Histology Final Exam

The last days have held nothing but good weather, hence the long trip with the boat both north and south of the west coast. However, we didn't have to travel far - the very best spots are close to the harbour.

The jet ski have been a steady companion and together with the newly imported GoPro HD camera mountable on pretty much any solid surface I've snapped some rather amazing photos and videos - videos that are to be retouched and edited into a neat film later when the weather is getting worse.
As promised, I will give a recap on my preparation of the final exam from histology.
Straight after anatomy I booked histology in the end of June. However, as I finished anatomy the relief took over and the motivation of studying was completely absent. I took almost a week off, spending time with Kristýna and fixing in the apartment. The fact that Kristýna wouldn’t be done with school until the end of July, due to internships, made me rearrange my plan. One day before the deadline I cancelled the term in June. My plan was that, since I would stay in Prague until August anyway I might take the time to study properly.

Rushing things are never good, but after the event I think it was a bad choice.
As I previously posted, there was quite an unfortunate issue with the sign up system and I did not get a term. I could blame it on the system, but I’d rather be honest and say that it was my bad from the beginning to cancel the first term. However, more students were struck by the lack of slots in the July term and together we managed to open up more slots.
I now spent almost 4 weeks of studying the histology with increasing intensity towards the end. It was very difficult to sit inside studying when the sun was shining, knowing that I could have been done already. Kristýna was a huge support, kicking my ass to study and took me places to rest my head in between.

The histology questions are divided into three categories; cytology, systemic histology and embryology. I finished off the first part during the first half of the second week of repetition. It took me way more time than I had anticipated. My plan was to finish the systemic histology in the next week and leave one week for embryology. I was told that embryology was manageable in one week but since I didn’t really keep up during the lessons it would prove to be a lot tougher. The systemic histology took a bit longer as well, and in the end I had only 5 days for embryology.

Drawings are essential for embryology in order to understand the developmental steps which are rather complex. There are different books to study from and I recommend one that is well illustrated.
The day before the exam was like every other day before an exam, freaking out feeling like a complete idiot with no knowledge stuck in the head whatsoever. My exam was scheduled at Friday and my flight to Sweden the very same day. I knew it would be stressful so I contacted the histology department in order to change it to Thursday. It was a bit of a problem but after much doubt they agreed and let me in to the exam – as the first student. I got Prof. Kucera, a young professor who I had no contact with earlier, since he was not holding any seminars.

The exam is held in two parts, first the oral examination and then a practical microscopical examination from three slide preparations. The oral part contains one question from each chapter, as mentioned earlier; cytology and general histology, systemic histology and embryology. My three questions were:

-          Blood Smear, preparation and interpretation.

-          Islets of Langerhans

-          Development of the Heart

Really nice questions, indeed. However, I had quite a hard time at the exam. I didn’t know the questions as well as I’d hoped.
It was a success after all, and I could finally finish the first year.
Now a lot of preparation must be made for the upcoming second year. But first, vacation.