Where did this come from? Oh yeah...

A month without making a blog post? That doesn"t sound like m- oh wait.

It totally does.

I blame the surgical careers evening.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, I was blogging.

I am blogging.


This is pretty much the worst blog post ever.

A few topics to discuss in summarised form:
1. The past month.
2. The next month.
3. Exams.

So anyway, its been a vaguely interesting month.

3 weeks on the respiratory ward flew by pretty quickly as I managed to see a certain respiratory consultant as little as possible while trying to be as productive as possible in order to gain the marks on my in progress training report. Not that it mattered as the registrar left in the middle of the week leaving me to get my ITPR done by the new reg. Such wasted effort.
Saw some interesting cases, the highlight probably the tuberculosis patient with zero clinical findings. So that sort of outlines how exciting respiratory was...

The week on cardiac care was... Yeah. So we just throw 5 drugs at people and let them go home with varying amounts of work leave. Exciting. Saw an angio done though and a stent inserted. Wanted to see the "full metal jacket" stenting but decided it just wasn"t worth standing around for.

Now though, I"m on the AMU! The newly constructed acute medical unit is all shiny and white and has lots of short stay patients that I can pretty much just ignore continuity of care because they get dished out elsewhere within 48 hours! Yay!
We"ll see how excited I am with 3 more weeks of AMU though.


Exams in 4 weeks. Getting nervous. There isn"t much more to say on that...


Oh, and I thought this was a fun, valid plan for OSCE stations:

The Return of the... Von.

So its been a while since my last post. I have a feeling there are far too many posts that begin like that...

Just leaving a quick note to say that I am aware I have a blog and I will indeed still be blogging all the interesting things that happen in the zzz....

I"m sorry, I may have nodded off there. Long sentences are long.

"Hi!" to all the new followers! Sorry this blog is so boring...

Darwin - The Saga Begins

So we"ve started at the hospital now, so our holidays are over...

Monday was pretty much just administrative issues with a brief period on the wards.

Tuesday was much of the same, though we had a lunchtime JMO teaching session with food! Very impressed with the food, as I was pretty much expecting sandwiches but instead got greeted with trays of lasagna, chickpea curry, stirfry, cottage pie, salad... So yes, a good feed. The teaching session was quite interesting as well as it seems that they have started using an electronic prescribing system up here. An interesting change from the written ones back in Adelaide...

Today is when the real fun began, as I rode into the hospital, leaving my items in a room and having a shower before handover and ward rounds. I have a feeling that I will be a lot more fit by the end of this, assuming I survive biking around everywhere...

I"m based in the Isolation wards, which is pretty much infective things. Most patients appear to be bronchiolitis and diarrhoea. So I"ve been trying to remember things about these, especially dehydration and rehydration issues. Not so easy to remember.
Luckily, everyone here is very helpful, printing protocols and guidelines off for us left/right/center!
In fact, as I sit here typing this, I probably should be reading these guidelines on dehydration and paediatric fluids... But I"ll do that later.

I"m actually currently still in the hospital, as today is the day I"ve been allocated as being "on take". I"m not entirely sure what that means, but so far it involves me eating the rest of my lunch and trying to read up on different conditions. I will have to ride home in the dark too :S

I"m sure I"ll survive, though I"m supposedly supposed to be here until 10pm, though I"ve been told by my superiors that I can leave whenever I want to. I do want to admit a patient at least though.


Anyway, hopefully I"ll be able to get some real internet soon (at home rather than only here at the hospital) and I"ll be able to blog a little more frequently.

Don"t hold your breath though.

Short week.

A short week pretty much covered with me being sick (An actual flu! Gosh!) and trying to avoid writing an ethics essay (from henceforth known as The Worst Essay Ever).

Tuesday morning started with the biggest rainfall I had ever seen in Adelaide for a long, long time. The thunder and lightning was also quite pretty! As I had been so sick (poor baby), I considered using the rain as an excuse not to go in (Yes, thats right. The rain would be the excuse, not the headache, hacking cough, raw throat or muscle aches), but as it approached the point of no return, the rain stopped and I was forced to get ready and go in for ward rounds... Which were uneventful.

On the other hand, it did allow me to find the details of the patient I wanted for my ethics assignment. Oh, don"t get me wrong, I did plan this all out ages before, I just managed to forget exactly which patient it was... Little boys with croup all sort of merge together after a while...

Wednesday and Thursday passed by pretty uneventfully as well, with quite possibly the most ordinary Paediatric Grand Round ever... The free food was almost not worth sitting in on that presentation.

