And off we go!

I've got to say, the standard of teaching seemed to have increased dramatically from second to third year. That, or my attention span increased as well, because there were few times when I actually caught myself not paying attention - which was just as well, given the important details that we covered over our first Conference Week.

Conference Week was not as crazy as I first imagined; we did get breaks for lunch and there was a good balance of workshops (small group and practical learning) and lectures. The workshops were overall a fantastic experience - we covered lots of practical things from reading ECGs and X-rays to revisiting resuscitation, physical examinations and oxygen marks, and definitely were the highlight of the week. The lectures were overall pretty great as well - interesting and important stuff on managing fluid levels, suturing, communicating with Aboriginals, and shock, and filled with case studies to increase clinical relevance - the only ones which I thought could be improved were the cardiac lectures, in which a lecturer was droning on and on, reading off slides. Which brings me to another good aspect of the conference week - the last half-hour where our Year Co-ordinator hosted a feedback session on everything done in the conference week; great to hear the whole grade (in one of the rare times we're together) chip in on what could be improved and what should be included, and an excellent demonstration that the School held our feedback in high regard.

In contrast to the brilliance of Conference Week, O-Week for the Medicine in Context (MiC) students (i.e. me) wasn't so flash. Maybe it was because we had, in effect, two days off (one day, as you know, was Australia Day; the other was a 'call-your-MiC-supervisors-day'), or maybe because the E-learning lab that we were in was freezing (I brought a jacket with me the next day, people that saw me on the train probably thought I was crazy because it was so hot, even at 9am). Whatever it was, it wasn't as inspiring as the Conference Week. Nonetheless, there were some key highlights - a seminar on Child Abuse which was very well delivered and gave us a lot of new information, presentations by a fourth-year student on MiC, and a rather amusing session on grammar and the use of apostrophe to indicate possession (in amongst how to write academically, of course - grammar was not a lecture by itself). These were the only real gems I could remember from the week, however, as the remainder was about library resources (an important thing to know about, but rather droll and not as informative as we would've hoped - there was also another session on this in Conference Week), and why MiC was so great. The consensus opinion seemed to be that they could've packed a lot more into this week for us, as the students starting Medicine and Surgery rotations were going right into their teams from mid-day of the Monday of O-Week.

These couple of weeks, I was also hard at work co-ordinating O-Week efforts for Campbelltown campus. The student society at Ctown, Engage, finished technical details with setting up a web presence (at engageuws.com.au) and so I was busy updating that and working out details in our forums on Australia Day. We also had a couple of meetings to determine activities for O-Week, and I also had the UWS Chess Club (which I also run) to concern myself with. Both of these (and the Chair position I have with the student union) will be dropping off in the next couple of months, as I cannot see how this is very sustainable; but it's still an exciting thing to be part of, and if I could go back a year, I wouldn't have changed a thing. These efforts, though, conflict with me reading a 70-page document on guidelines to treating hypertension. Which is rather droll, I might add (and you might expect) - and which I should be finishing off now. These two weeks mark the end of the orientation, and so for the next ten weeks I'll be on my rotations for disability and mental health respectively - and am looking forward to learning a lot more about the services that cater for these tremendously important areas of health. So, until next time :)

Panic! At The Med School

So, uh, only 4 weeks until final exams. AHHHHHHHHHHHH
Well it seems everyone else is coping pretty well, no outward signs of panic yet - at least, from what I can tell (which isn't much). I've started to go head-down, doing summaries and generally trying to be constructive whilst avoiding the unconstructive-but-is-still-med things...like...House...and some flash game where you try to kill the whole world via a mutating disease. Yep, unconstructive they certainly are, heh.
This week seemed to be a real bludge; I'm sure many of us tried to use it for good though. Friday was a pain though - a day that was scheduled to end at4pm actually ended at 10am after two lectures; we had a practical that was cancelled (spanning 5 hours since there were 2 groups and an hour break inbetween), and half an hour before the last lecture was to start, we were notified it was cancelled (most probably due to the majority of students not being bothered to stay at uni for one lecture), and so we went home at about 3pm.
This week was also EBM week - Evidence Based Medicine (looking at types of studies, critical analysis of those studies); mainly because the EBM group assignment was due on Friday. Group assignments simply do not work, especially in as large groups as PBL groups (10-11 people). Thankfully, I'm in a PBL that was well organised and where everyone pitched in, but the story was not so rosy for a few other groups, as you would predict. Perhaps an issue for our new Dean to address?
Speaking of our new Dean, we first-years were treated to the Dean crashing half of a PPD lecture. I had never, ever heard the lecture hall so enthralled by our PPD lecturer (who is super awesome anyway, but students will talk when given the chance to) - and on a lecture about the Medical Practice Act, no less. Of course, that façade vanished once our Dean left the building; but, still.
3 more PBL cases to go, 3 weeks until the end of first year. Boy has this year passed - just like that *snaps fingers*