How to survive a medical school exam with COVID

Yep, I got COVID in the last few days before my most recent medical school exam. And not a mild, light sniffly version of COVID. I got the puking, shivering, aching, head pounding version. Not only that, my exam was on the musculoskeletal system. This was the block and exam that I was dreading the most this term. Fortunately, and also very surprisingly, it all turned out really well. I got 98% on this exam. Here is how I survived a medical school exam with a serious case of COVID.

How I got sick (it was my husband)

The symptoms

At the point that I suspect I got sick, I hadn’t left the house in almost 2 weeks. And my husband, who goes out for work every day, seemed totally fine. So COVID was the last thing on my mind.

In the first 2 days, I was a little achy and felt like I was coming down with a mild cold. I thought it was because I had been having long study days and hadn’t been sleeping well. So I chalked it up to “just” being tired.

On the 3rd day, I started shivering and my stomach felt so strange. I also had no appetite. Which is very unlike me. I finally tried eating something that afternoon and had a cup of water. A minute later, it came right back up. At this point I thought I had food poisoning or the stomach flu. My husband did a rapid test that night and he was negative, so I didn’t bother. I thought if he didn’t have it, then I couldn’t either.

On Friday, it seemed like I was getting better. And then all hell broke loose on Saturday. My head was pounding so bad that I couldn’t lift it off the bed. I was congested like crazy and I could barely talk. I developed a cough that made my head throb every time.

The worst part was that I couldn’t fall asleep. So I just laid in bed and experienced every miserable moment. I did a rapid test and was positive so I moved into isolation.

The recovery

Although I’m pretty sure he got me sick, my husband did an amazing job of getting me healthy again. He brought me a constant supply of food and made sure I was drinking lots of fluids. From soup, to Emergen-C Vitamin C packs, to herbal teas. I drank them all. Multiple times.

I woke up feeling alive on Sunday. I still couldn’t talk and I was very much congested and coughing, but the migraine had subsided. And that’s really all I needed. I actually got up and pulled back the curtains, which was a huge improvement. Because I had the strength now, I went through practice problems on my own and focused on the topics I was getting wrong.

Even though I would have told anyone else in my situation to just focus on rest, I couldn’t follow my own advice. I felt like I had worked so hard the last few weeks to let the grade I wanted slip away at the end. But the important part is that I was feeling better and had the energy to study. If I felt anything like Saturday, I wouldn’t have attempted it.

Fortunately, I felt strong enough to write the exam on Monday. I’m so glad I was able to get it over with rather than having to write a completion exam at the end of the term.

How I studied for the MSK medical school exam

Although it was a hectic module, overall I did a pretty good job of keeping up with the week-to-week content. There were definitely some lectures I neglected. But I knew I would have about 4-5 days “off” before the exam to brush up on that material. This was a huge reason why I was able to do well despite losing a lot of productive study time right before the exam.

Using the long weekend to rest

After my 2nd medical school exam about a month ago, I talked about being really tired. Fortunately, we only had 2 days of lectures after that exam followed by a 3-day weekend. This helped in 2 big ways.

First, I was able to rest and relax. Which I really needed. It amazes me every time just how much of a difference 1 extra day can make. Second, because I had the extra day, I was able to study and catch up on that week’s material. Not everything but enough to start the following week with a good understanding of the foundation topics.

This made all the difference because the following week was very content heavy. So while a lot of my peers were freaking out trying to catch up on old material and manage the new content, I was able to focus more on the new material and on starting practice problems. Which was key for this module.

Group studying before the medical school exam

A big difference during this block was that I studied in a group almost the entire time. I messaged in my tutorial group during the 2nd week if anyone wanted to start on exam review. There had already been a lot of content and I knew my classmates were feeling overwhelmed.

Two group members were interested and we’ve studied together ever since. Not to mention, they also crushed this medical school exam. One friend scored 88% and another got 90%.

Initially, we reviewed lecture content using the lecture learning objectives. Then we did assigned practice questions together from Gray’s Anatomy Review. As our exam approached, we spent more and more time on practice questions. In the beginning, we struggled a lot. There was so much information about different muscles, innervations, and blood supply to remember. It was difficult to figure out where to begin.

So we started analyzing the vignettes together. With practice, we got better at picking out the relevant details. We also started to recognize the buzz words associated with different clinical presentations. Like Erb’s Palsy and nerve damage during a mastectomy. And we got faster at answering the questions.

We also spent quite some time analyzing the answers to understand why the correct answer was correct and the other options were not. With each question, we learned something new such that all the lecture material slowly but surely started to come together and make sense.

Anki, Anki, Anki before the medical school exam

This time, I didn’t turn my incorrect answers into Anki cards. There were way too many questions to get through. And I had enough Anki cards as is in the pre-made decks that I use. Several hundred, in fact, each week. So I just tried my best to keep up with my daily reviews.

And just like with most other things, the repetition and consistency eventually helped me get familiar with the various innervations and muscle functions we needed to know.

Takeaways

It’s been a little over a week since I initially got sick and I’m still congested and getting my voice back. But overall, I’m much better. I tested negative yesterday so I spent half the day disinfecting and cleaning the whole house. Although chores aren’t fun, they certainly beat the helplessness I felt at my sickest when I couldn’t even get up. I certainly have a new-found appreciation for being able bodied and healthy enough to manage daily tasks.

Is there anything that you take for granted?

-M

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