Second year: A time of transition
Halfway through medical school, Sarah Nakib doesn't really have a lot of time to spend mulling over the experience. She just finished finals, but the rush of relief is tempered by the need to prepare for boards, the first of three national exams she and her classmates will take over the next four years to become licensed to practice medicine. At the same time she's studying for the make-or-break test of pretty much everything she's learned in the past two years, she's also working in a dermatology research laboratory to help cover some of the costs of medical school. What lies ahead, and in front of her, clearly has the upper hand.
Still, sitting in her lab, with a brightly colored M&M telephone behind her and a big bag of M&Ms in the break room refrigerator, she's happy to take a break from the flurry to reflect on the past nine months.
The second year of medical school, she says, was a time of transition for her and her classmates.
"First year, you still kind of feel like a biology student," she says. But with its focus on diseases and pathology, second year brings countless concepts not covered in undergraduate classes. "A lot of it is new to everybody at this point," she says.
Nakib particularly appreciated the time spent each week in clinics, "to remind us what our jobs are going to be," she says. "It's a different mode — you have to have your thinking cap on." Now, as she studies for board exams, she is surprised to discover that the things that really stick in her mind are concepts she encountered in clinics as well as the classroom.
You might imagine that the second-year curriculum — filled as it is with end-to-end classes in lab medicine, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and more — would rule out anything extra. But that's not the case for Nakib. Even with free time at a premium, she has found extracurricular activities a much-valued break from the books. She was a student organization representative for two years, and last year she helped establish a global health program that brings students and others from law, medicine, public policy, and other fields together to promote global health. She also performed in Harambe — a celebration of medicine, culture, and the arts that medical students put together for the community each spring — and contributed an act involving a whoopee cushion and hidden cameras for a Medical School talent show.
Sarah Nakib examines samples of mouse hair in the dermatology lab. Nakib spent many hours of her second year of medical school doing research.
For now, Nakib's focus is on getting through the board exam, a grueling eight-hour, 350-question, multiple-choice test administered via computer in a setting so secure that students can't even carry a sweatshirt into the room. But dancing around the edges is delight at the thought of moving on.
"I'm really excited about my third and fourth years. It's all clinical," she says. For the next two years, she and her classmates will rotate through clerkships in clinics around the Twin Cities and beyond, testing the waters of the various medical specialties in two- to eight-week sessions spent learning from and assisting practicing physicians.
Nakib's first clerkship will be in orthopaedic surgery in Duluth. In addition to required rotations in internal medicine, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, primary care, psychiatry, surgery, and two subspecialties, she's hoping to go to Brown University in Rhode Island to learn about dermatological epidemiology, and to Tanzania to do a rotation with a physician there. That plan fits well with her interest in international health as well as with a growing trend for students to do at least one clerkship overseas.
"It's really encouraged your third and fourth years to have an international rotation," she says. "I think a lot of people do it."
In addition to this summer's boards and the last two years of medical school, Nakib has two more sets of board exams — one next year, and the last after she graduates — and perhaps four years of residency to look forward to.
"I have had moments where I think, 'Wow, this is a really big commitment.' But I always remember what a great opportunity this is and my desire to be part of this profession."