So Friday and a week off! I woke up really, really early (After having a dream in which I really didn"t wake up early and I was terribly late...) to catch the bus in order to make it to the city by 7:45am so I could make it to the bus to Millicent. Somehow I managed to get to the city by 7:15am. A tad early, so I dozed ever so nicely in the bus terminal to the soothing heavy rock of the instrumental disc of Nightwish's Dark Passion Play. After hours on the bus which were plagued by technical difficulties (a leaking roof), roadworks (everywhere!), dangerous conditions (lots of rain!) and bogan attacks (literally, a bogan attacked a poor mother concerned about the welfare of her children in the presence of cigarette smoke), I managed to arrive safely in Millicent.

So here I am, its freezing, but its a nice calm place that makes me want to sleep 18 hours a day. I"m not entirely sure why. Maybe its something in the water...

Or maybe its the civil wars that seem to go on in these parts...

Easter

So I"m not doing too well on the "regular blogging" front. I"m sure things will pick up sometime...

Easter long weekend has come and just about gone. It was a lot of fun, filled with horse riding, biking, playing with little dogs and endless amounts of food. Yes, that"s right, we were in Keith!
The family of a certain colleague saw it in their hearts to embrace these dirty poor med students yet again and showed us yet another great time in the fair town of Keith. I"m not sure if I"ve mentioned it before, but the last time we were there, I and certain other colleagues who have skills in the area of defeating any attacking piles of food, were completely sated, defeated by the vast quantities of delicious food. This occasion was no different. It was incredible.

Unfortunately, I appear to have picked up a bit of a bug. By that, I mean I think I have the flu, so if this post seems more incomprehensible than usual, blame the drugs which are attempting to hold back the muscle pains, hacking cough, chills and severe headache...

I think I"m going to end it at that and pretend I want to eat something so I can go make something to eat and sustain my immune system to attempt to fight off this evil attacker.

Oops!

So its been nearly two weeks since I last blogged... My bad.

But seriously, its my blog, meaning that in theory, I can blog whenever I damn well want to and should not have people bugging me about not blogging right?

Unfortunately not, it would seem.


Anyway.

So 2 weeks of paediatrics down, and I still love playing with children and distracting them and receiving that little look of gratefulness from the doctor. It almost makes me feel like there is a point to me sitting in the corner of a little clinic room, sneakily asking questions to the mother/father when the doctor needs to go out to find something or clumsily poking and prodding a small child when the doctor asks me to perform an examination or take blood pressures.

Children have such small arms, yet they manage to make so much noise with them. Curious isn"t it?

The past week has been a lot of fun, with another week in clinics.

I sat in on the Child Assessment Team ( or the CAT team if you wanted to make use of the silly way in which people like to make use of silly repetition in such acronymerised names, such as like in ATM machine or BAT team - Brain Attack Team for you people not in the business.) which seemed interesting. Interesting in that it seemed like the most expensive play session you could organise with your child without actually investing in diamonds or a circus. 6-8 specialists sitting in to watch a child play with toys and draw.

I also sat in on a less expensive version in which the child was assessed by the speech therapist, physiotherapist and occupational therapist.

I was lucky to sit in on a Renal clinic as well, which happens only once a month at FMC. The consultant was a hilarious man with a very relaxed attitude and amusing manner. His questions to me were straightforward and naturally difficult (especially to me, as I discovered that I had managed to forget just about everything about the kidneys...) but was quite willing to teach me when there was time.

The most exciting thing about the past week is that my daddy was here!
Lots of good home made food (which were I less lazy, I could also make, but the laziness usually pulls me to quicker, just as delicious meals...) as well as a restocking of my freezer. I should be set if the Australian Army decide to come over for dinner.

This weekend was quite a bit of fun as well as Friday afternoon started off with a feast put together by my dad, and continued with the celebration of the birthday of a Britannian/Prydein colleague in true boozer style starting at some bar and leading on to some indie bands, most notably Flat One which stars a current intern of Flinders. Very inspiring and really ruins my excuse of not having time to do anything...
This was very enjoyable but the late nights and moderate alcohol consumption made the next day quite troublesome. Pancakes (with bacon, caramelised bananas and real maple syrup) on Sunday was thoroughly enjoyable as I didn"t even need to go anywhere as another fellow colleague (this one from Canadia) brought everything over to my house to make!
Definitely fun as we poor sAdelaide residers were graced with the presence of a very much loved colleague who usually resides where the general human population is probably outmatched by the population of horses and livestock.

So yes, a thoroughly enjoyable weekend to top off a quite enjoyable week!

This week: Inpatients!
Ward rounds and history taking seems to be on the menu.

Which reminds me, what should I make for dinner?

