Paper A Dissected

I finished the first paper today, so a la UOW GSM feedback, I’ll give you the run down.

Subject: Paper A

Description: modge-podge of modified essay questions (15 main topics to be exact)

Highs: the amount of cardiovascular and haematology questions were great. I think those are my strong points and I felt very confident with my answers. The blood pressure and anaemia questions were particularly my favourites as I covered them in enough details. One of the neuro topic was well answered as well (I think); it was on Parkinson’s and I managed to work out/draw the entire nigrostriatal pathway. I was very proud of myself.

Lows: the rest of neuro, I was iffy about. There was a whole topic on migraine based on one GOAL (our online learning activity). ONE and no more. Musculoskeletal was quite confusing, especially the anatomy of the vertebrae. I was not happy with that.

How do I think I did: I’m definitely more comfortable than I did last year. I answered all questions except for the sumatriptan pharmacology. Knock wood, it’s a pass.

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Self-grade:

Creativity: A-

I managed to write a story about how two friends manage to pass rhinovirus to each other while one was sneezing. I used a lot of colours for this paper. Pink, purple, green, orange, and black. Could have benefited from more colours though.

Efforts: A-

I answered all questions and definitely used all the spaces I was given to show off my knowledge.

Time Management: B-

I had to go to the toilet twice, the first one I walked to the toilet, the second I sprinted. I think I could have been more focused in the exam. I also didn’t realise that I skipped an entire topic until 20 mins before the end of the exam.

Stress Level: B

Stressed-ish, but not as much as last year.

Overall Grade: B+

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Wish me luck for the two papers tomorrow!

Choice

I know my last few posts have been pretty gloomy. Well, let me update you with what has happened for the past week. Turns out I did not pass my second attempt at the lower limb clinical competency and I have to schedule an appointment with NH who is in charge of the clinical skills. I emailed her Tuesday and I haven’t gotten a reply until now. I have until the 29th of June to redo it, but I have to discuss it with her first. I have the phase exams in less than 3 weeks as well. You’re probably thinking: OH NOES. HES GONNA FREAK OUT MORE. HES GONNA GET MORE ANXIOUS.

Actually, not really. I think managing stress is about choice. I have the CHOICE to focus on my exams instead of dwelling on the fact that I have to redo my clinical competency for the third time. I CHOOSE to not get stressed out by things that I can’t control (i.e. waiting for the reply from NH). It is my CHOICE to not deem my entire medical education as a failure based on the little things that I can improve on.

Ta,

N

p.s. I apologise for being overly psycho-analytical with my life a couple of days ago. I do have some anger and bitterness, I suppose. Nonetheless I CHOOSE to move on with my life and see my past as an experience I can learn from.

Mee goreng is a med student’s bestfriend

It’s a sign that I’m getting serious when mee goreng suddenly becomes my staple diet. *GASP!* Food bloggers around the world weep. I know it’s sad, but being book-bound also means less time for me to cook and bake.

I’ve been planning to bake sticky date puddings with butterscotch sauce for quite awhile. I have the dates in the cupboard chopped, but I can’t seem to find the time to make this thing. I just want to be done with the exams, but sadly (or thankfully?), they are still 3 weeks away. Right now, all I can do is tell myself: “N, you’ll be able to cook and bake and try all the recipes that you want to try once you pass the exam. Not that you like cooking with recipes.”

I did get to cook nem nuong and Vietnamese rice paper wraps for our ‘family’ dinner this week though. I actually still have a few slices of the patties and I heated them with the mee goreng. They are actually quite yummy together.

Love,

N

p.s. I’d also like to do a shout-out to this lovely lady for making my week with her chocolate-y goodness and to toast for passing on the chocolate as well as for the massive. You guys are awesome.

I think I know it. I think I know it.

I properly learnt the coagulation cascade today. Sure it was examined in last year’s exam, but I just crammed everything in and had forgotten it as soon as I had my first glass of wine after the exams. It truly is a good feeling knowing what you’re supposed to know in the first place. I feel more comfortable facing the phase exams now. I just have to learn immunology (my worst, honestly) and try to teach myself neurophysiology. And I am off to bed now.

i cried today

today was a clinical skills day. and as always, i felt dumb. prior to last week, i had managed to fail 3 clinical competencies. i just added a fourth one yesterday. i managed to fail one that is supposedly one of the easiest. there was a single word on the circumstances section (i.e. for why a student has performed poorly). nerve.

fml.

we did a teaching session on how to do the cranial nerve exam and i came prepared for it. i did a few practices and then the tutor, a lovely petite english doctor, decided that i should try to do it like in the competency setting. i failed miserably. just like my attempts at everything, my nerve got the better of me. we did a feedback session, some good, some bad. then the tutor asked the dreaded question. am i constantly this nervous. as soon as she asked that, i couldn’t hold it in.

i cried today. may be it’s the exam pressure. may be i’m just too sensitive.

i’ve considered quitting medicine numerous times for this obvious reason. not that i’m not enjoying it but i sometimes think that i’m too fragile for this dog-eat-dog world that is medicine. i’ve constantly asked myself if medicine was right for me. i do have the passion for it and the drive. i don’t know if i have the nerve. i was ready to cut off the cord connecting me to medicine.

medicine has made me feel like an incompetent failure.

i’ve always had to work harder to get to where i am in medicine, especially with the clinical skills. most people walk into the room unprepared and they are fine. i have to spend a few hours for it and still i look like the one who is unprepared. at one point last year, a different tutor told me that i was wasting her time because i didn’t prepare. well. i did prepare.

