Aside from a South American soccer championship in Uruguay, this was my first time traveling outside of my home country. The prize was an anatomy dissection medical course at the University of South Florida. The experience showed me that there was so much more in terms of education and opportunities beyond what I had known. I was captivated by American advancements in technology, education, and infrastructure.
Upon returning to Brazil, I was about to start classes when I learned that the 4th edition of Elsevier’s Anatomy Olympiad was about to commence. This time, the event had more publicity and competitors. The prize was a medical education convention in Vienna, a field I had become particularly interested in since I observed the gap in education between Brazil and the USA.
As the semester progressed, the content began to accumulate, along with pressure and lower-than-expected grades. Nevertheless, I reached the 4th phase and was the only previous competitor to make it to the top 45. This made me realize that it’s not enough to achieve a certain level; you have to keep working to maintain and improve it. Otherwise, you will be surpassed. That result provided me with a perspective on how challenging that edition was. During the last phases, all my free time was dedicated to taking USMLE anatomy questions and watching “The Noted Anatomist” as a form of spaced repetition. As a result, I managed to improve my college grades and advance to the fifth and final stage in the country’s largest city. Once again, in São Paulo, I completed the two-shift test battery, scoring 88% compared to the 80% of the second-place finisher, making me the winner of the 4th edition of Elsevier’s Anatomy Olympiad. With 8,300 students participating, I became the only person to win the award twice. I was going to Vienna!
The experience provided me with another glimpse of high-level education. I returned to Brazil with a better perspective and ideas for improving my institution. I was able to inspire my peers through speeches given to different classes, sharing what I had seen abroad, how I had won the competitions, and how they too could achieve success coming from the same background. I recorded one of these speeches and posted it on YouTube, along with other educational videos on anatomy, semiology, and basic musculoskeletal science.