Well, my exams have finished, so I'm back. And what a better way to welcome me back to Blogger than the announcement that I have 4 spam comments to be moderated! Such a comforting thought, to know that these people are bothering to attempt to spam this blog with advertisements for chinese webcam sites and whatnot. But anyway...
My mid-year semester examinations were comprised of four papers; a MEQ (Multiple-Mini Essay paper), SAQ (Short-answer), MCQ (Multiple-choice) and an Anatomy Spot Test (the second one so far, we had one in semester two, last year). Suffice to say, I believe that this time around, my marks compared to last years will be lower, despite putting more effort into studying; the role with the student union has actually made me more inspired to study harder, paradoxically. The exams were quite a mixed bag in my opinion; the MEQ and Spot Test were filled with things I managed to only gloss over in my study (although entirely my fault, an example of this was not covering Chronic Renal Failure enough whilst covering every other pathology of renal disease possible; and knowing in great detail the structure of bones for the spot test which was never utilised), but to balance things out, the SAQ and MCQ had quite familiar questions which were answerable. The MCQ was a special test to note, since we had two sessions that were essentially filled with practice MCQs that could come up; once again, the number of MCQs repeated from previous years was a significant number; to the extent that I would confident in saying I would expect no more than single-digit numbers of people failing that exam. Essentially, if you were to memorise all the practice MCQs given out, and guessed the remainder, then assuming you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting those guessed questions right, you would be very, very, very close to passing.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing; in fact, I don't think failing future doctors on whether they can recall every detail of a cellular mechanism so they can find the answer that is INCORRECT, is essential, in this stage. Yes, doctors are responsible for people's lives, but at this stage, we're still medical students in pre-clinical years, and performances in OSCEs and the results of clinical years are more important. Regardless, it is one exam and shouldn't make much of a difference in the overall scheme of things.
Post-exam period mood: Nonchalant. Once again, the post-exam feeling of "I feel like I should be studying but I don't have to" has settled, and I'm inclined to start studying for next semester, although I feel like I may want to wrap up last semester with a nice concise book of notes. These holidays are going to be a bit different from the last ones though - now that there aren't any exams, it's full throttle to student union and general university affairs, as well as more personal ones like preparing to take my P's test (provisional driving license - i.e. license to drive unsupervised, for all those non-Australian/non-NSWers reading) and finishing Big Bang Theory. Also on the agenda is sleeping more, eating more, and exercising more; very important things that I didn't get as much of as I would've liked to during the exam period... speaking of which, a siesta sounds mighty alluring right now. Time to nod off..
Showing posts with label anatomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anatomy. Show all posts
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Saturday, November 21, 2009
SQUUEEEEEE
And so begins my long-awaited holiday for the year :) Exams overall were fairly solid; we had four written exams and one anatomy spot test; the four writtens included an MEQ (mini-essay question 10-20 marks/question), SAQ (short-answer question anywhere from 2-10 marks) and 2x MCQs (multiple choice question, 1 mark each) tests; they were pretty difficult compared to first semester, and I'd say a fair bit more difficult than HSC exams (speaking of which, everyone finishing up secondary education in NSW this year should be done with exams - hoorah!). There was a significantly increased clinical/diagnostic focus in the written exams this semester, which may or may not have caught people off guard, but I was happy with the general gist of them. What was disappointing was the reuse of questions from multiple choice - leakage of questions to some students and not others by means of connections meant that some were aware of a few questions (and answers) that were in the exam, and some were not. I doubt it can be avoided, since it's only natural for upper years to leak exams to lower years, but nonetheless.
The anatomy spot test was, in my opinion, fairly difficult - not particularly because of the level of detail required, but more because of the rather... disfigured cadavers/specimens being used in the exam. I struggled to identify a pancreas that looked like it was cut in half and strewn across the tray; only by looking at the only organ attached next to it (a spleen) and the texture of the organ was I able to realise what it was. Ambiguity regarding the level of detail was another hallmark of the test, although not entirely foreign to us thanks to a formative anatomy test prior; a label would indicate a heart valve, but may be closer to a particular cusp of a valve; what to write down was an internal debate in itself. Despite this, the use of models did help those who had little experience looking at cadavers (i.e. most of the cohort) and more experience looking at diagrams and illustrative atlases - and apparently the pass mark for the spot test is going to be below 50%. Hmmm.
