The holiday update.

I'm on holidays at the moment. It's nice to not have to wake up and think about medicine, you know? Killer exam actually went much better than I expected. There was a party on that night for medlings which I was supposed to go to but, uh, that didn't work out too well. It's not the first time it's happened (or even the second, I think.) It's an alarming trend and I should stop telling people I'll be attending these things. During the exam itself, you're completely alert. You're on your game. You're in the zone. Everything's like a shotgun-- yes, yes, YES! When the academic stiff says "pens down," it's like your body takes it as a cue to call in its sleep debt and shut down. The sleepless nights suddenly catch up with you and all the caffeine in your system seems to vanish. Afterwards, you just feel like crap. Your hair's so greasy you can fry chicken in it, you're suddenly aware that the exam hall isn't keeping out the winter cold and you become self-conscious of the fact that you're wearing your pyjama pants and a food-stained jersey.

During the teaching session, it's easy to forget that you're a stupid teenager. Anyways, despite being on holidays, I've worked out a few extra clinic hours with my teaching hospital. I guess I'm still a medical junkie at heart. Today was sort of rediculous though. I made the effort of showing up at 9am only to find out that my facilitator's off with some mysterious "personal issues" and that I'm stuck following around a random SMO with an ego bigger than my ass during exam periods. Yeah. Not doing that again. My tweets give you a rough idea of how rediculous today was. Be warned, it's kind of pissy and cussy.

I'm currently reading Direct Red by Gabriel Weston. Excellent book. I recommend it.

Most embarrassing .

See Twitter; was at hospital today for a lecture on taking pediatric histories. Afterwards, we were allowed to run amok in the children's hospital and "get a feel for the place". Everyone took that as their cue to the get the hell out ASAP, but I did some exploring and found the super secret student's mess in the neurology wing and decided to get some work done. Fast forward to the part where I finished off my second Red Bull and started dancing vigorously to Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' on my iPod and couldn't hear when Dr Very Important Neurologist walked in with a coffee cup. He started sniggering and I reflexively covered my ID with my hand. Arghhh FML. It felt like a sitcom situation. These things aren't supposed to happen in real life.


On a not so mortifying note, anybody who doesn't already follow Cinammon Anna should head over there as her blog is incredibly upbeat and fun. I think our Star Trek obsessions were rekindled at roughly the same time. For me, this is terrible timing as I have another of those bitchin' exams on the 25th. I'm constantly torn between doing a marathon of the original series and studying. Ok, ok, ok, I'll shut up about Star Trek already.

Elsevier Saunders needs to buy me lunch.

Yes, that is a urine sample jar on my shelf. I've got no idea where it came from, so don't ask. The distortion represents the wooziness I felt when I added up the total cost of this lot.

Anatomy, physiology, pathology, pathophysiology, histology, embryology, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology, stats... As for communications and ethics, I can talk myself into forking out for science but there's no way I'm spending $120 on a book that boils down to "Be friendly and do the right thing, OR ELSE." I got panicked today when I realised that I'm going to have to grab another four textbooks this year (Gray's Anatomy, Clinical Examination, Dale's Pharmacology and Male's Immunology). I'm adding up prices in my head and it's pretty miserable. (How did I get through first year withough Gray's, you ask? Wikipedia, I say.)

When it comes to medical textbooks, I've come up with three rules. Firstly, the thicker the better. Also, trust the books that have about a squillion editions preceding it. Most importantly though, if it's published by Elsevier-We're-Going-To-Take-All-Your-Money-Saunders, you're set. A heady combination of Robbins and Guyton is supposed to cover you for a while, but if you're like me and are excessively paranoid about Guyton's lacklustre neurophysiology....

Random things I feel I ought to mention.

Damn you and your beautiful face, Zachary Quinto. Generally, I keep my geekiness quiet. By geekiness, I mean I'm a closet Trekkie with a very problematic Spock crush. In the words of a Wikipedian, "Quinto brings a bit more chill to the character [than Nimoy]." I like my men half Vulcan and chilly. I've spent the past couple of days doing a Star Trek original series marathon. Ergo, I turn up to morning lectures looking like death.

Anyways, let's talk about less important things. I recently picked up my copy of Robbins & Cotran's Pathologic Basis of Disease. Yes, it was bloody expensive but good god, the book is genius. Not to mention heavy. (Have I mentioned my theory that book quality is directly proportional to metric mass?) I've already uploaded it to my Elsevier Saunders online library (because we all love hoarding and collecting things) but at the end of the day, book is lighter than bricky laptop. It looks quite funny sticking out of my bag. Some students have ripped out the spine and loosened the sheets so as to only carry the relevant readings about. It's smart, but it's also sacrilege.

Forgot to mention; our annual Med Revue was a few weeks ago. Was very terrible. I was falling asleep and left during the intermission with some meddies from a different school to go eat Indian food. The skits were centred around first years faking orgasms. Not kidding. Incidentally, a bunch of Conservative Looking Asian Parents were watching in the backrow. I assume they were there to cheer on their seriously over-coddled spawn. How awkward. I mean, why would you want your parents to see that?

