Time passed so quickly...

I've always known that talking with a few of your best friends can take up hours of your time, and you don't realise it. It was a surprise to me though, that our patient interview for our PPD assignment went by so quickly. We (me and my partner for the interview) interviewed a really nice couple who lived in a self-contained villa in a retirement village; time just flew by as we listened to them talk. There were a few interesting things of note; they seemed quite satisfied with the public health system; the husband was in hospital many times and was really happy with how he was treated. So that was a really good thing to hear :) They were also happy with the retirement village and the social activities provided; something I will be mentioning to my parents in the years to come, as an option in the future (for some reason, my dad is very pro-retirement village, whilst my mum is very anti... I wonder why). The last thing I thought was notable was how positive they both were, how happy they were to have us over, and were in high spirits; this despite the significant medical conditions they had (over a dozen between the two of them) and their relatively moderate socioeconomic position.

That was pretty much the highlight of the day. Our 2-hour liver practical was a pretty hard slog (not an anatomy prac, just going through a program in our computer labs), and the PPD tutorial before that (discussing death and how it impacts patients and us) was quite intense as well. Follow that with two more lectures in the afternoon, and so it was with delight that, upon reaching home, I took a nice long nap. Ahhhh....

ICM this week was unremarkable, save for one spectacular patient who let us (all five of us) do an abdominal examination on him. I felt pretty bad once we said our goodbyes though, when we saw another group waiting outside, inevitably about to ask him for permission to examine him...eek. There seems to be a lack of patients willing to allow us to do physical examinations; I'm guessing part of the reason is the invasiveness of the procedure, compared to history taking. So for the patients who have allowed us to practice our clinical skills, and who will allow us in the future, I am really grateful. Our ICM tutor is awesome, she's learnt all our names by heart already! I wish we could just keep her for the rest of clinical teaching; it appears that ICM tutors can be a mixed bag, which is a shame.

On that (sad? disappointed?) note, PBL seems to have lost it's lustre. The excitement of diagnosis has, much like House MD episodes (at least, to me), vanished. Then again, interest in medicine shouldn't be propped up by styles of teaching; but yep, PBL seems to be more about learning issues related to that case (which is what it's meant to be) versus the case itself. If that makes sense. Which I'm sure it doesn't. Anyway, speaking of PBL, I should be working on the first learning issue for this week...

John Flynn Placement Program

I nearly failed the JFPP interview on Wednesday immediately, when I forgot to bring my proof of citizenship/permanent residence on the day; and not only that, but not realise that our med building had an almost hidden 4th floor which was were the JFPP interviews were held; so at 1:30pm (interview scheduled at 1:40pm) I was running around like a chicken without a head around our med building, trying to find the interview. So yes, not a good start at all.

Found the 4th floor (which can only be accessed either by lift or through a stairwell inside the 3rd floor's administrative staff room) at 1:35pm, thinking that I'm probably not going to get a spot now that I'm all flustered. There were 3 people who were at the actual interview, and one came out to invite me in (I immediately raised the issue of the missing documents, and he brushed it off and said I could bring it in tomorrow, which was rather nice, as that would've been an easy way to cull down the numbers...); it appeared that of those 3 people, one was the actual marker, one a previous/current JFPP scholar, and one a community contact, such as a rural/remote practicing GP, or the like.

The interview went alright, I spent 20 minutes which was a fairly long time (reports were an aaverage of 15min for an interview) for a JFPP interview. My odds were given to me straight uup - 15 candidates, 11 spots. Not a bad chance, I'd say; knowing me though, my chances are always much less than that. I tend to fail pretty hard at interviews for some reason, not sure why. Anyhow, I answered most questions, got stumped for one of them which I won't reveal, and so now I'm waiting for 4 weeks for ACRRM to process the interview results and see what the outcome is. So watch this space in 4 weeks, I guess.