A post-exam party/bash at either the city or the beach concluded the final day of exams; and goodbyes were said as we looked back at our first year of medicine; and look forward (hopefully) to our second. And by look forward, I don't mean, 'be eager to undertake' - thanks to warnings from a notable third year, half our grade is now planning to study in our holidays, including myself. *sigh*
Farewell, first year. May I never be associated with you again.
The anatomy spot test was, in my opinion, fairly difficult - not particularly because of the level of detail required, but more because of the rather... disfigured cadavers/specimens being used in the exam. I struggled to identify a pancreas that looked like it was cut in half and strewn across the tray; only by looking at the only organ attached next to it (a spleen) and the texture of the organ was I able to realise what it was. Ambiguity regarding the level of detail was another hallmark of the test, although not entirely foreign to us thanks to a formative anatomy test prior; a label would indicate a heart valve, but may be closer to a particular cusp of a valve; what to write down was an internal debate in itself. Despite this, the use of models did help those who had little experience looking at cadavers (i.e. most of the cohort) and more experience looking at diagrams and illustrative atlases - and apparently the pass mark for the spot test is going to be below 50%. Hmmm.
A post-exam party/bash at either the city or the beach concluded the final day of exams; and goodbyes were said as we looked back at our first year of medicine; and look forward (hopefully) to our second. And by look forward, I don't mean, 'be eager to undertake' - thanks to warnings from a notable third year, half our grade is now planning to study in our holidays, including myself. *sigh*
Farewell, first year. May I never be associated with you again.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Hip hip hooray
You could treat this title both literally and sarcastically.
In a literal sense (always good to break the good news first, right?), my summer holidays have just been planned out for me! UWS sent out letters for acceptance into their SSRS (Student Summer Research Scholarship - 6-8 weeks full-time on a research project) and I received one in the mail a few days ago. So it looks like I'll at least be doing something constructive this summer. I also turned 18 recently (kind of hard to perpetuate the med-students-are-drinkers culture if you can't legally drink) but I haven't exploited any of my newly-found (for me) privileges yet. Might see whether I can get a credit card (I am a very, very responsible spender) or my personal Paypal account (Once again, very responsible). I think 18 seems quite young to be given all these privileges though - but meh, who am I to complain, hehe. I've also managed to resurrect my PDA from the dead, thanks to a factory settings hard reset (basically an entire wipe-down of the PDA) - so I'm hopefully going to be using that as a learning(read: procrastination) device for times when a netbook is inappropriate (whipping out a netbook during ward rounds? hmmm....)
PPD today, our last session for this year, was pretty good; we did our health professionals informal speech presentation thing, and had some really interesting insights; for example, the differing viewpoints of consultants, trainee doctors, and patients.
Sarcastically, it is drawing ever so closer to the final exams - only two and a bit weeks left. We received our practice anatomy test results back, and suffice to say, my mark was hardly amazing. We also have our formative OSCEs tomorrow (clinical examinations), for which the majority of our grade are panicking about (including yours truly). So.... in essence, HSC students, do not worry about nearing the end of exams and stress; there's plenty more awaiting you!
In a literal sense (always good to break the good news first, right?), my summer holidays have just been planned out for me! UWS sent out letters for acceptance into their SSRS (Student Summer Research Scholarship - 6-8 weeks full-time on a research project) and I received one in the mail a few days ago. So it looks like I'll at least be doing something constructive this summer. I also turned 18 recently (kind of hard to perpetuate the med-students-are-drinkers culture if you can't legally drink) but I haven't exploited any of my newly-found (for me) privileges yet. Might see whether I can get a credit card (I am a very, very responsible spender) or my personal Paypal account (Once again, very responsible). I think 18 seems quite young to be given all these privileges though - but meh, who am I to complain, hehe. I've also managed to resurrect my PDA from the dead, thanks to a factory settings hard reset (basically an entire wipe-down of the PDA) - so I'm hopefully going to be using that as a learning(read: procrastination) device for times when a netbook is inappropriate (whipping out a netbook during ward rounds? hmmm....)
PPD today, our last session for this year, was pretty good; we did our health professionals informal speech presentation thing, and had some really interesting insights; for example, the differing viewpoints of consultants, trainee doctors, and patients.