It's 4:22am. I'm going to start on some anatomy. Coffee number three, LET'S GO.

Kids these days...

I'm about halfway through my second round of embryology, and being a second years means I've got more assignments and clinical days. Funnily enough, one of these assignments involves sitting around for three hours every week at a children's daycare centre to observe "developmental behaviour".

1. I hate psychology. Believe me when I say I don't use this word lightly.


2. Kids have a discomfort/awkwardness radar. This attracts them.


3. I am terrible with kids.


4. Kids are nothing like they used to be. Back in my day...

So, besides spending most of my time devoting Larsen's Human Embryology to memory, I have to somehow come up with meaningful observations and interactions with little people. Do you have any idea how stressful this crap is? And is it just me, or are all kids kind of nuts? And how come some people are so good with them? And why are they all so tech savvy? Do their workaholic parents teach them how to make excel spreadsheets?

There is no reasoning with children. Don't call me crass. We're not talking general theory of relativity here, we're talking "So what did you have for breakfast today?" (Which was met with a rather angry "I don't want to tell you!") For chrissake, pumpkin pie. Sigh. Here are some excerpts.

Kid: Why are you wearing lots of blue? Are you going to a party?
M: No? And my jumper isn't blue. Don't you think it's more purple?
Kid: Like grapes?
M: Yeah. Like grapes.
Kid: I hate grapes. Mum makes me eat them. [gets angry]

M: What's your favourite game?
Kid: THROWING!!!

M: Ok, I'll see you next week.
[Kids laugh manically]

I'm really paranoid that these little gremlins are plotting my demise (i.e. they'll find my corpse facedown in the sandbox, with a plastic spade wedged between T5/T6). I'm a little concerned about this fixation on "moulding kids" at pre-school, too. Yeah, fine motor skills are great, but it's not a neurosurgery training program. Just ease up a little on the Fruit-o-Mathics booklets and give them more room to explore their mutual craziness. I'm no Piaget, but it sounds sort of logical. It's not that often your life gets to revolve around play dough and wood blocks.

I mean, it's how pre-school went for me and I turned out pretty normal. (Snicker.)

Someone needs less time on their hands.

From the clinic at UTAS.

W. Harvey missed out.

My past month at school has been pretty heavy. No, I'm not having "Maybe I should leave..." thoughts, but I am having "My life would be so much easier if I just did commerce studies or something..." thoughts. It's probably a very ungrateful thought to have but everybody has them. When this happens, you need some inspiration. When it doesn't come to you, you have to go out and sieze it by the horns. Force your way into an operating room, clock in some extra clinic hours (I don't even think we're allowed to do this.)... Or something.

Or if you're me, you just throw lots of money at the problem and hope it goes away. I've been reading Catharsis: On the Art of Medicine by some cardiologist guy with a really complicated name. (No disrespect intended, Andrzej.) It's slow and reads like prose fiction, but it's not bad. I'm too lateral-thinking and stupid to appreciate poetry, philosophy or history of medicine, but I sort of get the rough idea. (I'm the girl who falls asleep in art galleries.) Point is, it did nothing to inspire me. Kind of pointless. Like giving aspirin to a schizophrenic.

A week or so ago, I had a physiology lab class on CVS microcirculation. Once our toads were distributed and anaesthetised, chopped open and mounted on dissecting microscopes, we had to study the circulation. (My toad seemed intent on staying awake; it took about ten minutes of dousing with MS-222, pulling its leg and poking its eye before I was satisfied the little bugger was under.) I realise this is a really stupid sounding post but it was INTERESTING TO ME. I'd never seen blood moving through vessels before. Everything up until then was static images and text.

Watching single erythrocytes squeeze themselves through capillaries and two rushing streams of blood converge at a vein--fastslowfast--is hypnotic. I'm not going to get all "river of life" on you, but anyone whose seen it probably understands what I'm talking about. You can't help but stand back for a small moment and simply marvel at the biological complexity of life. (I'm deliberately ommitting the part where I had to induce a hemorrhage by cutting the femoral artery and finished up by cutting out the BEATING HEART! which was STILL BEATING ALL OVER THE DISSECTION PLATE! and dumped the lot in the bin. DAMN YOU, FRIGHTENING PURKINJE FIBRES!)

On another note, I had a formative exam on Friday. ("Formative exam" means "If you fail this exam, chances are, you'll fail the real one! So we're watching you!") I'm pretty happy with how I went. The histology component went much better than I expected. What jerked my chain though was the physiology. I put in so many hours (MANY, MANY HOURS.) but still managed to stuff up a three of the questions. All the MCQs were "Choose the BEST answer," or "Choose the MOST correct answer," which made me want to shoot myself in the eye. Oh yeah, and I said prenatal erythropoiesis occurs in the yolk sac. And I labelled periostum as perichondrium. Clearly, I am going to be surgeon general. So hands up! Who wants me as their doctor?!

And now, for something completely different, I'll leave you with a labelled photo of my handbag before I go back to my study hole.

Click for larger image