I think I bruised my finger...

Fifth post? I do believe its time to stop counting...

Trial... Four? I give up. I"m just gonna type whatever I want. Screw you all!

So I learned to percuss yesterday. Quite an interesting technique. Essentially useless since it doesn"t exactly give a definite diagnosis of... well... anything. You can hear a difference between solid (dull sound) and hollow (clear resonance), but is dependent on any number of factors. Its really fun to do though, and due to my inability to do it satisfactorily yesterday, I was consequently told to practice lots.

Well I practiced on just about everything. I now think I"ve not only bruised the finger that I"ve been hitting, but also the tip of the finger I"ve been using to hit...

I"ve decided to take a break from percussing (percussioning?) for a week. That should be adequate healing and adaptation time :)

Getting there...

Fourth post.

Trial Three: My thoughts.

So I"m sitting here trying to motivate myself into learning (again, I"m not sure how many times we learned this in undergrad...) about insulin production, function, and everything to do with diabetes. I"ve been browsing through assorted textbooks, articles and the intarwebz itself. Anybody else would probably be done by now, but not me. No, I"m too much of a time waster. This weekend flew by waaay too fast, leaving just today. This day stretched on for an eternity, yet still I sit here, at the very end of the day (as I check my watch its clicking over to a new day) frantically trying to find more information to complete my learning issues before PBL tomorrow. Some things will never change it seems.

Though it"s been a long day, it"s also been quite satisfying.
"Why is that?" You ask.

My mummy is here :)
"What does that have to do with anything?" You rudely exclaim.

Well my mummy makes good vietnamese food :)

I may not totally know all the functions of insulin off the top of my head, but my stomach will forgive me for it XD

Still trying...

Third post.

Trial Two: The important bits.

Exciting news, well, sort of I guess.
We"ve been learning about taking patient histories and to help this, we"ve been encouraged to wander the wards and ask nurses for patients we can take practice histories from.

Found an incredible patient today, a nice rare heart transplant patient.

Due to the usual confidentiality issues, I won"t go into it that much, but suffice to say, the patient was an absolute champion and very inspiring as to all life had thrown at them and they had still managed to get up and continue.


On a totally unrelated topic, my laptop finally arrived, which will help a lot in the lectures I"ll be going through. Its a decent 13.3inch one, so small enough to carry around with the power to last a few years :)

Trying to get used to this...

So my second post. I"m still not confident with this whole "blogging" thing, seeing as I really don"t bother with a diary or anything similar, but oh well... We"ll see how this goes:

Trial One: Diary style.

So I slept in today, which was unfortunate because I had a group meeting for an ethics assignment. Luckily, my group are in the genius category, so they really didn"t need my help...
We got quite a bit of our presentation done, which is always nice.
Its an interesting topic as well, basically the morality of withholding cochlear implants from D/deaf children just because the parents want them to be a part of the deaf community.
I"m learning quite a lot of interesting stuff regarding this, even though content isn"t really the point of the presentation.
We"re marked on the main ethical points, non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy and all that jazz.

We had yet another biochemistry based lecture after that, which was really quite painful. I really should have tried to remember more of my first year biochemistry. Damned metabolism...

The day finally picked up when I went to a consolidation session to practice some of the clinical skills I had learnt previously. Of course, I ate a sandwich in about 3 minutes to make it on time, but that doesn"t matter.
Now, I don"t know about everyone else, but for me, its the practical skills that really bring everything together for me. So despite the fact that it was only taking the pulse and blood pressure, I had tremendous fun and felt a tremendous amount of accomplishment.

Had a basic diabetes workshop following that, did a blood glucose test (ie. plugged my blood into a little hand-held machine...), then practised drawing up saline (so much easier than stem cells!) and that was pretty much it.

Played some basketball with some friends from my PBL group after that. After the PBL topics we"ve had, we decided it would be best to keep fit. Amusing how you diagnose yourself with things you learn about :p

Dinner of chicken schnitzel with mash and a random assortment of vegies and salads, with a dessert of strangely dry bread and butter pudding. Average. I can"t help rating my food... XD

And now here I sit, I"m sated, I"m tired, I might have slightly sprained my ankle, but I am quite happy. I"m starting to get used to studying again, though lectures are still killing me.

Hmmm, I do believe its pub night. I might wander along and grab myself a beer :)

The saga begins...

I"ve somehow been convinced to start a blog.
Don"t ask me how, I don"t exactly know, but suffice to say, friends stick together.

So lets go back to where it all begins...

I"ve started medical school.

Be afraid, I know I am.