After months (actually, let’s be real, years!) of diligent preparation for Step 1 and nearly a month of waiting for my results, I am happy to share that I have passed the infamous, anxiety-provoking exam!
We had received news that we would receive our scores on the second Wednesday into our first clerkship, so (with the encouragement of the attending physician I was working with) I spent my brief minutes between interviewing patients in clinic refreshing my school and personal e-mail account inboxes like it was my job. When I left in the late afternoon without having received an e-mail, I shrugged my shoulders and figured I would have to wait yet another week…or maybe another. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing, I thought to myself. Another week of waiting would build character and teach me more patience, right?!
While walking home, I ran into a couple girls from my class with huge grins on their faces. “We just found out we passed Step 1!” they proudly exclaimed. Apparently, we had to check the actual website and not our e-mails for our result. D’oh! I gave them the biggest hugs and shared in their triumph even though it felt like my heart had stopped beating before excusing myself and my computer to a lone study room in the college for some privacy. I said a heartfelt prayer, went to the website, and held by breath as the page loaded. I clicked to download the PDF with my results.
“PASS,” the PDF read. I breathed an ecstatic and grateful sigh of relief. Cruelly, the document made me scroll down to read my actual score, but upon seeing those numbers before my eyes, a reflection of the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of hard work, I felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I happily called and texted my parents, boyfriend, brother, and close friends and thanked them for their support and help through a not so fun part of my medical school journey. Now, I felt, I could really close the chapter on my didactic years of med school and move on to the clinical ones!