Note to self:

I have to blog about the following things:

• New housemates
• Monday fail
• Free food
• Gymming
• Laparascopic Anterior Resection + complications
  
• Musculoskeletal workshop
• Expectations

Maybe tomorrow...

Fringe Go-er's Lung

Friday was a big day.
Friday morning was, as an understatement, annoying. Apparently being able to be in two places at once was a requirement for medicine, one that I seem to lack.

Friday afternoon definitely got better, with a crazy gym session that left me in quite a bit of pain (and especially now as I am typing this a day later...) but in a good way. Like when you scratch mosquito bites, even though in this context it is actually a good thing, rather than a bad thing. Perhaps I started with a bad analogy. It"s my blog, if you don"t like it, go write your own.

Friday evening was quite interesting as I went out with some friends to see the Adelaide Fringe Festival opening parade as well as the free concert. I do not recall ever seeing so many people in one place in Adelaide before, which made actually seeing the parade quite difficult. So we went and had a beer.
Following the failed parade viewing, we met up with some other friends to find this concert area. It was then we noticed that with the combination of dry heat and thousands of people, there was quite the amount of dust raised. There was pretty much a constant haze in the air that tickled at your throat and made you cough. I dare say the cigarette smoke didn"t help matters.

Being the group of nerdy medical students we are, our conversation inevitably turned back to medicine, and an amusing topic. We had previously learnt about interstitial lung diseases of amusing aetiology, such as cheese worker's lung and pigeon fancier's lung. With the amount of dust and cigarette smoke in the air, it was only a matter of time before the blame game continued and passed the cause of interstitial lung diseases to Fringe Festivals. Perhaps attendance of Fringe Festivals should be added to the "common medical problems" section of a history.

So the bands were quite interesting, a particular Canadian friend was quite taken by the rap group "Killaqueenz", laughing almost continuously at the amusing lyrics. Personally I was quite impressed by the energy of our English classmates as they danced and jumped and got lost. It really was quite amusing with the number of times we lost people.
Our overly excited, high pitched and fascist hating friend was in her element, criticising those who left early, smuggling drinks into restricted areas and making friends with random German medical students.
Eventually, we called it a night and wandered through half the city looking for an available taxi before finally managing to catch a bus back home.

The shower I had once I arrived home was heavenly, finally being able to scrub the dust and smoke off, before finally being able to fall into bed after being awake for 20 hours or so.

This morning was warm, but delicious. Oh wait, I missed a part there. The scrambled eggs with mushrooms I made for breakfast was delicious.
The trip into Central Market for groceries was a chore as the temperature had decided to skyrocket, with a good percentage of humidity.
There was a celebration going on in Chinatown, making it very difficult to get around. I"m not entirely sure what the celebration was for, but I"ve decided that it was a 1 week late celebration of Chinese New Year. Which I blame on Adelaide always being just that little bit behind the rest of the world...
Bumped into a certain colleague who was shopping with his "smaller half" as he likes to put it. I always enjoy putting links in my blog, though I never seem to be able to do it much, so a mention of him and a link to his blog (even though anyone that reads my blog most probably reads his anyway) is always fun.
Decided to have lunch in the market and finally after 2+ years of wanting to go but never actually making it, Lucia's was the place to be. It was as good as rumour had it, with a delicious bolognaise and rich, creamy mushroom sauce.

All in all, its been a good day (though very hot) and I"ve spent way more than I should have. Oh well, not every day is a weekend, gotta make the most of it!

It"s been a long day

Ah, Matchbox Twenty...

Where was I?

Oh yes, blogging. Just to switch things up, lets Tarantino this a bit. I"m going to start with the end of this story:
I had a nap. This morning. Before lunch.

Now lets flash back to the beginning:

-fzztwhirkdsafh;gssssssooooooooooooooooo-

Waking up at while its dark is not good.

Ward rounds was uneventful, though there were some quite interesting patients (with one a possible CoC subject!), the fact that it was bloody early kind of toned down my interest.

We then attended a presentation by our very own registrar, who was amusingly anxious about the whole thing, though us students didn"t really mind, we were kind of more interested in the breakfast that was provided...
A very impressive breakfast spread it was, with sweet pastries, mini quiches, a large variety of fruits and what I"m going to call "slices of closed pizza" (otherwise known as toasted focaccia).

Afterwards I went to have a chat with one of the interesting patients, taking a history and performing a basic physical examination of all systems. As a random point of interest which came up during our conversation, we found out (despite the over 40 year difference in ages as well as residence in different states) that we had previously shared the same GP! Small world indeed...

Such a long day, in fact, I"m quite tired...

