ticket for doing 135 kph in a 100 kph zone which, over here, is the standard highway speed). In medical school, I always felt it necessary to speed in order to be able to make long drives to wherever I wanted to go and get there on time. Now that I'm a doctor, I think it would be much more prudent to simply leave early, and to get there when I get there. I believe the majority of my highway driving is behind me, at least for now anyway. With children will come much more driving for camp grounds and far-off friends and other opportunities, but in general I think my speeding days are behind me. Again by speeding, I mean breaking the law. When I visit France and Italy in May, I will most certainly be doing whatever the speed limit is over there.