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!

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.