YAY and WEEP

I'm glad I don't have to study for quite a few months!...

But I thought I made many stupid mistakes in the osces.. and mcqs.

T.T sobs.

Oh and another exam related joke.

doctor: ok, so now you know it's a cancer. what will you do for the patient?
student: hmm firstly i would like to know where the cancer is located...
doctor: it's on the back.

student flips the question sheet over to the back.

and then a split second later... realised that the doctor meant it was on the PATIENT'S BACK.

writing things down now.

2 funny quotes. just for the meddies out there.

1. When performing a cranial nerve examination

Getting to Trigeminal Nerve (CN V)

Student: "Ok Sir, I need you to clench your jaw for me so that I can feel your muscles of masturbation."

NB: not me! and it's meant to be mastication.

and getting to Facial Nerve (CN VII)

Student: "Ok now, I need you to give me a big smile. That's it. Very good. Ok so I'm looking at the labial folds and checking for asymmetry."

NB: sometimes shortening phrases totally changes its meaning.

doooomed

I'm not sure how to describe what I'm feeling.

Imagine going through truckloads of notes...
And then, whilst sitting down to practise mcq question.. still unable to do so many of them without referring to resources!....

*hangs self in shame*

oh well, if I don't do make it I guess I only have myself to blame for not starting earlier. I can so hear my mother going.."see lah, told you to study harder.."

T.T

last minute dash.

where am I?

Stuck beneath a sea of notes, books and all the aids meant to help me PASS the exams.

It's less than a week away before it all starts.

The stress!

I hope it all turns out well.

The price I pay for being a medical student..

According to Up2date, if I get a basal cell carcinoma... it's all really my own fault.


Lifestyle factors — Smoking increases the risk of SCC [30], and may also be associated with an increased risk of BCC [14,31]. This was shown in a case-control study performed in 333 disease-discordant twin pairs in which there was an increased risk of BCC in smokers and in females compared to males [31]. Other lifestyle factors that were possibly associated with increased risk included higher education and coffee consumption. Additional studies are needed to confirm these findings before firm conclusions can be drawn.

Sigh.

jogging an old memory

It's really bizarre how patients pop back into my mind when I revise for the exams. The scarier part is the fact that the patients that I recall tend to be the ones who are ermm, deceased.

Anyhow, the patient in focus tonight is this 50 odd years old man who presented with projectile vomiting and weight loss to the ED. I learnt tons from his illness as it turned out he had advanced gastric cancer.

It was the first time I
1. felt a succussion splash
2. palpated a Virchow's node
3. observed a total gastrectomy.
4. had to take an extremely complete history and examination as I was going to present him at the Surgical sessions.
5. had a patient die on me. (he died a few days after my surgical presentation)

I remembered after the gastrectomy, the surgical registrar was trying to suture back the midline laparotomy wound cautiously and carefully, through loose skin that had suffered the unduly fate of 30kg loss. The only distraction on the abdominal skin was this huge myraid of tatoos. She commented, "well, he's not going to have much to look forward to anymore, the least I could do is to make sure his tatoo matches back up and aligns."

Anyhow, now whenever I revise gastric cancer.. this poor chap pops back into my head.

I hope he's happy wherever he is.

i wished it was the holidays already.

I have done work.
But like nothing's sticking!.......

I'm so damn bored. help.

O&G = OVER & GONE!

I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am that today's exam was like 50% repeated questions. PHEW. We had 6 stations and I only fumbled in one of them.

and that one station.

I.. had the same examiner from Wednesday.

OMG. the humiliation! I thought I would never have to see or speak to him ever again.
The first thing he said to me was..

"ok Daphne, let's see what you know."

Daphne's mind: nothing much, since you are examining me.

A series of tiny ultrasound scans with some grey dots and white dots.
o.O Obviously I wouldn't know what it is.

The questions were not too bad but I kept having this vibe that he still think I'm a dumb twerp or something. sigh. looks like first impressions really stick huh.

Anyhows, we have a wonderful dinner at FARINA!
A very long list of cocktails to choose from and the tapas were delicious... *drools*
I had a fruity girly one, and one that can knock the ghost out of anyone i'd reckon.
wheeee.

I'm so glad o&g is over.

OVER AND GONE.

the rubbish test called a viva.

The O&G viva must have been one of the most traumatising exam experience I have ever had in my ENTIRE schooling life.

Thankfully I passed, others were not so lucky.
Yes I admit that there were some student factors that I could improve on for future examinations but I have MANY MANY grievances towards the setup, patient choice and examiner choice for the viva.

1. My stupid patient's main problem was NOT related to obstetrics OR gynaecology.
She was under-going freaking chemotherapy for a large B cell lymphoma and was thus taken OFF hormone replacement therapy. So when I asked her why she was here, she was in her own words

"oh, just wondering if I could get restarted on that HRT"

Where was I supposed to go from there?
I assessed her suitability for HRT (heart disease, liver disease, breast cancer etc etc)
and asked her if she previously had side effects from HRT.. etc etc.

