Grad Week / Dedication Ceremony

Friday was the end to a very busy week for us graduating med students after our last exam a week prior. One of the students in our year, Warren, had organised a week-long celebration to mark our last week of medical student-dom before our transition to fully-fledged doctors. He had arranged a massive house party, followed by karaoke, followed by a trip down south, followed by a river cruise, followed by the 6th Year Dinner, followed by a champagne breakfast, followed by the official Dedication Ceremony, where our transition to doctors would be officially complete once we had all sworn the Hippocratic oath.

It was a very strange feeling at the ceremony. Throughout the week, the celebrations had been muted somewhat as we had not known whether we had passed our exams until Thursday. On Thursday at the Dinner, our emotions were finally let out as we celebrated with a clear conscience. Yet celebrations were always slightly tempered, as we realised that six of us had not cleared the final hurdle along with the rest of us. On Friday at the ceremony, again, it was a strange feeling as we revelled in the fact that we had finally set out what we had achieved to do when we started this journey together six years ago. There was sadness for those of us who were leaving to either go back home, or start again in another city. There were the families of classmates who had to be introduced and talked to. There was another pang of regret for some, who had not received honours due to a past failure in an innocuous unit.

All in all, it was a very emotional day, an end to one chapter in our lives and the beginning of something bigger and hopefully much better. Pictures on the right and here.

Tags: Medical

Red Bull Air Race

Along with 300,000 spectators, I decided to make the trek down to the banks of the Swan River to watch the Red Bull Air Race today. We decided to catch public transport there, as did most others, and after an hour of very slow trains and buses, we finally managed to get a vantage point on the South Perth foreshore.

The place had totally been transformed beyond recognition. A massive observation tower had been erected, there were viewing platforms for the more 'important' guests, and the Swan River had these massive inflatable gates floating on it.

The race is the self-dubbed 'Formula One' of the skies, in which planes time trial around a massive circuit specially created for the event. The pilots have to specially trained, needing to bank and turn very sharply as well as flipping their planes upside down and at times pulling up to 11Gs.

Our vantage point was great and we had an uninterruped view of the proceedings. In something that appeared to be almost like a computer game, there were speakers pumping out music that seemed to be more suited to a driving game as well as blaring out commentary of the race. It was a great spectacle!

Of course after that was the hellishly long public transport ride home. :(


Here's a video I found on Youtube of the qualifying on Friday.

The dreaded phone call

Today was D-Day. The day that you would receive a scary phone call if you had not passed your final exams. The day that everybody had been dreading since we finished our exams last Friday. On a day such as this, my cunning strategy is to sleep in for as long as possible so that if I suddenly woke up at 3pm, and nothing had happened, all would be well - and I wouldn't have gotten stressed out at all.

But today I only slept in until 11am.

At 11.50am, the downstairs phone rang. I ran to pick it up, but I didn't get there in time and it diverted to the answering machine. The voice was scary. I said my name, and asked him to call him back. You can imagine my immediate thought: I HAVE FAILED MY EXAM.

FUCK!

Frantically, I attempted to call him back numerous times. In those ten minutes, visions of cancelling my holiday flashed through my head. I would have to re-sit the exam. I would not be able to be sworn as a doctor with the rest of my friends tomorrow at the ceremony. I would be pitied by everyone and be totally embarrassed for my family. It was the end of the world.

Finally I managed to get through.

"So sorry, there was a mistake. You're fine. You passed. Sorry to cause you any consternation."

Jeez! You think they could have been a bit more organised! They're messing with people's lives here!

On the flip side though, I'm a doctor. Congratulate me!

Tags: Medical

Exams are FINISHED

My exams are finally over! What seemed like total hell has finally given way to rays of sunshine, and I can get back to enjoying life (excuse the hyperbole). :P

Friday was my last exam - the clinical OSCE, which surprisingly was not as difficult as it could have been. They asked us a lot of stock-standard questions and there was nothing overly tricky about the exam at all (which was a total surprise!). A lot of the questions were repeated from previous years' exams, which we all managed to get our hands on, so most of us should have been adequately prepared.

The written exam on earlier in the week on Monday was a little more difficult. Up until the exam I had been relatively calm about the whole thing, basing my confidence on my ability to do previous years' exams. Unfortunately my confidence was unfounded - and I really hope I passed. The bastards made it a lot harder than last year.

Thursday is the big day when we all get our results, and on Friday we are sworn in as fully-fledged doctors. There will be a lot of nervous medical students on Thursday, hoping that they don't receive the dreaded phone call of doom. I think I will be ok. But only just.

Tags: Medical, Announcements