Sarcastically, it is drawing ever so closer to the final exams - only two and a bit weeks left. We received our practice anatomy test results back, and suffice to say, my mark was hardly amazing. We also have our formative OSCEs tomorrow (clinical examinations), for which the majority of our grade are panicking about (including yours truly). So.... in essence, HSC students, do not worry about nearing the end of exams and stress; there's plenty more awaiting you!
Friday, October 2, 2009
Post #1 of October
Ah. Next week will be a PBL-free week, due to Labour Day. This is good; not because I have less work to do, but because I have more time to catch up. Oh, how perspectives change...
This week was pretty unremarkable - I guess that after 25 or so weeks of uni, things seem kind of like the same. We had another respiratory case this week, but an even more complex multi-factorial one; and we started on basics of the neck and breathing anatomy. Then we had various lectures on respiratory control and drive, and finally, to wrap up this wonderful week, we had our formative anatomy spot test, which went by very quick (10 minutes - essentially identifying various structures) and an Evidence-Based Medicine lecture (on the difference between causality and simple association/link between two things - say, smoking and lung cancer), which, I admit, was pretty good - lecturer was well-spoken, well-dressed, well-prepared; which made for a very easy lecture to understand and take notes from. So, after reading this recall, you're probably just as bored as I was during this week - and for no reason; I mean, hey! Medicine! Prestige! Wealth! Awesomeness! Around the corner! Should I not be excited at every twist and turn, every avenue of discovery that awaits? Well... sort of, but it doesn't really lend itself well to being interesting reading.
I, however, was firmly reminded of a very important concept in medicine, this week - the concept of "medicine-is-not-static" (for lack of a better concept name). One of the more popular physiology books (although we're lead to believe there are only two that ever exist), Guyton's Medical Physiology 11th Edition, was published in 2006; fairly recent, one would assume. This is the latest version of Guyton - and since it is fairly readable and in general quite a good text, many in the course often refer to that, and nothing more, treating it as the authoritative textbook on physiology. However, during our PBL we had found that:
1) one area of the brain stem that was apparently very important in inspiration (in breathing) is now not very important at all
2) another area of the brain stem that seemingly only dealt with expiration, dealt with both
3) there was utterly no mention of the current leading thinking regarding a very important specific part of that area of brain stem.
In short, if someone were to use this textbook, and this textbook only, they would be out of step in regards to how we breathe. It's the first time that this has actually happened to me; reading a textbook and finding that there are contradictions from lectures and other texts - but I have a feeling I'll be expecting a lot more. This is not to knock Guyton (which I again emphasise is an excellent textbook); just that 3 years can already be considered outdated in physiology. I've been told that this 'outdated-ness' varies wildly with various parts of medicine though.
Well, the long weekend awaits. To be productive, or not to be... I'll see.
This week was pretty unremarkable - I guess that after 25 or so weeks of uni, things seem kind of like the same. We had another respiratory case this week, but an even more complex multi-factorial one; and we started on basics of the neck and breathing anatomy. Then we had various lectures on respiratory control and drive, and finally, to wrap up this wonderful week, we had our formative anatomy spot test, which went by very quick (10 minutes - essentially identifying various structures) and an Evidence-Based Medicine lecture (on the difference between causality and simple association/link between two things - say, smoking and lung cancer), which, I admit, was pretty good - lecturer was well-spoken, well-dressed, well-prepared; which made for a very easy lecture to understand and take notes from. So, after reading this recall, you're probably just as bored as I was during this week - and for no reason; I mean, hey! Medicine! Prestige! Wealth! Awesomeness! Around the corner! Should I not be excited at every twist and turn, every avenue of discovery that awaits? Well... sort of, but it doesn't really lend itself well to being interesting reading.
I, however, was firmly reminded of a very important concept in medicine, this week - the concept of "medicine-is-not-static" (for lack of a better concept name). One of the more popular physiology books (although we're lead to believe there are only two that ever exist), Guyton's Medical Physiology 11th Edition, was published in 2006; fairly recent, one would assume. This is the latest version of Guyton - and since it is fairly readable and in general quite a good text, many in the course often refer to that, and nothing more, treating it as the authoritative textbook on physiology. However, during our PBL we had found that:
1) one area of the brain stem that was apparently very important in inspiration (in breathing) is now not very important at all
2) another area of the brain stem that seemingly only dealt with expiration, dealt with both
3) there was utterly no mention of the current leading thinking regarding a very important specific part of that area of brain stem.
