My final, final has been passed and my second year of medical school is over. It's a big event in my journey toward doctor-hood.

Never again will I be seated in a classroom for days on end watching endless powerpoint lectures while texting smart remarks to my friends beside me or projecting tiny spit wads at the more studious, unfortunates that sit within firing range of my seat.

Never again will I sit in "my seat" for fear ridden exams, in the dark, back, left corner furthest from the front of a 200 person auditorium as I can physically get. My tick marks tallying the number of questions I think I got wrong on the desk beside, remain there from this morning's final until some innocent erases them, erasing the anxiety that is stored with every hashmark that mocked my hard work.

Never again.

It's time to move further forward into a future I once scarcely dared to dream might be mine.

Thank you for your encouragement, your comments, your prayers, your cheers and your smiles. Thank you for your reminders that life still exists outside this alien world I have chosen to inhabit and that there are bigger things than what is looking me in the face that day and seemed insurmountable.  As I've said in the past, "it took a village to raise this Doctor," and I simply hope the patients I touch will feel a bit of the warmth and love you shared with me.