Application of Knowledge

We had our first cardiovascular test right before Thanksgiving break. I found that the questions I enjoy most are the ones involving clinical scenarios. For example, the pathology questions involved an image of a gross specimen and asked which patient would exhibit this heart: a twenty year old male living in Africa, a forty-year old intravenous drug user, or an eighty year old man with diabetes and hypertension. Or a question would describe a clinical presentation of a patient and ask for the diagnosis: III/VI crescendo-decrescendo systolic murmur at the right upper sternal border. While there were the standard basic sciences questions, the very applied questions were most fun to do.