As it comes

All you can do is laugh when your first day back starts, not with “Welcome!”, but with “So, the innervation of the gastrointestinal tract can be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic…”

We are neck deep into week two with a whole case already behind us and no signs of slowing down. Maybe it’s the love and holiday vibes persisting, but I’m actually finding it kind of nice. The expectations of us are so high; to read so much, to learn so much, to condense so much, that even if you only achieve half of what you’re supposed to do you’ve still done a ton of work. I’m happy to just get through it.

I’ve got a different perspective this year and it’s much rosier.

The hitching…

…can be seen here for a short time. 

It was unreal.

A decade

I’ve just read a post of a faraway childhood friend that has inspired me to look back on the last decade. I heralded the new year with some friends, some wine, a hilarious game of “Balderdash” + a countdown of the best (in our opinion) of the hits of the noughties…+ then nineties…ahhhh + then eighties. It was fun. But I’m sorry we forgot to do a tradition started by an old friend of mine, where we look back on the year. So I’ll look back on the decade now, instead.

I was 14 in 2000 + living in the stifling backwardness that is Catholic school in country NSW. There were no hair straighteners in 2000. Or ipods. I had a discman + flyaway hair + a dislike for kneeling on wooden pews for long periods of time. The thought of inflicting dental work on myself was alien. If I’d known in ten years I would have self-inflicted braces I would have said something teen-witty like “whatever. care factor zero”.

I moved to Brisbane a few years later for no other reason than a need to get away from home, but not too far that I couldn’t come back…to, er…visit. I was in awe of the kids who moved the 9 hours away to Sydney. They seemed so brave. I fell into journalism. Then fell quickly out of it when we were lectured on how to do a “death knock”. I met one of my dearest friends in that year so it wasn’t a waste. We left quickly, fueled by a steely resolve that we were never going to knock on a grieving person’s door for the sake of “news”.

I changed courses, academically + socially. I had to get away from Brisbane. Light years away. The hot, dusty streets + tiny clubs full of people who knew people you knew was driving me mental. I needed to be anywhere but there. I remember reading a Lonely Planet of Hong Kong, after I’d booked flights + secured a uni place, which said it was the most densely populated place on earth + thinking “shit”.

I learned how to move swiftly in a crowd.

I met Dutchboy within 24 hours of landing. After that, it was surprisingly simple. He came to Australia. I went to the Netherlands. He moved to Australia. We drove around Europe in a tiny red car with no air conditioning + had loud emphatic fights in foreign cities. We moved to Newcastle, Brisbane + then set sail for Melbourne. Except we didn’t…quite get there.

So now, at the end of the decade, I’m less than 200km from where I started. But, right now, there is nowhere I’d rather be.

Onward, onward.

The wonderful thing about these holidays is that, even though things are busy, with christmas, new year + a wedding happening in one week, there is nothing,

*NOTHING* to study.

I cannot emphasise enough how utterly fabulous it is not to open a textbook. I feel refreshed. I feel ready to actually put pen to paper again. I even bought a second hand $3.00 copy of The Concise Gray’s Anatomy the other day without shuddering at the thought of reading it.

I found out on December 17th that I had passed  year one. That afternoon the 5pm mandatory glass of wine with mum was a champagne. Our neighbours + a friend popped over + we drank to…anything. My friend + I stayed up late drinking wine, then tea + managed to cut out 90 metres of bunting (for aforementioned wedding). It’s been a good few weeks. Next week should be even better with family + friends + cake with that amazing fondant icing. I’ve had a thing about it since I was little + mum used to bring us back slices from weddings she + dad went to. Ahhhhh fondant.

Now off to see Avatar with the Dutch-husband-to-be + bask in the lack of textbooks.

Layering

I wish I lived in a colder climate so I could wear more clothes. Dutchboy + I were discussing this yesterday. He used to have contempt for the way Australian’s dressed saying that we always wore our clothes a touch too baggy, exclaiming “doesn’t anyone in this country know their clothing size?”. After this “spring” thick heat he finally gets it. Clothes touching your skin are just horrible reminders that you’re not naked. Or in a pool of ice.

My supp was mediocre. Some of the questions were too easy + I feel like I over-answered them in an attempt to show I really did know stuff, even if it was unrelated. Other questions were really hard. I under-answered them. There didn’t seem to be an in between.

Cest la vie. It’s sprummer.* The broadwater is calling. Cold apple cider is waiting.

…and I have a wedding fiesta to plan.

*spring that doesn’t realise its not summer yet

Scientifically challenged

**for some reason this post didn’t publish on Monday**

Even with my lucky break on CF questions, I’m meeting with the year co-ordinator this morning to discuss my upcoming supp. Passed everything else but just can’t jump through the basic science hoop.

Have had blissful holidays for two weeks + now the thought of my flashcards makes my bones tired.

**

So at my meeting: Year coordinator said “Look. There’s not much to be worried about because you’re a whisker away from passing”. When I enquired as to exactly how much a “whisker” entailed in terms of marks, he replied “when you do this supp you just have to sneeze in the right direction”. Then trying to be positive, he said that I should relax because the supp will be just three hours out of my life. Um. Sure. But the studying + staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night will be for a week, no?

Perchant for metaphors aside, he was decidedly unhelpful. For example, apparently “salty sweat” is not a clinical sign for cystic fibrosis. Despite it being in our lecture slides.

And in Robbins.

Apparently, I should have written “excessive chloride present in sweat”. Even though the ENaC channel are also affected (by a different gene) and result in excessive Na+ as well. When you put Na+ and Cl- together, as far as I’m concerned, you get SALT. Am I wrong? Delusional? Wasn’t the question asking for clinical signs? What mother is going to say “I think my child has excessive chloride in their sweat”?

