Happy Halloween!

That was me as a kid lol (not really...but it easily could have been). Tonight our Hall of Residence is having another Halloween party, and since I'm now on the Committee (Overseas Rep), I get to serve the alcohol for the first two hours. I can hear the American readers now - "your dorm GIVES you alcohol?!" - but it does me no beneift (except maybe on my ABC-assessment/BLS skills lol), since I'm teetotal. But that won't stop me from having a good time (never does). This year, I'll be taking the medic's "easy way out" of a costume, and wearing the scrubs I uhh...'borrowed' from my hospital back home, my lab coat (used only for dissection here, which is why it's currently in the washer), and my stethoscope. We'll see how it goes.

I leave you with this:


Happy Halloween, everyone! Be Safe!

-AMiB

I love work! :-D </sarcasm>

So, as Week 5 begins, I'm starting to freak out more and more. We have 12 hrs of class this week, and 14 next week (both less than normal), and then Week 7 is our University-wide "Reading Week". I don't really know why they call it that, unless for us medics. Everyone else in the entire University goes traveling or drinking (more than they already do during term) or home or something. The medics? We lock ourselves in the library/study/computer rooms and "revise" everything we've "learned" in the past 6 weeks.
Then Day 1 of Week 8 is our Mid-Semester Assessment, which counts for 25% of our module mark (the other 75% being our End-of-Semester Assessment). Then we continue on with our busy schedules until Christmas Vacation, which is a 2 week break spent - you guessed it - studying! Because exams are a week after that lol. I shouldn't really be complaining though, from what I hear they have it a lot harder back home, both in terms of workload and continuous assessment.

Alrighty, time to get back to it, I guess. Sedatives and Anxiolytics! Maybe I need some of those...

-AMiB

Good Day

Every so often, a day comes around that is just...good. Today was one of those days. Allow me to explain:

8.30am - woke up, had breakfast
11am - started the 2 lectures for today (Pharmacology - Neuroleptics and NeuroPhysio - Learning and Memory)
1pm - lectures finished, hop on over to the Union for AsianSoc meeting. everyone is pumped about BINDI·, including me.
2.30pm - got home, wrote up both lectures from today (completely ignoring the fact that I am behind on 11 or so anatomy lectures)
5pm - go to gym. Back and triceps today, and since the whole routine for today only takes 45 minutes or so, I had time for some Cardio (rowing machine) as well. burned a lot of calories, says my bodybugg.
6.15pm - Dinner. not the best, but whatever - its New Hall food, so yeah.
7.30pm - Prepped for Dissection tomorrow. Not as much as I should have, but enough to answer a few questions so they don't think I'm retarded, but not enough to be considered too "keen" (lol love that.)

I played World of Conflict for a little bit, chatted with some friends, and will be headed over to a friend's to watch the latest Heroes and CSI Miami.

Even had time to write a blog post. Awesome.

-AMiB

Clinical Medicine Module: Surgery Rotation

So last Thursday was my Surgery rotation as part of the Bute's new Clinical Medicine Module. We're basically the guinea pigs for this, but at least most of the kinks from last year's class had already been worked out. It was basically what I imagine an Introduction to Clinical Medicine class would be like if I were back home. There were 6 of us, and one Consultant (an Attending, back home), and we basically just went on a small Ward Round. He would explain to us basic things, do a lot of basic science pimping, as well as explaining some more of the semantic things about patient care (DVT prophylaxis with LMWH and stockings, etc).

For those of our class who have no/little hospital experience from a patient carer standpoint (eg doctor/nurse, as opposed to clerk), I think it was very beneficial. I'm not trying to sound cocky, but most of the stuff he told me I learned this past summer with the Hospitalists. However, he did show me how much basic anatomy I had forgotten over the summer/past year.

Overall I think it was pretty good, and while I was really looking forward to my A&E day next sememster, it turns out that it's just a ortho fracture review...but the Consultant offered everyone some Saturday night shifts in the A&E doing proper work, so I might just...pretend I have already met him and take him up on the offer :-)

In other news, I am very behind in my work. We have mainly only had Anatomy lectures so far (Head & Neck, and CNS), with a little bit of Pharm (General Anaesthetics, etc) thrown in for fun. I have written up 3 of the 15 lectures we've had, and more start tomorrow....*sigh*. That's med school for you...


-AMiB

Update...

OK, so I really have been neglecting my blog lately, which is probably why my visitor count has slowed to a trickle...

We are currently studying the anatomy of the Head and Neck, and I am sitting here trying to write notes, but it just turns in to me re-writing the book onto pieces of paper...not the most efficient method, but I can't seem to think of any other way right now...we'll see if it helps or not.

Out school as recently implemented a new clinical attachments scheme for the 3rd years (that's us!), so this coming Thursday I will get a 3-hr attachment with a Consultant Surgeon and his colleagues/team. I'm not really sure what to expect, or how much I'll get to do/learn in 3 hours, but it should be good and I'm quite looking forward to it. I also get a Cardiology attachment on the 29th of November, an A&E (ER) attachment sometime next semester, and another one of my choice next semester (hopefully Respiratory, it sounds fun).

Alright, that's the update, time to get back to the work. A friend is making a [Canadian] Thanksgiving dinner tonight (Canadians have theirs a lot earlier than we do), so am v. stoked for that - sorry, that was the 19 year old in me speaking.

-AMiB