Oops...

So its been 2 months since my last confe- uhh... post.

My bad :S

It has been a ridiculously quick 2 months, and I"m wishing I could have extended it just a tad.

Exams are upon us.
3 exams in 3 days.
No swotvac.

Today is the first (human homeostasis), tomorrow is the second (identity, microbes and defence), Thursday is the last (doctor, the profession and society).

As usual, like before every exam, I am in my special zen-like state of mind.

It may be 6:45am, with the exam not occurring for another 2 hours, but I am prepared and in my mind, I am ready.

Or am I.

Hakkuna Matata.

We"ll see.

Nearly free... Sort of...

So I haven"t blogged in a while.
Sue me.
Actually, don"t, I think I"ll get enough of that in a few years...


It"s been pretty hectic lately, though with nothing much to show of it :S
We"re starting to get incredibly overloaded with the information they are throwing at us and expecting it to just stick, so I"ve been spending more and more time at the library and PBL rooms. I"ve almost reached the point where I"m thinking it could be cheaper to sneak in a cabinet and store stuff there and I"ll just sleep there overnight...

Totally off the topic of study, I got the new Nightwish album. It"s good. It"s goooooood.
Ahhh, I"ve been digging up my old "operatic metal/symphonic rock/whatever you want to call it" stuff and relistening to it all. Good stuff :)

Oh, holidays next week! Hooray!

Statistics

It has begun.

Statistics time yet again.

I"m currently sitting here in a stats lecture, in which more than half the class has already left. I decided now would be a good time to use free wireless internet to download all the notes I"ve been meaning to get, as well as figure out what all this stats business is all about.

All I"ve heard so far is that he mentioned the H2G2 improbability drive.

I think its time to go nap...

Learning, forgetting, learning, forgetting, rinse, repeat.

Its been a while since I"ve posted and quite a bit has happened.

First thing is that I got a haircut!

Yeah, a number 3 in fact, so its quite a big change. It"s quite amusing actually, I can"t stop rubbing my head. It"s the strangest feeling, quite soothing really...

On the learning side of things, we had a nice "Rural Day" outing to Port Lincoln (I think)
[EDIT: I"ve been told its Port Elliot... It"s a good thing I pay attention to everything around me...].
There, we learnt about our options in 3/4th year (I"m thinking Darwin!), but more importantly, we learned a few hands on things so much more interesting than all the theory we"ve been doing lately.

We learned a little plastering which was fun though messy with all that plaster of paris... In fact, I only just removed my cast :)

We learned to suture on some pig trotters, though I"m sure human skin is just a tad thinner...

We learned some basic emergency rescue from the SAAS, which was really basic revision from our Basic Life Support sessions, and especially for me from the work I"ve done with St John.

We also learned to cannulate veins on dummy arms which "bled" all over the place. This was
probably the easiest. I"ve noticed that after doing mouse tail vein injections, human veins are HUGE. I felt like I couldn"t really miss...

Unfortunately, I don"t think this sort of thing happens very often, so no more fun for a while :(

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 :)