All the year 2 med students have a list of examinations that they need to perform for a clinical tutor this year.  I finished my list today with a cardiorespiratory examination.  I know it’s a small victory but finishing the list was a huge relief, and a little bit of a marker in the sand.  I have been previously going through the clinical examinations wondering if that’s really what is done in practice, as it all seemed like a little bit of an abstract song and dance to me.  But today I felt like I knew what I was looking for, and why.  I felt as though I was, despite being a bit nervous, able to balance talking to the patient as a human being, being aware of what they needed while still doing what I needed to do.  And it felt great.  The tutor I was with was very encouraging and more than willing to teach while examining.  Also, in the actual examination I was able to discern what was happening to the patient, which is one of the first times I have done that without really asking the patient what is going on, or knowing the background from the history.  I know that it’s a pretty minor thing, but as I said, it’s a little victory.  And with years and years of training ahead of me, I need to take the little victories.

My reward after all this? Three written words:

It’s a small step I know, but I find it pretty encouraging.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine by David Graff
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Every now and then there are really great days.  It wasn’t particularly special today, but I had a great day.  I am currently on holidays, and today was perfect.  It is Monday, and everything went my way today.  I woke up at my leisure, took it easy with a coffee in the morning, found out that I am going to the Sunshine coast next year (more on that later), had lunch with a friend, relaxed all afternoon, then went out for a steak dinner at a cook-your-own restaurant with some friends of John’s.  We had a bunch of laughs, a great steak I cooked myself, and then went to Southbank for a swim in the somewhat cold and deserted pool.  Tossed the ball around a bit in the water too.  Then I threw on the shorts and hopped over to the theatre to meet another friend for a movie.  He’s also going to the Sunshine coast, so we were able to share a bit of joy about that and enjoy our time watching “The Inglourious Basterds”.  It added to the poetry that I went with a guy that, I am certain, gets told he looks like Quentin Tarantino by every person he meets (It was a Tarantino film).  Anyways, it wasn’t till the end of the day that I realized, this was basically a perfect day.

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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Just to put a marker on the day, today is the day that we undertake the first actual procedures on people we don’t know.  Up till now we have practiced on each other.  When we have been involved with patients, it was more a case of observing their pathology post diagnosis, and nothing remotely invasive.  Soon, this won’t seem like an event at all, but right now, I feel like I crossed a bridge today.

Tags: Australia, Medicine by David Graff
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A half world away, lives most of the ~100 people with whom I graduated high school.  Except one of them lives here.  I met her, randomly, at the gym tonight.  It was good to see someone from so far back in my past.  So far back that when I think about that time I feel like it (I) was a different person living then.  At the same time, she was not surprised at all to hear that I was studying medicine, or the course of life I have taken.  It goes well with the feeling that I am being more true to who I am now than ever before.  Having someone else recognize that after all this time and distance was really great.

Tags: Australia, Canada, Life by David Graff
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Petrol as they like to call it here.  On July 1, there was a removal of a government subsidy on gasoline in Australia.  A move made to try save money on their budgets.  It resulted in a ~20 cent jump in gas prices.  Sensing opportunity in the new-found perceived preciousness of petrol, the big grocery stores are running promotions that offer 40 cents per litre off fuel.  This has hit the headline news, because you only get the offer if you buy $300 worth of groceries at once.  The media is kinda in a stink about it because the offers are a little deceptive, and it’s not worth it to buy that much food to try claim the petrol discount if you don’t really want the food.  Then, the grocery store combines the offer with less sale prices on their items, making their profits higher when people go searching to fill out the minimum purchase.  The two big grocery stores are working hard to control the whole market here and it’s getting attention because they do abuse their near oligopoly from time to time.  They do things like advertise specials and then don’t honour them at the checkout or just double the price and advertise it as a special when you buy two.

