I just finished my big paper for school today. I'm always surprised how many times a paper can be read (by different people), and fixed, and there still be errors. It's a review of herpes zoster ophthalmicus (eye and forehead shingles). There's an interesting part in there about the chickenpox vaccine and how it will affect the occurrence of shingles outbreaks in the adult population. You can read my paper, but just know that if you've had chicken pox you need to keep getting exposed to it to keep up your immune system's ability to fight it. As fewer kids get chickenpox this will be more difficult. So, don't be afraid of those pimpley chickenpox kids; being around them just may keep you from getting shingles a little longer.

If you are over 60 years of age, please go get a chickenpox vaccine! They are approved for you and will hopefully prevent you from getting shingles!

Now that my paper is done I really need to focus on part III of national boards. I basically have to do an extra long eye exam broken up into 4 different stations, 30 minutes each. I would say that 60-80% of it is stuff I do on a daily basis and will not require much practice; however, there are a few tests/procedures that I need to practice. Plus, the whole setup is different than your classic eye exam in that I don't write anything down, I just say out-loud what I'm seeing and what I would write.

FUN!!!!

There is also a written part the day after where they give you a bunch of patient data / pictures and ask you a few questions about it - like what is it?, how do you treat it?, what's the prognosis?, etc... I think there are 4 cases like that.

Then, the next day I take the Nevada law test - Double FUN!!!! At least it only costs $75 instead of $625 like the other.