In short, if someone were to use this textbook, and this textbook only, they would be out of step in regards to how we breathe. It's the first time that this has actually happened to me; reading a textbook and finding that there are contradictions from lectures and other texts - but I have a feeling I'll be expecting a lot more. This is not to knock Guyton (which I again emphasise is an excellent textbook); just that 3 years can already be considered outdated in physiology. I've been told that this 'outdated-ness' varies wildly with various parts of medicine though.
Well, the long weekend awaits. To be productive, or not to be... I'll see.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Out of Breath
The first time I've ever wanted to really be over 18 was yesterday, when I was in the city meeting up with some friends from other uni's. Until then, I saw no reason to be over 18 - I have a debit card, eBay account and Paypal account all *supported* by my father, and voting isn't too big a deal for me (although I do pay attention to politics, ironically). But when there was only me and my friend who came from Perth left, we went to look for dinner, and saw "$10 Buffet!" which, you know, was kind of enticing. Until we saw the bouncers.
Who directed us to another bar (which also mentioned "$10 meals") which apparently allowed under-18s...
Which rejected us again.
And so forth and so on ($6 steaks) until we couldn't take it (well, I couldn't) and we went to eat something else.
Anyway.
Formative exam was a massive screw-up; unlike last semester's formative which was a breeze, this formative was a lot closer to the difficulty of mid-semester exams - and since I winged this one, chances that I pass are not good. PBL was interesting - we just started the respiratory system and will finish it off by the end of this semester (surprisingly close - I can't believe the academic year is nearly over!)
We had updates on our anatomy spot test (where you identify various parts of a cadaver) which was to be summative (i.e. counted) and our OSCEs, which are formative (i.e. not counted). Apparently we'll be getting a practice run for the spot test, but not for the OSCEs - fair enough.
We have a one-week break now though - time to do some revision and catch-up, so I don't fail the end-of-sem exams. Aren't I lucky.
Who directed us to another bar (which also mentioned "$10 meals") which apparently allowed under-18s...
Which rejected us again.
And so forth and so on ($6 steaks) until we couldn't take it (well, I couldn't) and we went to eat something else.
Anyway.
Formative exam was a massive screw-up; unlike last semester's formative which was a breeze, this formative was a lot closer to the difficulty of mid-semester exams - and since I winged this one, chances that I pass are not good. PBL was interesting - we just started the respiratory system and will finish it off by the end of this semester (surprisingly close - I can't believe the academic year is nearly over!)
We had updates on our anatomy spot test (where you identify various parts of a cadaver) which was to be summative (i.e. counted) and our OSCEs, which are formative (i.e. not counted). Apparently we'll be getting a practice run for the spot test, but not for the OSCEs - fair enough.
We have a one-week break now though - time to do some revision and catch-up, so I don't fail the end-of-sem exams. Aren't I lucky.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Fun fun fun
Today was the funnest day in our course so far. Even though I was half-dead thanks to a(nother) throat/lung infection (it seems to be a side effect of my pneumonia from years ago), today was the best day ever, and there's only one phrase to describe it: practical practicals.
Why the tautology, you may ask? Because some practicals are not practical. But the practical practicals are the most fun, because you always see the whole point of it. It's the reason most (I say most, since some nuts love all that biochemistry, which is fine; each to their own heh) of us go into medicine; not to be a medical student, but to be a doctor.
So first off, after the morning dose of Vitamin C and Panadol, we had a Blood Pressure practical. Awesome. And then everyone took out their steths, and I think we were quite excited and all to start using them (although some groups in ICM seem to have used them right at the start of semester...). And then we hooked up a sphyg...(two seconds)...Sphygmometer (the rest of the nuts who don't love biochemistry do Medicine purely for the long and difficult-to-pronounce words) into some PowerLab equipment with input ports. And then we took our BPs. Multiple times. Above our head, at level with the chest, below the chest, it was all done. Eventually the excitement of measuring BPs faded off, before turning into...
