Sunday, August 22, 2004

Med Dinner

Last night was Med Dinner. An absolutely top night.

It was held at the new Convention Centre, and it was totally worth the 75 clams I shelled out for it. The convention centre is nice. It was very spacious as we came in - with nice drinks being served. And you could get whatever you wanted. They even got water for me. There was beer, red/white wine, softies and anything else you wanted to order.

The entree was actually the nibblies that went around at the start - this made it almost like a cocktail party to begin with. Then as everyone sat down for the speeches etc, out came the food. The videos were great. 1st year was a queer-eye makeover of Quickie, 2nd year was also a queer-eye themed movie, but they made over a dent guy (heh). "Med Eye for the Dent Guy."
Third year was a 24-themed movie called 6.9 - where the protagonist had to save the dean, Lou Landau from the dentists (Dentals have been secretly bankrolling every war since the 1800s), the fourth year video was shite - ours was being stupid and having convention at every possible opportunity, the 5th years was typically artsy - going thru each term starting with oncology and following the dude's life in reverse all the way back to obs and gynae. It was great. The sixth year video was funny as. They did an Olympics spoof with UMAT vs Non-Umat years. The UMAT-ers won everything, heh, except ward rounds where both sides died of boredom. The funniest part was the gigantic inflatable penis that they kep whipping out and bashing heads with.

Aaaaanyway - the dessert following was excellent. The music left a lot to be desired: Fiddy cent, Britney Spears, Usher, Jon Farnham (!). Anyway - it was a great night. Eventually got home at 3, after Chong picked me up. (Lin, him and Sid had an alternative DVD night)

Then, sleep.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Geriatrics

In Geriatrics (aka 'Geris') things move, well, predictably, you know, slow. This is a total and complete change from what I've been doing so far in Med, Surg and Psych.

Geris is at Freo for me, so that means (without my car) I have a 1 hour 30 min bus/train/train/bus ride to get to Freo Hospital. So I got up at 7am on the first day, and was out of the house by 7.30 to get to Freo by 9am.

Only for the consultant to not turn up. Apparently one of them has 'done his neck in' and the other one is on holiday. So Dr Wilcox gave us the tute. She's tall. About my height (I'm 180cm). But she walks funny. She clomps. She also has a soothing voice (mmm).

Anyway, we didn't do anything after that until 11.30, when we had an x-ray tute. If you could call it that. We spent 10 mins looking at X-rays of fractured hips. Then we went home.

Tuesday was similarly slack, except for the 3 hours ward round in the morning. Dr Milly Wong then gave us more info about the OSCE, which was helpful. Then we were done.

Today (Wednesday) was so slack I didn't leave the house, except to go the GAT room to do some Option 490, and play soccer. We have this wicked goalkeeper called Ray. He's a champ. We lost 2-1 - Jakub scored. Both me and Rob hit the post.

I plan to go in tomorrow, and talk to my patient. I need to get as much examination practice in as possible so I don't fail my OSCE. I also plan to do some IPS study (ha!).

Sunday, August 15, 2004

My last 10 days part 1

10 days ago was the 5th of August. Jeez a lot has happened since then.

Thursday 5th August:
I had planned to tape 'Dancer in the Dark', you know, that movie with Bjork in it. Something to do with a prison and lots of song and dance or something like that. She's apparently never going to make another movie again. I can't say whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, because I didn't see that movie.

I ended up doing a lot of study instead. I think I ended up learning about glomerulonephritis.

Friday 6th August:

Twas an interesting day. Me, Sa and Dino came in early and interviewed a patient who had bipolar disorder. That was interesting and to the point - she was able to give a really good history, which is a real plus in Psych. Then we finished off that PBL on Somatoform disorders with Dr Armstrong (aka Headstrong Armstrong) - he came late at 9.30, so we had ample time to talk to that patient.

Following that, we talked to Steve, and I presented the case we had seen that morning. Steve absolutely hammered me. Which was good, becsause I realised where my deficiencies were. Although he did say I would have gotten a 'B' on the history. Which I was rather pleased with. The mental state and formulation were rather more messy. And he didn't bother commenting on that! Although he did give some tips - eg 'pt was well conversed with medical terminology and knew the names of their medications and the doses, etc.'

Anyway, after that we had to trek down to Fremantle for the meeting with Wendy, who discussed the progress of our research project. That was interesting as we had done next to nothing whilst at the same time having to hand the completed project in by the 15th of Sept, or something.

After that we got on with the important business at hand - the interyear soccer...

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Smash!

I rear-ended some guy barely 2 hours ago.

I do not need this! I have a pathology exam tomorrow!

(My psych exam was ok, I think. Major depressive episode)

Monday, August 09, 2004

Psych Exam tomorrow

eMedicine - Anxiety Disorders : Article by William R Yates, MD

Psych exam tomorrow: I'm so screwed.

Sunday, August 01, 2004

What's it like being a med student?

At the moment? Not great.

Typically, my day involves waking up at 7am, catching the bus to the train station, then catching a train into Perth. Then I get another connecting train into the hospital, arriving at 8.45am. Then we have our psych meeting, where the doctors on the C-L team talk to each other as well as the psychologists about the various patients needing to be seen, or have been seen.

This goes on until about 9.15. After that I typically am given a list of patients that might be good to talk to - and then I spend the morning looking for them, and interviewing them. Otherwise, I sit in with a psychiatrist in the outpatient clinic where he sees patients. I've got to say, it's not the most stimulating of activities.

Sometimes we have little tutes with the nicer of the doctors, where we actually learn stuff. Other than that, I'm supposed to be getting proficient at taking a psychiatric history in preparation for the exam next week (Aug 10).

I'm not really looking forward to it. It's a one hour interview with a patient after which we're supposed to present the case back to a doctor, who then makes us look like idiots. As well as that, we have 20 mins after for them to ask more questions of us and show us how little we actually know.

As well as that, there's a test two days after that, based on the material in 42 lectures on pathology, immunology, microbiology and pharmacology. How joyous.

The new Arsenal kit doesn't look too bad.