may be medicine is not for me.

the tutor must have been freaked out. may be it was the first time it had happened to her. a male medical student sobbing like a little girl with a booboo on her knee. i think that 15-minutes crying session was what i needed to keep my sanity. i think i need to toughen up and grow an extra layer of skin. no doubt i still have the thought of quitting. but i think i’ll stick to medicine. for now.

i cried today and it felt good.

might as well move to the gsm…

it’s funny how much time i spend in the gsm now that the exams are coming up in a month. i’ve been spending more than 15 hours per day constantly in the gsm, including weekends. that’s quite sad really… like on sunday. i got to the gsm at 930 in the morning and i went home at midnight. that is almost 15 hours spent in the gsm. this would probably go on for the next month or so.

ta,

n

p.s. my shift button acted up again. screen went blank for at least twice during the typing of this post. fml.

shazzam… exams.

for the last 3 postless months, i’ve been stressing about the exam so much that i barely have any time for other things besides med to do. there was a few days off for med revue and birthday parties, but nothing much more. exams are scary and i’ve taken steps to work my ass off by -

1. banning myself of facebook. it’s been for 3 weeks now that i live without facebook.

2. banning myself of paging dr. not only does the new peeps who ask stupid questions without reading the forum annoys me, but i’ve also been spending in the chat lobby for too long. but then i promised a few paging dr. friends that i would let them know about my progress with the barriers and life in general. which is why i’ve decided to just post my updates here again. as i should.

3. i quit making pizzas for crust. they hired way too many 15 year olds and now that i am almost 10 years older than these people, i don’t feel that it’s for me. instead i do chemistry tutoring; 8 students to be exact.

i’ve recently gotten my placements for phase 2, which i am very excited about. 2 in shoalhaven and 5 in wollongong. life’s great other than stressing about the exam. i’m definitely looking forward for my birthday, which is 9 days before the exams. i think we’ll be heading to 1945, an indonesian restaurant in pyrmont. i so want a rijstaffel right now…

that’s enough update for now… byes.

n

p.s. in case you’re wondering why i’m writing without a single capital letter, my shift button is busted and so is my function button. the mimicry that my shift and fx buttons do is quite amazing. it’ll turn off my screen, refresh my page with no reason, and the worst of all, turn my webcam on and off… imagine how annoying that will be when i’m skype-ing with someone.

will i buy a new laptop… i’m financially pretty tight at the moment. besides i’ve only had this netbook for 1.5 years after my old one was stolen last year. my parents said they’ll give me money, but i don’t feel comfortable asking them for it that i end up telling them i have enough even though i’m pinching pennies. the bright side though, i invested the money they gave me in a time deposit.

p.s.s. i realise that the last p.s. is probably longer than a normal p.s., but o well. it’s my blog, my rule, my grammar.

Back from 2 month frantic med studying hiatus

Dear readers,

Apologies for my 2-month-hiatus from this blog. Medicine was consuming my life and that coupled with the part-time job that I’ve picked up (pizza-making) left me KO’ed in the evenings.

Here are a few updates:

• I passed my end-of-the-year exam with a satisfactory mark.
• I started working in Crust Gourmet Pizza as a pizza-maker in October.
• I bought Kumar & Clark, Guyton & Hall, G&H Physiology Review, and Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine from my pizza money.
• I also bought a few toys: a cookie cutter that prints out words on the cookie from Ebay and a bicycle. All from pizza money.
• I’m going home Monday and won’t be back in Australia until the end of January.
• I make mean ice creams; so far, I’ve made: strawberry sour cream ice cream, salted toffee ice cream, and mango ice cream…

Let’s talk about the most important of the list, which is the exams. I don’t know what the second-years were thinking, but our exams this year were killers. The MEQ (essays) was vague and not really what I studies. Throughout the entire year, we’ve been told to know the important concepts. Turned out a really crappy 50-min lecture on pelvic pain by a clinician who wouldn’t stop showing off his CREI was important enough as a 10-pt question for the exam. WTF? That was the first day (Monday Nov 30th). I was left so depressed that when I went to the shop later that afternoon to pick up stuff for dinner, I got lost walking home. That never happened to me before.

The second day was definitely slightly better. Two exams, both multiple choice. Although they were slightly easier than the MEQ, the bad thing about multiple choice is that you can’t get partial marks. The first exam of the day wasn’t too bad, but the anatomy exam was more confusing. I left the room unsure about ALL of the answers that I put in.

Fast forward to yesterday at 6:30pm. A few friends and I went to Sydney for dim sum. Kylie said if we fail, we’ll get a phone call. Throughout the day, we kept on getting phone calls from different people. The dim sum was great, the phone calls weren’t. We had such a frantic energy because we were scared of getting the dreaded phone calls.Got back to Wollongong at 6:30pm. Opened my SOLS account. Darn! Our internet connection has gone down to snail speed… It was dreadful waiting for 5 mins to get the result AND Google Chrome decided to crash before I got my result. The result finally came up and I got … an S!!! S for SATISFACTORY. Being satisfactory has never sweeter before.

I did promise myself though that if I pass, I would be a lot more consistent. I’m definitely taking my K&C and G&H home and I’ll be putting in 4-6 hours a day… I’ll still be enjoying myself; I’ve got the ‘rents and the food that I love. I just have to schedule my day so I can do both.