The Final Battle

The day before my exam I was still in the roller coaster clinging tight to the seat waiting for the ride to culminate. Kristýna had come return home to Prague a couple of days earlier (oh, how I was happy about that) and we spent the night having a picnic by the river, going over some last topography and finished it off by watching the amazing film Perfume - The story of a Murderer. If you haven't seen it I recommend you to do so.
 I woke up earlier than I had to and got ready to eat and suit up. Eating is the worst thing before exams and even thou Kristýna made me an amazing sandwich with everything you'd ever wish for I was not able to eat even half of it. I turned to my backup plan: smoothie. You can put almost anything in there and it's easy to take in, even when nervousness inhibits your appetite.
 The walk to anatomy department was very hot, it was indeed a god day, so I had to take my jacket off. The atmosphere in the building was really at unease. Most of the students from both the national and international parallel were already there - and I thought I was early with 15 minutes on the safe side. I found three friendly faces outside and we immediately started to share our thoughts about what was about to follow. I honestly cannot recall the great many things we discussed; "what-if"'s, "I-think"'s and "I've-heard"'s. I am, as you might have understood from earlier posts, not a man that speculates - however, even I had a difficult to brace myself.

The announcement finally arrived and we were summoned in the small lecture hall. A division was made and we international students ended up together with what I guess were 1/3 of the national students. We placed ourselves accordingly to the organization made by the exam assistants and after a quick introduction the slides began. I will not give details about the test itself, since a summary can be written in an earlier post.
 It was much more difficult than I anticipated. The slides were often of unknown origin, i.e. they are from an atlas or painter I, and I believe many other international students, did not recognize. With this said, the ability to be able to apply your specific knowledge from one atlas to schemes from another is very much valued. After all, the anatomy, in theory, is almost all the same - with variation of depth of details of course.
After handing in our tests we were sent off to the lobby with time to kill - and anxiety to suppress. We gathered again and started to deal with reason and non-reason. With no certainty of one’s grade, and I should here mention the 21/30 to pass limit, we all compared answers and possible mistakes.

I scored 22 and a sigh of relief, yet slight disappointment, left my lungs. I was through to the next round. Students who did not pass the introduction test had to leave and those left among me, a good 60%, left off into different directions depending on what examiner they got. Of us international student I believe no one got the same examiner. There were two of the examiners I really dreaded; Prof. Elizka and Prof. Druga. They are both amazing anatomists, the former in lymphatics and the later in central nervous system, which is a good reason why one should be humble once facing them.

I was led to the practical part of the exam first and to my surprise the professors were not examining here. It was both organized and held by docents and their assistants which, was sort of a relief at the moment. This part did not present much fear nor problem to pass for me. The knowledge from the studies during the summer dissection course, not too long ago, was still rather fresh and well embedded in my spine. Since I had to wait a good hour to get into the practical I understood that I would be one of the last to go to the oral part – a prediction that later proved to be correct.

Inside Prof. Elizka’s office posters of lymphatic systems were hanging from the walls both high and low and boxes with unidentifiable items were placed into towers in every corner. It was a very comic scene that hit me as a nice mind break in all the stress. Take notice, I would never call a Professor’s office messy so what I describe is a creative chaos much convenient to the person behind it, but certainly not for a confused and stressed out student.

Five national colleagues were already present preparing their presentations by scribbling down as much as their brainpower could afford in the pressing heat from outside streaming in through an open window in the corner. I looked around and nodded politely in a good luck meaning manner to those who met my gaze. The assistant that had showed me the way to the office showed me my seat and I was given a bunch of papers from a stock of what looked like a well written, formal document in Czech. “Not what one expect on an exam…” I thought and followed it up with “…but recycling papers are a great thing…!”.
I prepared my pencils and the assistant approached with a bucket. Inside were the questions and I randomly picked a number coding for this set of questions:
- Muscles and Fascias; of the back.
- Kidney; structure, syntopy and blood supply.
- The Eye; blood supply, ciliary and pupillary reflex.
- CNS; spinothalamic-, spinoreticular- and spinotectal tracts.
 I was at first puzzled by the set of questions and did not know where to start. I began by drawing as much as I could about the kidney since it was, in my opinion, the easier question. After that I sort of jumped from one drawing to another since I didn’t know how much time I had left. I understood from the order of students that I would be the last one which meant that I had four students ahead of me equal to about 20 minutes minimum each. After I had drawn for what felt like 3 hours I was finally done and couldn’t possibly get more out of my head. My six pages were filled with drawing from different angles showing different structures and I began to plan in which order to present them. Since I didn’t write more than one sentence I also had to come up with what to actually say.

This is the actual schemes I drew, however one page is missing:




 All of a sudden my time was up and the last student before me unfortunately for him did not pass but fortunately for me I now thought that this opens up a chance for me to perform better an impress. Because that is what it is about – to impress the examiner with your knowledge and ability to present it.

In a regular fashion Prof. Elizka wanted me to begin with the CNS question about the spinothalamic tract. I presented my scheme, which he was very pleased with, and I just brainstormed as much as I could. He then did an unexpected move and asked me about the reticular formation, a complete different structure within the brain but with connections to the spinoreticular tract. I was at first caught off guard but came back in the game and could move on to the second question. With the nice backup of my schemes (I once again argue in favour of schemes) could rely on always having the knowledge approved in illustration. I have really no idea how long my exam lasted, time is not of the essence as you are getting hit by question after question but I remember that it ended in a neat discussion about Sweden since Prof. Elizka recently visited a congress there.

In risk of being too self confident I can end by saying that I was very satisfied with my performance and I am glad that the grade reflects my ambition. After the even I can say that it is a very good experience to be put in the hot seat in front of someone of great importance and with a level of studies that exceeds your own by a thousandfold.
Gratitude is also to be able to have such an examiner that allows discussion about the subject and lets you correct yourself if proven wrong. Being well prepared is the key retrieved by repetition and practice in presentation of the subjects.

Next challenge is Histology which I fear will be far much worse. For now, good night and may reason strengthen your mind...