And after I presented the case to the examiner, his first comment was

"why did you not palpate for ALL the lymph nodes in her body, especially since you knew she has lymphoma?"

GAWD. In my defence, I did palpate those in her neck and axilla cause I freaking examined her breasts. But seriously, A full body workup for her?

The day before, most of the students got obstetrics patients with REAL obstetrics problems.

2. Stupid Examiners
Please choose examiners that are not L-field, extremists who do not believe in the SA Perinatal Guidelines. I mean, why else do people develop guidelines then?

Whilst being quizzed on cord prolapse..
I mentioned ALL the damn measures in the guidelines.

Examiner frowned, and said "where did you learn that from? Your patient's baby is dead"
Me: perinatal guidelines
Examiner: Do not believe everything you read young girl.

Also, please choose examiners who have a patent and working auditory pathway.

I had to repeat my surgical procedure for a Bartholin's abscess like 500 TIMES. (and PS: everyone knows how loud i speak)

Examiner: so what is the name of the procedure?
Me: Marsupialisation
Examiner: so you have incision, excision, what else?
Me: Marsupialisation..
.
.
.
.
.
I WAS GETTING FREAKING ANNOYED
Examiner: ok, one last chance, it has something to do with Australia's favourite animal.
Me: MARSUPIALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.
Examiner: YES! you got it. good.

FREAKING hell.

gahh.

heatwave...approaching?

You see, I come from the land afar called SINGAPORE.
Singapore is humid, sticky, warm with some months going bonkers where it rains NON stop and umbrellas are useless creations.

So you know, I'm not that unfeeling towards bad weather.

BUT seriously, the HEAT in adelaide can fry flies! and dry out eyeballs.
oh gawd.
if we have to go through with the heat wave again this summer, i will perish. along with the other thousands of fried flies.

We usually have our exams in mid november when it can be warm and summery again. BUT this year it is at the END of november.

say hello to heat.

oh gawd i hate this.
grrrrrr.

the thing called yoville.

since i spent so much of my time moving furniture around.
i might as well show the world how my virtual apartment looks like huh.
i'm pretty happy with the living room
but the bedroom.. hmm i like the cozy sofa corner. but i need to do something about the bed. looks wrong.
oh wells.

i feel like it's super swot already.

I realised I am going to be cooped up at home for like what, the next 6 weeks? GAWD.

O&G is coming along slowly but surely.
Lots of crap to cover.

No more weird baking.
Don't think we are getting the funky duster.
Even Yoville seems abit boring already.

I need a new distraction!.. ok one that you can (hopefully) do for like 10 minutes in between studying just to chill the brain out. Any recommendations? lol.

Sian ahhhh.

When can i go home?!
Can't wait for all this to be over.

weird stuff.

i realised that when i get stressed with studying, i turn to rather alternative methods of therapy.

1. getting super duper obsessed with cleaning.

check this out!

i dunno what draws me to this stupid duster but I
1. really wanna get it! comes in 3 sizes and all that jazz.
2. really like that creepy green colour
3. really wanna touch its seemingly 'soft' and 'whirly' bits..

gawd. help me please.

2. baking stuff that i normally wouldn't even eat.
made a whole pan of cheesecake brownies, which if you think about it, it's just a personification of the fact that I couldn't even decide whether i wanted to bake cheesecake or brownie.. so just do both!...

thankfully the encouraging bf took a piece and ate it all up really quickly. and..

he went "oh yummy, this is really really good!.."...
me: "oh really? i can feed it to others?"
he, 5 secs later. "oh by the way, what do you call this thing you baked?"

-.-"

3. super Yoville addict.
It's this stupid game on facebook that you have to work at the factory (!!) only once every 6 hours to earn some sad amount of coins. which i blow it all on furniture every day. to decorate my APARTMENT. oh, should i choose the red shaggy rug or the blue one?..
sigh.


HOW?!...
O&G sucks.
driving me mad! help!

bugger.

5 more weeks of O&G left! not sure to cry or rejoice. I'm only starting to get the hang of things in this obscure and diverse field of medicine/surgery. Just had a full day of tutorials that included running to and fro 3 different venues. My feet hurts from all that power walking man. Plus I'm still a bit queasy from the rapid ingestion of my pasta lunch. *ugh*

Anyhow, Paeds results are out! and I'm so relieved and also surprised by the actual percentages when Juanita (the nice clinical officer at WCH) replied my email. I crossing my fingers that I haven't tripled her workload because I just told a whole group of people that she would tell you the percentages if you bothered to email her. opppsie.

It's probably going to be a quiet friday night. Hopefully we will make it to the movies because I'm dying to watch wall-E!! I'm also gonna make dishes and rice for dinner. What I have up my sleeves.....

1. Ginger, Mirin and Soy Sauce Salmon
2. Sausage omelette
3. Choy Sum and Tofu Stir Fry

Yea I know, sounds boring right.

