The last few days have been pretty good, getting into doing things a little more.  I have admitted a few patients, done a few canulas and even written a referral letter to Rockhampton for a Royal Flying Doctors extraction of a patient.  It feels pretty good to know what goes on enough to do something that is a little bit useful.  Nothing is really difficult, and it’s definitely not anything someone else couldn’t do, but whatever.  This will probably be one of those things that you look back and think, strange that I was excited about such small repetitive items of routine.  Future me will think it’s dumb, but current me thinks it’s cool that things are actually starting.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine by David Graff
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For the first time, I put a scalpel to someone’s skin today, and cut them.  It was actually really cool, I did the local, excision and dressing… did everything.  Some people might not think this is a big deal, but there was a time when I thought I shouldn’t do medicine because I couldn’t handle the blood and cutting someone.  After wound care, a surgical observership in first year and seeing quite a few excisions out here, I am happy to charge forward into it.  I think I did a good job too, which is really good.  I don’t think I will have to think back to “that first time”.  I might mess things up in the future for sure, but at least that first cut was straight and smooth.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine by David Graff
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I am in my new home, which feels great, and I am looking forward to getting everything set up.  I’m here for a little bit this weekend, and then I am headed back to the bush for another few weeks!  I won’t be setting everything up, because I won’t be needing it for another month, but at least it’s all here.  It feels good to have a place where you know it’s your home.  I have been wandering for a while now…  Just a little more wandering and I can be home again.

When I pick up things and get it kinda set up I’ll snap a few photos

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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Believe it or not, at the last minute I decided to hop on a Greyhound bus, ride 16 hours through the outback over night and arrive back in Brisbane this weekend.  I am here for a couple reasons, including “Sports Day” which is the biggest cross-class get together of the year.  That’s on Friday, but today is the day that we actually get keys to our apartment.  So I am going to rent a car, grab my scrubs from storage, and then cruise up to the Sunny Coast to get keys and check out the new apartment.  I will also be able to move my stuff out of storage, which will save me the storage fee, which was pretty close to the cost of the bus!

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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Here I am, sitting here in the middle of the outback, watching the start of the Vancouver Olympics.  I see the Canadiana on the TV, but when I look outside it’s a completely different vista.  I went for a walk today, just to get out of the house.  I walked for about 10 minutes north of where I’m staying, and was already out of town.  The town I’m in is maybe a kilometer across.  The crazy thing is that there were kangaroos just chilling in the grass out there.  It just highlights how different my experience is here today than it would be if I lived in Canada still.  Anyways, missing home big time today.

Tags: Australia, Canada, Life by David Graff
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Today something happened that is hard to get used to.  Someone used the phrase “because we’re doctors” to me.  Directly to me.  Now, usually when this happens I feel a real obligation to say, “Well, I’m still just a student.”  But there was literally nobody else around, and the speaker knew fully that I am a student.  It felt a bit odd, but I suppose it will be true eventually.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine by David Graff
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While I didn’t actually write the post when I started, this is the time I woke up, at Matt’s house, to get ready to leave Canada.  I didn’t get back in bed until the post above.

Tags: Australia, Canada by David Graff
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For this year at least, classes are over.  I am a little uncertain if we will be having regular classes next year or not.  I think it will depend on the rotation.  There are five main divisions next year, Rural Medicine, Surgery, Mental Health, General Practice, and Medicine.  I think they will all run a little differently, and have heard rumours of PBLs next year as well, but run on one day instead of two (separated by study on the topic) and that there might be days or half days of lecture next year.

Anyway, it’s a little sad to realize that the student life as it is formally recognized has come to a close for this campus, right when I started to feel like I knew what was going on.  I am really excited about next year though.  It will be a lot of learning as it is a paradigm shift moving into the hospitals on a full time basis, but I’m looking forward to it.  Now I just need to get through these next exams.  I have three rounds of assessment coming up, called the MSAT, PSA2.1 and PSA 2.2 respectively.  The MSAT is a Multi-Station Assessment Task, which is a live exam of five different stations, as the name suggests.  There are: Clinical Reasoning, Examination, History Taking, Ethics and Advanced Life Support stations.  The idea of this exam scares me, as I feel as though there’s nowhere to hide.  Just you and the examiner.  And the patients I guess… they usually are actors at this stage, but some might be patient-actors with real signs.  This test is on November 8 for me.

Then on the 10th and 11th I have two more exams, the first being PSA2.1 (Progressive Summative Assessment) which is based on material from this last semester.  Then the next day is based on all material covered up until now.

Then my plans are to recover a little from the exam, clean up and go check out the Sunshine Coast, as that is where I will be living next year, and then I’m headed to New Zealand for 10 days.  I will be home in the beginnning of December.  I am looking forward to being home very much.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine, UQ by David Graff
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On the way to the grocery store, I often take the back path, which leads through a bit of scrub. Just after leaving the fenced back yard, there is a bunch of bushes. When I pass, there is usually a scurry sound in them. It sounds like it is made by something bigger than the ubiquitous geckos. I figured it was probably a snake, and despite always looking, I’ve never seen anything. Well today I almost stepped on this guy, maybe he is the noisemaker.

PS.  Even though it kinda looks like the suspected snake, it’s actually an Eastern Blue-tongued Lizard

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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I know I haven’t updated this in a while, but I have been spending less and less time with my computer on.  I have recently bought a few text books that I am really getting into and have printed out my student notes.  This means that I have not been updating as much, since it hasn’t been in front of me.  But life is pretty good, I am currently preparing for my final exams which are coming up in a few weeks.  In the last little bit I had a party for my birthday which was lots of fun, we had a holiday for a bit, and now I have been back at class for a few weeks.  My life has settled into a zone where I know what is going on.  I know how to be a second-year med student.  That has made day to day life feel like it isn’t as report-worthy as before.  The adventure is becoming more commonplace, but I am still loving it.  I miss everyone at home so much, and am sad for the good times together that have been forfeited.  I am living.  Here.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine by David Graff
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