Anatomy Excitement! Behold, the most important organ (according to cardiologists at least, from Talley and O'Connor) of them all; the heart! I'm not sure about you, but I've never dissected anything before. And today we got super-sharp scapels and sheep hearts to rip open! We also seemed to have a lot more surgeons in the lab than usual, so I was in a group of three who were supervised by a surgeon (I think; we were too engrossed in the heart to pay attention to his tag). Or, in other words, pure awesomeness.
I need to recover from all of that excitement, not to mention my infection. So I think I'll just do a brain dump into my notes from today, and take a nice, long, nap. zzzzzzZZZZZ...
Why the tautology, you may ask? Because some practicals are not practical. But the practical practicals are the most fun, because you always see the whole point of it. It's the reason most (I say most, since some nuts love all that biochemistry, which is fine; each to their own heh) of us go into medicine; not to be a medical student, but to be a doctor.
So first off, after the morning dose of Vitamin C and Panadol, we had a Blood Pressure practical. Awesome. And then everyone took out their steths, and I think we were quite excited and all to start using them (although some groups in ICM seem to have used them right at the start of semester...). And then we hooked up a sphyg...(two seconds)...Sphygmometer (the rest of the nuts who don't love biochemistry do Medicine purely for the long and difficult-to-pronounce words) into some PowerLab equipment with input ports. And then we took our BPs. Multiple times. Above our head, at level with the chest, below the chest, it was all done. Eventually the excitement of measuring BPs faded off, before turning into...
Anatomy Excitement! Behold, the most important organ (according to cardiologists at least, from Talley and O'Connor) of them all; the heart! I'm not sure about you, but I've never dissected anything before. And today we got super-sharp scapels and sheep hearts to rip open! We also seemed to have a lot more surgeons in the lab than usual, so I was in a group of three who were supervised by a surgeon (I think; we were too engrossed in the heart to pay attention to his tag). Or, in other words, pure awesomeness.
I need to recover from all of that excitement, not to mention my infection. So I think I'll just do a brain dump into my notes from today, and take a nice, long, nap. zzzzzzZZZZZ...
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
ISAN09! Rawwwrrrrrr
I'm pumped for Sept 5&6, because UWS' School of Medicine is hosting a satellite meeting for ISAN09! ISAN is short for the International Society for the Autonomic Nervous system, which has it's biennial congress in various cities - this time around it's in Sydney. If you have no idea what the Autonomic Nervous System is (which is in the second week of our PBL), it's the part of the nervous system that controls all the non-voluntary, or autonomous actions; such as regulating blood pressure, sweating, etc - essentially keeping our body's internal environment constant (a concept which is also introduced at about the same time as the ANS). So, being a first year med student with little idea on the ANS, I jumped at the opportunity to attend this meeting, as well some 20-odd students from our course, which our school provided complimentary registrations for. Happy happy happy :)
In other news, I'm always constantly surprised at how med students manage to keep the drinking culture alive, whilst learning about the very unpleasant side effects of binge drinking (defined as 6 or more standard drinks, which, ironically, seems to be about standard for a regular meddie's night out). We were introduced in ICM today to the alcohol screening test - a quiz with some quite heavy-hitting and personal questions (such as: how often do you drink 6 or more standard drinks, has anyone been injured due to your drinking), which may be a non-issue for non-drinkers (like me! yay!) but a significant issue for those who've relied on that 'liquid gold', as we discovered during patient rounds...
It's not like alcoholics don't know what they're doing; its just our culture; our 'mates' positive perception of alcohol, it's place in common culture as a synonym for a good time. Unlike the smokers who get really bad rep, the alkis are getting none. And, sadly, its always 'I am going to stop' and meaning it, but much of the time, being unable to stop the cycle until they meet a doctor, or the pearly white gates.
Anyway, anatomy practical tomorrow! Yippee! Nothing like a quick (2 hours?) squizz at cadavers to brighten a week up :)
In other news, I'm always constantly surprised at how med students manage to keep the drinking culture alive, whilst learning about the very unpleasant side effects of binge drinking (defined as 6 or more standard drinks, which, ironically, seems to be about standard for a regular meddie's night out). We were introduced in ICM today to the alcohol screening test - a quiz with some quite heavy-hitting and personal questions (such as: how often do you drink 6 or more standard drinks, has anyone been injured due to your drinking), which may be a non-issue for non-drinkers (like me! yay!) but a significant issue for those who've relied on that 'liquid gold', as we discovered during patient rounds...