Marks like that were what I ‘failed’ over. He even said “Look, we can tell that you understand the concepts, + technically you’re correct but you’re not saying it the right way”. I wish I’d had someone confident with me who could get angry + argue until they gave me the whiskers worth of marks. Because all I did was smile + say “Oh. okay. woops.”

The whole language thing gets me down.

Supp is on Tuesday morning.

OSCEs + Anatomy + tequila

Yesterday was interesting. We had 6 OSCE stations: 3 were focused history taking (one presenting complaint of dyspnoea, one medical/surg/pyscho history + one gynecological pain), 1 was a respiratory exam (just the chest + back), so far so good. Then BAM! random infection control + give first aid to a pulseless dummy electrician, please.

If it wasn’t for me hearing the defibrillator voice through the door while I was waiting, or the student ahead of me mouthing “DR ABC, two breaths, 30 compressions” when he saw my look of terror, I would have totally failed first aid.

The infection control station was hilarious. Firstly because I vaguely remember doing infection control on our first day back of semester 2 + being really tired, yawning + thinking one of the demonstrators had a bit too much bling jewellery + duckbilled masks were cool. That was the extent of my memory of infection control. Secondly when we walked in to a room there was an arm on a trolley covered in blood that we had to pretend was a person, + chat to for 5 minutes while we put on all the protective equipment we would if we were preparing to inspect the wound. There was also a trolley with all the protective equipment on it. Which would have been really awesome.

If I’d seen it.

Idiot-features that I am, I just washed my hands, struggled for 2 minutes getting my gloves on because my hands were still wet then kind of poked the arm + said classic gems like “oooh. That looks…er…deep. um. does it hurt? um. lets take a look at that a bit closer, hey? hmmn. um. soooo…”

I even thought, as I was inspecting the big drawn-on-texta-wound, “Wow, that probably would be squirting me in the eye. I have imaginary blood in my eye. Right now.” It was only as I was leaving I saw the big freaking trolley of PPE behind me. Aprons, goggles, masks etc.

Anatomy was fine. A couple of random things but mostly stuff (I thought) I knew. Made up a few nerve names for good measure. There may be an External Urethral Sphincter Nerve. You never know.

You also never know when your bogan-binge-drinking-alter ego is going to emerge. Mine is called Debbie + she can drink straight tequila without wincing. Even the trusted vegemite on toast didn’t stop the toilet hugging session this morning.

It was worth it.

Robbins

I had a really weird bonding* moment with my orthodontist the other day. He asked me how exams were going (whilst he casually yanked my teeth) + I mentioned that I might not do as well as expected as I was using one textbook to sit on rather than read (which sounded like “arrr usshhin uuuun tessshbooo ooo ‘it arrrn ather an eaaaad”). He laughed + said he used to sit on one of his textbooks too, twenty years ago. It was a pathology text. Robbins.

I was, like, “oh my god. me too.”

He was, like, “oh my god.”

Then we pondered about how many students of dentistry + medicine around the world are sitting on Robbins (that is, he pondered, while I interjected with “aarrrrhh” every now + then).

*teeeeeeerrible braces pun.

The Gambler

It’s quite fitting that today’s exam fell on Melbourne Cup day. I was moaning to my mum about how in other courses I’ve studied you were given clear parameters of what to study. Learn this topic. It will be examined. The end. But with medicine it feels like they say “Learn these 42 topics. We will examine you on 3 of them. Plus a few more we found lying around that you hadn’t considered. Muhahaha.”

So you have to pick your bets wisely. Or even better hedge them so you learn a little bit about a lot of topics. It feels like the difference between doing okay + completely bombing out is just lucking out in what you choose to concentrate on or just quickly read over.  The other day my friend casually mentioned she wasn’t going to study the cystic fibrosis case too much because it probably wouldn’t be worth that many marks. I agreed. It’s only one case. How many marks can they allocate to it? hmmn? If it was a horse, that case would have pretty high odds. 1:20 or something.

But I studied it anyway + totally glossed over studying the arrhythmia case +  ECGs because I just don’t get them. It was a big gamble. I was sure I was going to lose marks over it.

First line of the exam paper reads: Jane is a seven year old with cystic fibrosis. Name 12 clinical features of cystic fibrosis that could develop over this patient’s lifetime.

The following TWO pages were question on CF. A substantial chunk of marks.

I was just lucky I bet on that horse. People who didn’t were unlucky. Not dumb or unprepared or worthy of failing. Unlucky. It’s near impossible to learn everything. You can have a broad overview of stuff at best. They could probably detail the pathogenesis of asthma, atherosclerosis + urinary tract infections but it didn’t matter.

Because two bloody pages were on CF.

 

Admin Strikes Again

8:30am Arrive at campus for ‘exam briefing’

8:30-8:45am am hang around outside wondering what the eff we need to be briefed about

8:45-9:00am Get ‘briefed’ on exam & leave more confused

9:10am get seated in exam room ready for exam to start at 9:30. Start chatting to people nearby.

9:30am notice lack of exam papers on desk + confused looking exam monitor people. Keep chatting.

9:45am announcement that exam papers are “coming” soon. They’re “just being printed.”

because,

you know,

that couldn’t have been done at an earlier point in time.

10:00am Announcement made that exam paper are definitely “coming” in twenty minutes. Cue: laughter, mass exodus from room, people buying food, cigarettes being lit, generalised bitching about why on earth we though this time would be different.

10:25am start exam.

At least it broke the nerves?