In late May, I started reviewing for the boards thinking that I was sure to pass. Come on, the statistics was on my side given that the UP College of Medicine has had 98-99% passing rate in the past years. Also, it’s a multiple choice exam and I have been through so many of these exams, and even though I saw myself as a not-so-excellent student, I always had that confidence because I knew I can compensate with my testmanship skills. I counted the major exams in my life: Pisay entrance, college entrance exam, DOST, and NMAT. I passed these so how could the board exams be any different?

 

As August approached, I was finding myself late in following my schedule at first for half a day, then a day, then days… then weeks. I changed my schedule about 18 times in two months! I was taking sample exams and I still got 60s in some of the subjects. How can I pull off a 75% average needed to pass with this? Then, my terrible days in med school suddenly flashed before me. At the end of the 1^st semester in my first year, I didn’t expect to collect 2 removals… one for anatomy and one for histology. I did know I was failing my previous exams but come on, I’m sure I did well in the finals and what are the chances that I, the master test-taker will fail these? But I did take the removals. I did survive but this left a serious dent in my confidence. I asked myself: Is this board exam going to be the same thing? That I play on statistics and get boosted with confidence… and in the end, I find myself failing?

I needed more reasons to believe in myself. Here’s the effort bet: Come on, Pam. You’ve tried your best in preparing for this exam… (but the other voice told me: Come on, the other did more work preparing for this exam). I was getting desperate for confidence so I was also suddenly playing the karma card: You’ve been a good kid. You’ve done service in PGH. You haven’t wished people ill. And I got my pencils blessed at St. Jude!!!

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

 

When it was finally exam time, I tried to let go of my insecurity. It was fighting time. In between exams, I crammed whatever I could. I spent almost all of the two hours alloted for each exam, reviewing my answers and making sure I shaded properly. I found every exam difficult. I knew I haven’t stashed enough stock knowledge in med school. Also, when I finally saw the exams, I found out there were a lot of poorly constructed questions. There were a lot of typographical errors. ( Was it asking contiguous or contagious? What is ethanoluse–a new compound or “ethanol use”? What is a “bronchial plexus”? ) There were a lot of unfair questions. It was definitely harder to use the testmanship route in this exam because in addition to figuring out the right answers, the other half of the challenge was figuring out whether something is a typo error or not. The classic dilemma would be: What is the best answer among the choices? A could possibly be an answer. B would be the best answer if I am right that it is a typo error. If B was not a typo error and it was a deliberate attempt to trick me, then A would be a better answer.

 

I was getting more and more nervous as I go through the 12 exams. As if my statistics bet and my karma bet were not enough to appease me, I also bought the societal need bet. Here goes: My friend told me that the Board of Medicine has the prerogative to adjust the passing rate to respond to the needs of society. Doctors were going out of the country. That was becoming a more pressing problem as the years go by. They should make more doctors pass now. Please?

 

During my last few exams, I was already planning what I would do if I failed. Where I will stay, what books I should read, what sorry I will tell my parents,… I was telling myself that there was an element I failed to factor in my good record of exam-taking: every one of these previous exams had math in them!!! I haven’t faired well in memory-heavy exams!!! So good luck in the boards—where I had to compute only once in the 1200 questions I had to answer!

 

I came out of the 12 exams feeling so tired and fearful. After the good karma, statistics, and the societal need bid failed to appease me that I was going to pass… I played a new card–the I-really-want-it-badly card. I said, I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR. True, I have always felt like I wasn’t meant to be a doctor all throughout med school. But now, that fear let me shout out, I DO WANT TO BE A DOCTOR. Yes, I said those out loud on August 12, 2007. From there, I would be counting three days until the results are out. That would be countless episodes of palpitations, of difficulty of breathing, of difficulty in sleeping…

 

After three long days of waiting, the results of the Physician Licensure Examination are finally out. I did pass. Truly, it was one of the happiest moments in my life. And yeah, I could finally add this exam to the list of the exams, that would make me believe in my test-taking skills again. This time, I didn’t use math as a security blanket.