So much time has passed without me really writing it down here.  It’s a shame, since so much has happened, and I didn’t really take the opportunity to record it along the way.  I have a renewed my motivations and we’ll see how it goes here.  There has been a lot of exciting news in my family in the last little bit, which each of my three sisters welcoming into the world a brand new daughter each!  I am so excited for these little ones!  I can’t wait to meet them.  I know my sisters have had their hands full with getting these girls into the world safely, and I am so happy they are here.  There have definitely been some trials along the way, that’s for sure.  My thoughts and prayers are with them, always!

School-wise, these last weeks have been crazy.  Literally.  I am on my psychiatry rotation and it is challenging in a lot of ways.  Here is some mood music for this post:

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There are a lot of things I have seen this last month and a bit that are very sad.  Many people struggling with realities and perceptions of realities so different than mine.  People crying out, needing, wanting, hoping, angry, sad, confused.  There are so many situations that seem un-fixable.  Things cannot be un-done, fathers can’t come back and love instead of abuse, stimulate instead of neglect, mothers can’t undo the drugs done while pregnant, and the people here are just left to pay the price.   It’s been a lot for me to think about, and I really internalize what I see.  It challenges me deeply on what I think it is to be a person, to be self-aware, and what to do about it.  This is a field where you really do see people that cannot function properly in a real life situation.  Concepts of consequence, cause-effect, future planning, insight vary from patient to patient.  They can of course be completely absent.  It breaks my heart, to be honest.

I can’t really recount all the crazy things I see, ’cause that’s probably a breach of student-doctor-patient confidence, and because it’s too crazy to remember.  Sometimes it’s just strings of words… sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes I am a member of the people from outer space, sent to spy on the patients to see how much they have been telling the doctors.   It has definitely grown on me in the time I have spent, but I am starting to feel confirmation that it’s not for me full time.  I think I look forward much more to helping people in a GP setting, even if it’s a psych issue, than in the full lockdown of the secure ward.  Starting to feel something about what I want to do for a future practice is exciting too.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine, Music by David Graff
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Well it’s been a long time since I’ve updated here, leaving people wondering where I am and what I’m up to.  And pondering my spelling.  I have been fairly busy trying to get my apartment together, getting a vehicle and even seeing my family up in FNQ.

I got back from the bush and had to study for a final and then had a few days off, and then got to jet to Townsville to see Jenn, James and Eli.  There are a few pics of us, on Magnetic Island, just off the coast of Townsville.

Eli is a funny little guy, always ready to smile, and he’s starting to be much more intentional about his interaction with people.  He used to smile like he couldn’t help holding back, and now when he smiles he really looks happy.  Another time that he looks totally happy is when he’s groovin to the music.  I took a short video of him in the car and will try upload it here in a bit.

Jenn and James took me all over, showed me the university and the hospital up there (I asked to see that, I don’t think it’s on the typical tourist timetable).

Since getting back I was swamped with getting into Surgery.  This rotation started out really intense, in that we were there for every morning meeting and were assigned to a team and followed the interns or registrars everywhere.  There was two weeks of orthopaedics at the beginning and now I have had a few weeks of general surgery, which is a bit more “go see what you’d like and not what you don’t, just make sure you study.”

In the meantime as well, I have finally bought a truck, which has proved to be a bit of a headache already.  I brought it home, so proud, only to have it fail to start on the very first time I stopped it.  It turns out there was a loose wire in the starter motor.  I did not know what was going on, but was fortunate enough to have an old housemate of mine, Steve, visiting from Langley.  He was able to be my starter motor, push style, for about a week.  Then on the weekend I picked up some wrenches and pulled the starter.  The fault was clear by that point, so I fixed it and re-installed it.  It’s starting beautifully now.  I just have a few issues with the fuel pump.  I hope I can work those out too.  Here you can see my repair:

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Steve was here for three weeks and we were able to go to a footy game together, see a bit of the area and chill and hang out like old times.  Sometimes it seems as though neither of us has changed a bit.

I also bought a used bbq I found online, and was able to pick up, with my (trusty?) truck.  I’m pretty excited about it, and have basically lived off it in the last two days.  I want to get a few plants and make the apartment feel a little more like home.  Plus study.  A bunch.  I have an exam in three weeks and it’s no small thing.  Hopefully I survive, all I have to do is read and memorize a textbook…

I’ll try grab some photos of the truck, I never think to do it.  Plus I’ll try show you where I’m living when I get my act together.  Hopefully it’s soon!

While I’m in the picture mood I might as well throw in a pretty cool sunrise from a few days ago:

Tags: Australia, Life, Photos by David Graff
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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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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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