-ooooooooooooooooossssssg;hfasdkrihwtzzf-

Resolution Generator

As stolen from the blog of a certain champion blogger, the New Year's Resolution Generator is quite an amusing way to burn 27 or so seconds.

It has worked almost freakishly well for me, with the following resolutions:
1. Start or actually update my blog - Very relevant in my case...
2. Read a Dr. Seuss book - Ah, my kind of resolution...
3. See the good in people - Yeah, sure, I"ll try that...
4. Stand tall - All 5'10" of me?
5. Think before I speak - Definitely relevant.
6. Grow basil - Oh I do like my basil...
7. Strike up a conversation with a stranger - Do patient histories count?
8. Wake up earlier - Yes, I really should.
9. Be a rockstar - I think that's been done in our course...
10. Fly to the moon - Wait, what?

Definitely good fun. I continued to click another 35 or so times to see what else came up, but there appears to be quite a few vague "be a better person" ones, such as "give" and "love" and "be a better person".

Overall, I think I"ll just add:
11. Pass 3rd year.

That should do it.

Happy New Year!

Oh my!

It"s been said before by many people and I realise its true, so I"m going to have to say it one more time: I really need to blog more.

Unfortunately, I"m just plain lazy.

On a happier note, I think I"ve finished the 2nd year of Med school.

OSCE's have been passed, so barring some freakishly superfailed surprise, 3rd year appears to be on the menu for next year.

Exciting!

Not so exciting is that one of my best friends down here will be doing 3rd year in a rural area, about 4ish hours from Adelaide [EDIT: More like 6 hours...]. This means I won"t really be able to see them barring the occasional get together when all parties are free (yeah, like that ever happens!).

So yeah, sad times :(

Gonna miss the RoL, such good times...

For now, I guess its just time to make the most of my holidays...
Back home to the Gold Coast on the 12th!

Occupational Medicine Essay

Instead of starting my essay (due in 18 hours), I"ve decided instead to blog.

Note how that always seems to happen with me?

I only ever seem to blog when I"m terribly bored, I"ve been forced into it, or I"m avoiding doing something very important.

This case involves the first option.

This essay is in no way important as all it involves is a maximum of 1500 words (-10% leeway... or 15%...) of drivel. I"ve never been the best at driveling which is why I"d never make a good blogger.

So where was I?

Oh yes, telling everybody about my last few weeks!

Actually, this has now gotten me bored... If anyone really wants to know, they can ask me themselves.

I"m going back to my yogurt.

You lazy %*&$!

So I"ve been told that I should blog more.

Yeah, like that"ll happen.

But out of respect to my drugged up, racist, pretentious knob of a colleague, I"ll try to almost pretend to make an effort.

Unfortunately, as I"m sitting in a "Pharmacology of NSAIDs" lecture which has come about 16 months too late, I really can"t think of anything to blog about.

How about a summary since my last blog?
It would go something like this: GIT, ERS, KEITH!, B&B, M-

See what I did there? I just listed the main points of what has happened in the last few months. Thus, a summary. Also note that I only got to the M of MSS. That is because we are still in the early stages.

I"m a special child.


There. Done.

Well what do you know...

So I"ve just finished probably the hardest set of exams I have done or will need to do for at least another two years. Following the usual "go out and have a few drinks at the bar" thing, the "be right back, crashing from my sugar high" thing and the "lets go to the beach cos its almost a warm day" thing, I realised I didn"t really have much else do to, so I fell back on the usual.

I browsed the intarwebz.

I noticed a link on my browser which seemed strange to me, since I had forgotten all about it...

"Blogger: Dashboard" it read.

I clicked on it.

...

Would you believe that I have a blog?

I know, crazy right? Especially since I hadn"t posted anything for the last, oh, 4+ months.

Though looking over my previous posts, that seems to be the usual pattern of things anyway...

So yes, I"ll try posting again, but typing stuff is certainly a lot more effort than say, not typing stuff. So we"ll see how things go this time. :)

Summary of the last 4 months:
Learnt something about the heart.
Learnt something about the lungs.
Learnt something about the kidneys.
Became the MDA National Foosball Champion (long story, bit of a fail story, but I have cookies to show for it so nyaaaaaah!)

Summary of the last 3 days:
Tried to learn everything about the heart.
Had a cardiovascular system exam.
Tried to learn everything about the lungs.
Had a respiratory system exam.
Tried to learn everything about the kidneys.
Had a renal system exam.

Surprisingly, the respiratory and the renal system exams went well (with great thanks to my friends for being patient and teaching all there was about breathing and peeing!)

The cardiovascular exam perhaps not so well.

We shall see!