Life is moving at a fast pace...

As we reach the half-way point of the first semester of year two, I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of effort required to do well in Medicine. I know that the upcoming years will be tougher than this year, with a full-time 9-5, 5 days a week attachment and intense Conference weeks filled with lectures, I can't help but feel a bit apprehensive that if I'm lagging behind now, I will be lagging behind in future years. In the space of eight rather short weeks (in my opinion, they flew by pretty fast), we have covered both renal and musculoskeletal systems. At the moment, my knowledge on musculoskeletal is close to nil, and I'm brushing up on my renal block now; and to help things, we just started neurology. I guess it's just a tiny worry, but it's a worry nonetheless, and I guess I've just got to keep at it. Good thing I'm finding all of this interesting (well, maybe not the renal), but still, it's a heck of a lot to keep track of - indeed, I didn't expect musculoskeletal being only three weeks in length; there's so many tendons, muscles, parts of the bone and functions of the whole system to learn! I'm glad we have mid-sem breaks not combined with Easter (that gives us, effectively, an extra day), and we don't have any mid-sem exams (definitely felt good last week walking around the university and seeing everyone heads-down).

I think that me and my mates playing Starcraft at every break is hardly helping the issue either. Or that we now have a Starcraft club. Oh what have I got into...

School's Out

Hmm. I was struggling to find an appropriate title for this post, but I guess this one suits, since the day is *sort of* over.
Alright. ISAN09! Some stats: 2 day conference, 8 Symposiums (lecture sessions) running through the two days, 2 Symposiums running in either of our 2 lecture halls at any one time, 30 presentations (one presenter unfortunately was not feeling well), and a cumulative 9 hours of total hard-core concentration. Phew.
The symposiums I attended were Microneurography I (Chaired or introduced by our own Vaughan Macefield, UWS Represent!), Gravitational Stress, Imaging Central Autonomic Control in Awake Humans, and Clinical Applications of Neurotransmitters. Impressed? Yes, I was blown away by the average IQ in the conference as well :)
First one; Microneurography is a method of measuring electrical impulses in nerves all around the body (but mostly in the arm and leg since they are the easiest to access). That symposium was all about refinement of techniques in using this to record activity in nerves - actually quite difficult to concentrate in, but I managed to get most of it down in notes.
Second one; Gravitational Stress - this was all about research regarding nerve activity in Space and microgravity (i.e. zero gravity). Sounds exciting, yeh? Unfortunately, the presenters from Japan and France were difficult to understand, and the material was (in my opinion, anyway) rather in-depth and specific. It was still interesting to find out how they simulated microgravity on Earth though; and some of the gadgets they used in space to record vitals.
The third and fourth were just yesterday; the Imaging symposium was pretty full-on, whilst the Clinical Applications of Neurotransmitters was more interesting for me since it had some clinically relevant stuff - such as reducing High Blood Pressure in individuals by de-activating the nerves in the kidneys, with some pretty dramatic results. So I thought that was really worth looking into; and in reality all of the research presented at this conference was pretty cutting-edge; we had information from studies which had not even been published yet, and was still in the process of submission. So yep, chance of a lifetime.
Meeting some of the researchers was interesting too; I met this person from Canada who actually held an Engineering degree, and was applying mathematics to the waveform model of nerve activity! Since this conference wasn't strictly medical, it was great to see the mixture of scientists and clinicians from all around the world, sharing information but also quite enjoying themselves in Sydney :)
The conference ended with a brilliant idea from one of my friends who suggested to Vaughan to take a picture of all the delegates. They were all quite game to take a few (ok, many, since there were numerous cameras) happy snaps, and nothing completes a meeting quite like a happy group photo with one particular scientist's taste of The Beegees playing on his iPhone. Nothing. Well, almost - Vaughan then introduced his iPhone (or iTouch?) and played The Presets, then suggested a breakdance party. Professor Macefield Rules :D
Today, in comparison, was not as exciting. Our PBL group assigned EBM roles, discussed a little bit, and went off on our merry way; PBL this week was quite interesting though - for once we didn't have a concrete diagnosis by Monday - which means some sleuthing around for the week! Aweeeeesome.

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 :)