It's not like alcoholics don't know what they're doing; its just our culture; our 'mates' positive perception of alcohol, it's place in common culture as a synonym for a good time. Unlike the smokers who get really bad rep, the alkis are getting none. And, sadly, its always 'I am going to stop' and meaning it, but much of the time, being unable to stop the cycle until they meet a doctor, or the pearly white gates.
Anyway, anatomy practical tomorrow! Yippee! Nothing like a quick (2 hours?) squizz at cadavers to brighten a week up :)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The leg bone's connected to the thigh bone...
A 2-hour anatomy practical really doesn't get you into the mood for a 2-hour statistics lesson (Yes, Statistics, you may be thinking wtf? in Medicine, but believe me it has it's purposes) straight afterwards. Add to that a lecture in the afternoon (which half the grade dozed off in) and I think Wednesday was a pretty long day...
I actually enjoy anatomy, to be honest; it's wonderful to know where everything's connected (actually we were looking at the abdomen this week, not the leg as the title so subtly implied), and wonderful to have some really great teachers of anatomy (we have this fairly old surgeon who's awesome at teaching, I think everything he taught went right into my head and displaced something else), and the cadavers themselves were (today, at least) far from obese, which was nice. It's just that learning anatomy, for me at least, requires intense concentration, somewhat alike to playing chess. Although I've played a four-hour chess game, a 2-hour anatomy prac seems just that much more tiring and satisfactory. So all that intense concentration took me right out of the zone when we started on database analysis in Statistics. *zzzz*
And oh dear, my computer just restarted after Automatic Updates. Thank heavens for Blogger's autosaving of drafts ^^
We were also meant to do our 'Interviewing of a Patient' (not official name) assignment, our first one so far (Yes, come to UWS if you don't like assignments!) yesterday. This is part of our PPD segment in the course, and the aim of this particular assignment is to interview a patient and give a recount of his/her experience, and empathise with the patient via means of a written response and a presentation. Our patient had his son come over to visit him, so he was busy, and as such we decided to reschedule the meeting, probably to next Wednesday. It's quite nice to have friends that can drive; Camden isn't exactly the most accessible place via public transport.
We were about to skip our last lecture so we could interview our patient, but since that didn't go to plan, we had the enormous privilege of dozing off through our lecture; I think I should go and look at the lecture notes/synopsis now. And probably revise anatomy... and probably write up my clinical ICM notes...and probably revise the statistics stuff as well... arggh.
I actually enjoy anatomy, to be honest; it's wonderful to know where everything's connected (actually we were looking at the abdomen this week, not the leg as the title so subtly implied), and wonderful to have some really great teachers of anatomy (we have this fairly old surgeon who's awesome at teaching, I think everything he taught went right into my head and displaced something else), and the cadavers themselves were (today, at least) far from obese, which was nice. It's just that learning anatomy, for me at least, requires intense concentration, somewhat alike to playing chess. Although I've played a four-hour chess game, a 2-hour anatomy prac seems just that much more tiring and satisfactory. So all that intense concentration took me right out of the zone when we started on database analysis in Statistics. *zzzz*
And oh dear, my computer just restarted after Automatic Updates. Thank heavens for Blogger's autosaving of drafts ^^
We were also meant to do our 'Interviewing of a Patient' (not official name) assignment, our first one so far (Yes, come to UWS if you don't like assignments!) yesterday. This is part of our PPD segment in the course, and the aim of this particular assignment is to interview a patient and give a recount of his/her experience, and empathise with the patient via means of a written response and a presentation. Our patient had his son come over to visit him, so he was busy, and as such we decided to reschedule the meeting, probably to next Wednesday. It's quite nice to have friends that can drive; Camden isn't exactly the most accessible place via public transport.
We were about to skip our last lecture so we could interview our patient, but since that didn't go to plan, we had the enormous privilege of dozing off through our lecture; I think I should go and look at the lecture notes/synopsis now. And probably revise anatomy... and probably write up my clinical ICM notes...and probably revise the statistics stuff as well... arggh.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
What a day.
