Step 1

For all of you non-medical school people I am going to explain more about what the step one test was that David recently took and the pictures are just some of my favorites of Davie and his daddy. In today's medical school world it is the single most important test you take. No pressure right? The test itself is on everything students have learned in their first two years of school, it has 7 sections with 46 questions each and it lasts about 8 hours. Fun times!

David took his on June 19th. He didn't find out what his score was until the 11th of July. A student's score is what determines their competitiveness when they begin to apply for their desired field of residency. As of right now David has fairly lofty goals he either wants to do interventional radiology, or orthopedics (I guess that one is fun because you get to use hammers, saws and/ or nails fairly often (sick)). That being said David has just barely started rounds and has only experienced first hand internal medicine and psychiatry. However after doing both of those rotations he is still completely uninterested in them.

On July 10th David called me with his test results and he had gotten a 253! Some of you might not know what that means so to give you an idea of he was aiming for a 240 and anything above was a bonus. When he told me his test score I was so relieved! Lost of exclamations in this post it was such an amazing day!!!

I hadn't really realized that I was nervous about his score until he told me and I instantly felt sooooo relieved, it was a great moment for us and our future. Another frame of reference for his score is that a 235 would be able to get him into a orthopedic residency pretty easily. I was and am SOOOO proud of David, he did so great! He deserved it after all his sleepless nights of anxiety and endless studying.

 Basically his score will ensure that no matter what he decides he wants to do he will be competitive when he goes to apply for residency. As a medical student he will apply to residencies he is interested in and they will interview him if they are interested in him. After that David will rate the school on a list from 1 to 10 and the residencies will do the same and hopefully the residencies gets the students they want and vice versa.

 For those of you who have already been through the process this is about the extent of residency and placement that I know so I have no doubt that I might have missed a detail or misspoken about the whole ordeal. So yea that's the basics of Step 1 and residency. Except for there is also a Step 2 which is almost as difficult and involved but it doesn't weigh in as much unless you bomb it.

 Davie was helping Dad fix Mom's lamp

 Mmmm, lamp.

 You're so funny daddy!

 Look at those monkey legs

 Move over dad!

I love this look on Davie's face when he is looking as his daddy.

Mr. Chubs