This is it
Exam starts in 30 minutes! Here we go!
Exam starts in 30 minutes! Here we go!
There are very few days left for me as a medical student. I have an all encompassing exam on Saturday and that is it.
For a guy who really uses a computer a lot… I went without a one for a long time… back in the beginning of September my laptop decided to pack it in. Because I was a too busy to actually figure out what the problem was, and didn’t want to risk sending it away to anyone, I held on to it. My brother in law was kind enough to lend me his to get me through the OSCE on September 10, and then I was moving towards going back to Aus before I knew it. When I got here, I found out what the troubles were and I found a place that can do the fix. After sending it in, in blind faith, I got a call that everything was back up and working well. So we’ll have to see how it holds up, since the shop told me sometimes the fix doesn’t stay. Anyways, it’s good to have it back.
This is one of the local beaches… About five minutes from my house, about a kilometre away. I can hear the waves crashing at night.
This is about 20 minutes from my house, a pretty famous local spot.
So for a lot of reasons, I have stopped posting here. But I have come to conclude that I don’t like that I have stopped. The reasons I slowed down and then stopped ranged everything from being afraid of giving away too many patient details to simple tiredness to stress and to habit. I stopped being in the habit of posting and that changed things. Now, when I look back since April 1, so much has happened, without it getting recorded here. And in retrospect, I think that’s a bit of a shame. I have been to many international cities, written important exams, delivered more babies, and been at some pretty lifechanging events. My brother got married (Congrats Mike and Alicia), and I am now doing my elective term at a hospital here in Edmonton, Alberta… in Canada. I had half-written a post when I got back from Melbourne in May:
Melbourne.Back from Melbourne, more than a week now. It has been so long since I have updated here and I’m really sorry. Sorry that I missed the chance to record a pretty neat time in my life. Over the last two months, I have delivered babies, done surgery, studied and travelled to a new city. And it all slipped by undetected by this website.
A lot of my absence can be explained by my MCCEE exam bearing down on me, and more recently, the Obstetric and Gynaecology final also stressing me out to the point that whenever I feel like sitting down to the computer in a mood to do something, that something should be study instead of updating here. I’m not sure if it’s counter productive or not, but I’ve been mentally cloistered for some time now. And now I’m free again.
But I was not free really. I wanted to think I was free but I still had to wait for the results, which were pending. It was stressful as it was a competitive based scoring system.
Well… the mum did most the work. I caught a baby today is much more like it. But it was still pretty amazing. To be continued…
December 1 is touchdown in Canada, headed to Vancouver first, then I’ll head to Alberta for Christmas, then back to Van to catch my return flight! I’m looking forward to everything there, not the least of which is Tim Horton’s… I mean, my new nieces hehe. I’m flying New Zealand, so I guess I’m going to see the youngest country again, twice. Kinda wish I was stopping to cruise around, cause it’s really cool, but I’ll be alone anyway, so it’s just as well that I’m coming home. See you soon!
This rotation is one of the most full on of them all. I suppose it’s still just one step, but it feels like the step has a lot of expectations. But it’s the difficulty that makes me want to work more, and harder at it. I’m loving it, and wishing I could have spent the whole year here. Except I don’t want to give up my other experiences either 🙂
Well, I have not posted for two months. In some ways, lots has happened. In some ways, very little. I went to Townsville, had a great time. I saw my Mum, and even had coffee with her on my birthday. I passed Psychiatry, which was a huge relief. I think Psychiatry messed with my mind. It left a permanent mark, that’s for sure. I turned 30. That is having lasting effects as well. I have been evaluating my life a lot / too much. This song came on the radio the other day, and it felt like my life story:
My mind is a combination of isolation, stress, disillusionment and boredom. This whole thing really is a weird time in my life. I feel like I have lost a lot of who I am. There are parts in me and my life that are dying. Some parts are dying at the hands of others, some are just withering away. I am paying a huge price to be here, sometimes it feels like I am paying with the actual substance of me. Combine that with other things that are growing in me, and I find I am different. I was something when I showed up that I will never be again. I don’t feel like it is “supposed” to go this way. But that’s another question that drives me nutty. What is it supposed to be like? Why? Part of the reason that I haven’t been posting is that I don’t want this to be full of my internal turmoil. But I’d be lying to everyone and myself to say it wasn’t there. A lot of the things that were going on here are still going on.
My General Practice rotation was great. I remembered why I started medicine in the first place, and worked with a preceptor who did it really well. There are a lot of ways you can “doctor” well, but this guy did it in a way that I really respected and aspire to. It wasn’t that he was just great at diagnostics, or that he was nice, it was that he was both, and took his job seriously and worked at creating an experience for the patient that helped them with their life. He took the craft of being a GP to a higher level. I was happy to absorb from him his style and approach, and would practice his techniques in the role plays that we would do at the end of the week. I spent a ton of time with him, too. We were expected to spend 16h per week at the clinic. I did about 30, sometimes more, per week. Thankfully, he was happy to have me, too. I went to his farm and vaccinated his cows, hung out with his son and had dinner at his house with his friends twice. Next up for me in the rotation department is a rotation actually called Medicine. It will be hospital work, wards and stuff. It’s one of the big ones, the other being Surgery. I feel like it’s going to be a pretty intense learning experience, as the expectations at the end are pretty high.
Right now, I’m sick. Sore throat, viral URTI in my opinion. It’s pouring rain, which is an experience in itself, for lots of reasons. I am on holidays, but have an assignment to do with my group, which is kinda annoying because I simply hate assignments, and it’s destroying my break by making me feel like I should be here doing it, and when I am here, I am feeling like I am trapped in the house. So that pretty much brings us up to date.
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