Today, I managed to miss Macarthur (which was one stop from Campbelltown). Let me explain - there's no direct train from where I catch the train to get to Macarthur - our uni's unofficial train station. So today I would catch a train to Campbelltown, the station everyone thinks is the end of the southern train line, and catch a train from Campbelltown to the 'real' end of the southern train line - Macarthur. This train doesn't stop at Macarthur though, it heads all the way to Moss Vale, which is approximately 40 kilometres away. Me being me, I managed to miss that one stop, and ended up at Menangle Park, the next stop. Herewith, upon finding the next train was an hour away, and thinking that one stop would be approximately 2km or so, I hatched the brilliant idea to walk back to Macarthur. Boy, was I wrong. The road that appeared to follow the train station turned left...and then turned left again...and there was no end in sight. So after 20 minutes I arrived back at the station, caught the train back to Macarthur, and was on my way.
Our first real anatomy practical was pretty super (abdomen/groin region) - having surgeons/surgical registrars were pretty cool, they were really knowledgeable and knew how to teach (very important, one would think), so yeh pretty awesome. Only bugger was that whenever they'd ask some questions about stuff, they'd draw a blank look from us and in general, we felt very stupid. We also did some surface anatomy, though only for a half hour or so.
We also got exam results back - I passed with a 60 average, but as a result, was in the bottom 3rd of the cohort. Still satisfied though, gave it a fair amount of effort and will be looking forward to improving that result. I felt that my mark was quite equivalent to my effort in the HSC, maybe a little more (so, ATAR of about 98 as a guesstimation) - obviously theres not really any comparison, since there are so many other factors that come into play, but that could give an idea as to what to expect. Looking for a 70+ in the finals so I can even up with a Credit average for the year, so I've got a big task ahead of me... *nods*
Our first physical examination for ICM was also pretty interesting...pity our patient though, who persevered with us (well, only one of us was performing the examination, but I digress) for an hour as we learnt how to percuss (tapping the abdomen, listening for the resonance of sounds to indicate hollowness and the presence of liquid and solid) and to palpate (fancy word for using our fingers to search for organs), and were assured (or amazed?) at our tutor's statement that the entire examination should take, at most, 5 minutes. Which reminds me, I should be writing up some notes so I can recollect what she said about signs and symptoms...
I also got email notifications that my stethoscope had been sent via Aus Post today, and my order for textbooks from India (about $50/textbook inc shipping) got processed. Also got my Talley and O'Connor clinical examination book yesterday, and found out that I really did not have any book-contacting skill anymore :\ Lots of bubbles and even a few jagged edges. Bleh. So yeh, exciting couple of days :)
Our first real anatomy practical was pretty super (abdomen/groin region) - having surgeons/surgical registrars were pretty cool, they were really knowledgeable and knew how to teach (very important, one would think), so yeh pretty awesome. Only bugger was that whenever they'd ask some questions about stuff, they'd draw a blank look from us and in general, we felt very stupid. We also did some surface anatomy, though only for a half hour or so.
We also got exam results back - I passed with a 60 average, but as a result, was in the bottom 3rd of the cohort. Still satisfied though, gave it a fair amount of effort and will be looking forward to improving that result. I felt that my mark was quite equivalent to my effort in the HSC, maybe a little more (so, ATAR of about 98 as a guesstimation) - obviously theres not really any comparison, since there are so many other factors that come into play, but that could give an idea as to what to expect. Looking for a 70+ in the finals so I can even up with a Credit average for the year, so I've got a big task ahead of me... *nods*
Our first physical examination for ICM was also pretty interesting...pity our patient though, who persevered with us (well, only one of us was performing the examination, but I digress) for an hour as we learnt how to percuss (tapping the abdomen, listening for the resonance of sounds to indicate hollowness and the presence of liquid and solid) and to palpate (fancy word for using our fingers to search for organs), and were assured (or amazed?) at our tutor's statement that the entire examination should take, at most, 5 minutes. Which reminds me, I should be writing up some notes so I can recollect what she said about signs and symptoms...
I also got email notifications that my stethoscope had been sent via Aus Post today, and my order for textbooks from India (about $50/textbook inc shipping) got processed. Also got my Talley and O'Connor clinical examination book yesterday, and found out that I really did not have any book-contacting skill anymore :\ Lots of bubbles and even a few jagged edges. Bleh. So yeh, exciting couple of days :)
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