Schedule coming together

I'll be in Whitesburg, KY, for my rural family medicine rotation May 26 - June 20 to finish out my third year. I have no idea what to expect with regards to the rurality of it or the medicine I'm going to see, but it's less than 2 hours from Eric's sister and her family, so at least I will be able to visit someone.

Then I get one week off between third and fourth year.
Then, if my Drexel rotation comes through, I'll get another week off to sync up with Drexel's academic calendar.

Hopefully I'll be at Drexel July 7 - August 1 for an Ob/Gyn rotation.

I'm definitely going to be at UPenn August 4 - 29 for an Ob/Gyn rotation in Uro-gynecology, which should be fun.

Then I'll have three weeks off to re-sync up with the UofL academic calendar, so I'll take that time to study for Step 2 before I start back at UofL September 22 with a third Ob/Gyn rotation in a row. Whew.

Speaking of Step 2, I just want to take this moment to rail against the NBME. I guess I can understand $480 to take a computer-based test. There's all sorts of security that goes into it, and I'm sure it costs money to develop those test questions. I guess. But I also registered for Step 2 CS, which is a clinical skills exam in which you do interviews with standardized patients in one of 5 cities across the entire country. The official goal is to make sure all graduating medical students can interact with patients at some baseline level and know how to do a proper physical exam and patient interview. But the word on the street is that the test is very easy and it is essentially to make sure that all incoming interns can speak English proficiently (you know, because of all the foreign medical grads that do U.S. residencies). Either way, I don't really care, because it costs $1,025 to take! WTF!!!!! My financial aid for the school year is quickly dwindling, and July (and my next disbursement) is still a long way away.