Most of this is just background capitalism to me, except that I do end up paying more for regular groceries here than I do at home.  Sometimes I wonder if it is just that Australia doesn’t benefit from the closeness of America, and their demand for cheap food.  Nevertheless, this is the way it is here.

But one reporter raised a good point that started me thinking about all this.  The grocery stores are not charities.  The fuel discount is not something they feel they owe the people that have supported them to these heights of capitalistic success.  They will simply take back the funds through higher prices or less discounts.  More tricks to increase the ARPU.   And one of those U’s is me.

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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After a long time away I’m back to it.  Both here and elsewhere.  The last month has been full of studying, feeling helpless and going nowhere, exam writing, time off, trying to rest and trying to make sense of it all.  The exam was a gong show, with almost everyone doing poorly.  I did hear a rumour of someone getting a grade in the 80s but it has yet to be confirmed.  My colleagues around me were surprised when the person mentioned that “they knew someone” who scored like that.  That gives you an idea of how the class did.

While studying I didn’t feel like writing much, as each day seemed the same for so long.  Then I kinda dropped off the habit and here we are!   I am back into class now, even tho the rest of the students at UQ are now on break.  It’s great, cause like in January, we have the campus nearly to ourselves.  We are doing the nervous system these weeks, which are pretty packed sessions.  I’m glad we didn’t have a long break like last time, as it was very hard to get back into it after being away.

Tags: Australia, Medicine, UQ by David Graff
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This is my 500th day in Medicine.  It feels like every other day, except that it’s noon and I haven’t left the house.  I got out of bed, put on a hoodie, made a coffee, and sat down to my desk.

My life is exciting.  That’s why I’ve been writing so much about it lately.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine by David Graff
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Compared to most people, I have a rather complicated, if not sophisticated phone system. I won’t go into all the details now, except to say that one of the features is time based control of my calls. If you are calling me from Canada at 5 am my time, your call usually goes straight to voicemail. This is designed so people don’t have to worry about time when they call, but also to stop callers that don’t know from waking me up.

Just recently, there was a 5 day window where that system wasn’t working, and calls were put straight through (I knew about it, but needed to have it that way to make the calls work). After months of the system diligently blocking nobody, three callers decided to jump through the temporary loophole to wake me up. Two of them were related to the recent election in BC, but they don’t know me, so it’s tough to blame. One was from a person who clearly knew I was in Australia, and needed my credit card number for a medical journal subscription. So she rang me up at 3:30 am! Anyway, phone is back in order and that can’t happen any more! Helps me sleep a little better. And no, I don’t need a ride to the polling station.

So… Feel free to call anytime. If you don’t know what time it is here, don’t worry about it, you can’t call at a bad time.

Tags: Australia, Canada, Life by David Graff
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There are tiny ants here. Everywhere. They can, and do get through the screen door. They walk all over my kitchen counter, my desk and my bed. I have given up trying to kill them all. I think that’s impossible. They were here last year, and then they went away. I’m assuming they will again. It’s to the point that they come and go as they please, even from under my shorts and shirt. You get to choose between fighting them and your own sanity.

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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I love the experience of reading a used book. There’s something about thinking that the pages have been experienced by someone else that makes it interesting to me. I look at the words and wonder what the other person thought when their eyes passed over them. Recently I have started reading “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis. I was given the book by someone close to me. The book is very interesting to me, and it is basically a fantasy about what what it would be like, as a citizen of Hell, to take a trip to Heaven.

Physically the book is in great condition. I noticed that there was one page that had the corner folded over. When I received the book, I assumed that this was just a random stopping point, an easy way of marking where they were. Maybe this is still true, maybe that’s how this corner was folded. But then I wondered if there was another reason. As I read through the pages, there seemed to be nothing that would warrant flagging for its own sake. Then, at the end of the page marked, I read this:

“Ye cannot in your present state understand eternity…” “… But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. This is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say ‘Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences’: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.”

This is a great part of my Joy. I am living at the very beginning of eternity.

Tags: Australia, Life, Photos by David Graff
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