David Graff – davidgraff.com Today with Dave, Downunder it's Friday, March 29th, 2024 @ 9:46 AM

Entries Tagged as 'UQ'

It doesn’t even feel like Monday

It’s Monday night here, but it could easily be any day of the week.  It’s easy to get disoriented to time when all your days are the same and all you do is sit at the desk, or walk out to the living room.  It’s good though.  I wish I had more time to study, I feel like I’ve got too much ground to cover.  Hopefully this week is really productive, sitting at the desk basically sunup to sundown and beyond.  It’s is not long at all now and I’ll be sitting in Canada before I know it.

Year 1 PBL is over

Today was the last session for me with PBLIV.  We had a half session to finish out the important points of our case this morning and then headed over to a fish and chips shop close by called A Salt and Battery.  Our case this week was Domestic Violence.

The year has been really good and I’m going to miss having these guys in the group.  I know whenever you get randomly assigned people you have to work closely with, there’s so much potential for adversity, but I think our group really came together.  It’s not that we’re all the same, cause we are definitely different, but things seemed to work.   I’ll miss them!

Long live the Gallstones

Here are my teammates in Sunday night footy. This was just after our last defeat. Theo was pretty tired, he worked really hard.

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Thanks to Carol for the photos.

Back at the desk

I have been trying out the Mike- and Brian-inspired couch study.  It has not been progressing at the rate that is necessary, so it’s back to the desk, and even after just a day, I already feel more productive.  It’s only about 5 weeks till the exam, which means there’s no time to mess around.  I am pretty apprehensive about the upcoming assessment, which includes an exam on just this half of the year, and then another cumulative exam.

The part that concerns me and has been in the back of my mind since forever it feels like is the ethics essay.  There is a section of our program called “Ethics and Professional Practice”.  It’s really medical law.  Which means Acts, Cases and a whole lot about some chick named Regina.

Walk with me to the PAH

This is a video I took in June some time when I was walking to the Princess Alexandra Hospital.  I had my camera set on slow motion video, but didn’t know that the slow mo would be so slow. So, it’s choppy.  I wanted to do it again, and use the regular video setting and then speed it up, but given the weird looks I got marching all that way with a camera stuck in people’s faces, I probably won’t.  So here it is.  People who have been there before will recognize it. [Read more →]

There, I did it

Nowhere near as bad as I thought it could be.  Actually when I think about it rationally, it was precisely what I imagined.   I suppose it’s another example of the fear of the unknown.

The Cutting Begins Today

Up until now it has been a lot of looking, but we will cross that divide today.  We all ahve different feelings on it, but hopefully it goes well.

A few quiet weeks

These last weeks have been pretty quiet.  It seemed like we took a few weeks to ease back into the rhythm of school, and there are no longer some of the practical sessions.  Microbiology has ceased entirely, which is great, since many of us had previous experience with microbiology, and seeing it again doesn’t really do anything to advance the awareness of it.  It seemed pretty distant from the actual tasks we’ll be asked for in a clinical setting.  With an exception of actually visualizing the need for sterile technique.  If you’d never seen how much bacteria can grow from your breath, then I guess it was good for that.

Our PBL topics have taken a turn towards the less definable parts of medicine, recently including teenage pregnancy, abortion and cancer treatments.  It seems as though these topics are huge and we are just starting to get into them.  It has been a little frustrating to not be able to learn a bunch of really useful things about one topic, since things like teenage pregnancy cover everything from competence to embryology.  I suppose that’s the nature of these problems, and why this process is so long.  A lot of these topics have required much personal thought and searching.  It’s mental preparation to be able to act from strength in the future, I suppose.

On a totally different topic, it has been winter here lately, and while these weeks are some of the sweetest weeks in Canada, it has been cold and rainy here.  It’s a different raiiny than I’m used to; it’s not the gloom of Vancouver.  Even on the days that it is a bit gloomy, there is hope in knowing that in just a few days it will be glorious again.  It has been really good for the last few days.  Hopefully that’s the sign that things are starting to turn around.  I’m trying to enjoy it now, before it’s unbearably hot again. (Which is kinda cool too.)

Free at last

I am, as they say, 12.5% finished med school, with my first exam and semester under my belt.  It feels great to have it out of my hands, and on the paper.  And not hanging over me, like it as seemed to be for the last three months, progressively getting more and more real/scary.

I think the exam went well, and I hope everyone did well.  We won’t find out for three to six weeks, depending on who you talk to, which is going to drive me a bit crazy.

Last night we had some friends over to celebrate a fellow Canadian’s birthday and the end of semester,  and it was a really good time.  Today we are just hanging out and I’m headed up to Noosa with a friend.  Should be fun.

Blue Monday

It’s Monday night here and I’m just chugging along.  We have our exam coming up on Thursday and fortunately have these next few days off to prepare for it, which is pretty handy.  There isn’t much exciting going on and it’s raining like crazy.  It feels a little like Vancouver in the winter, but it seems fitting to be studying while the weather is terrible.  Hopefully it will clear up shortly and we will have some good weather for our post exam break.


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