What to dooooooo.

Ok time for a bit of a granny snooze. Hur.

the long and short about labour.

having been rostered onto 2 long days worth of labour ward duties and a morning of c-sections, labour is seriously under-estimated. All the movies and drama series portray labour as something that is relatively short and always commencing with the exxagerated POPPING of the waters. On screen, the baby always comes out perfect and clean and the mother looking so neat and happy.

Well folks, in real life, you get a blue baby with a crunched up face covered in white slime. Midwives have to clean your baby before they look presentable to you. You would have had on average 5 hours of painful and regular contractions prior to the baby even being out of you. This is usually associated with a change of mood, hair getting dishevelled and lots of swearing and screaming before the pain medications are administered.

All you people opting to have caesarean sections for convenience, fear of a long and painful labour process or simply the fashion of the time.. are also WRONG. You always get a big scar, you have more blood loss, recovery takes longer. It's a safe and life-saving alternative but people should stop saying they WANT caesars.

At least it doesn't (thankfully) take away any of the joy and tears that comes rolling down your faces when you see your baby for the first time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that labour is just the beginning of a long road of parenting. It's not pretty and it's not glamourous. You have to do it only because you want to.

Yes.... and i will save the rant about midwives for another day.

long time no blog

busy with the new rotation.. keeping me on my toes.

anyhow, time is running out! sitting for the BIG exams very soon!

RANT OF THE WEEEK::::


and i'm so pissed. with person that
1. eats bread and leaves crumbs (that amount to a piece of bread) on the table
2. cuts fruits on the kitchen top without a chopping board/uses plates as chopping board. (mankind invented chopping boards FOR a reason)
3. moves stuff around the house without asking for permission. (not your stuff, don't touch!!)
4. thinks that others want to use their things and hence keep it in their room! (am i the only one who thinks keeping kitchen utensils and garlic is just so damn weird?)
5. doesn' recognise/realise that the house is SOOO much cleaner and is blatantly contributing to dirt. (stop shedding hair/skin/dirt/wat have you)


why why why why why!!!!
ain't the above just you know.. COMMON SENSE??? and basic courtesy????

some people just never learn. or realise.



PS: DISCLAIMER: not my household. me housemates are perfect :)

why do we need true friends?

1. spend time drinking alcohol and laughing your heads off at sexual and explicit jokes.
2. so that we can sing unpretentiously in our loud and tone-deaf voices.
3. someone to turn to when the world is upside down, inside out and all the wrong ways around.
4. the ability to reminiscent about the common past together.
5. alibi for all the times you need to hang out late and be sneaky with XXX.
6. feel slightly wanted? nothing beats logging onto msn and having people scattered in different continents saying hi to you. hur
7. people actually looking to you for advice - relationship problems, online shopping - what to buy what to choose?
8. being appreciated for who you really are, and not what you want to be. less the need for impression.

i can't think of any more at the moment.

babies are eating my brains out.
and their very pregnant mothers too.

gahhhhs

the wheel of time just keeps turning and turning.

my well rested, full of afternoon naps weekend is OVER.
all i can say is, i'm glad i took time off to do abit of silly things.

like how we spent friday evening shopping! and me buying a few new tops from country road. i love that place man. we went off to belgian beer garden for dinner - lots of mussels! and pomme frites (which are just fancy potato chips) and accompanied by delicious stella beers! oh, the examiner from the paediatric osce was sitting at the next table. so paiseh. >.< lucky he was happily drinking his beer too. hah!

this was followed by 10 hours of sleep. and 3 hours nap. and FINALLY dragging my ass down to play baddy. oh sometimes i forget how much fun i get playing that game. it was really good, had some pro shots and broke a sweat. yay :)

and.. we had some shitass spicy nasi bryani from Rana's Tandoori! Which we washed down with a bottle of Corona each, so satisfying to eat spicy stuff in winter :)

Sunday, we continued our quest for food. We rode all the way to Hahndorf, a quaint little place in the hills 20 minutes from the city. Immediately dashed to the infamous POT BELLY PIES SHOP (which christine, quinnie and a few of our friends were unlucky enough not to have tasted coz it sold out the day they were there) We shared a steak and mushroom pie at the shop - saucy, savoury and alot of meaty chunks! I approve, even though I'm not a fan of pies. We bought 6 pies to take away and distribute to me household :)

Anyhow, my weekend is long over. It's nearly the end of Tuesday now, and I am still trying to grasp the idea of O&G. It's difficult especially if you did Paediatrics first. Abit topsy-turvy now. Oh wells, at least they are really nice about teaching and I have learnt heaps in the span of just 2 days.

Looking forward to more :) 9 weeks of babies and women! come on!!!...

people like to play tricks.

LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN MY STATIONERY KIT!
A 6 YRS OLD NEOPRINT!
ALL OF US LOOKING WEIRD AND ANGRY
AND HONG GETTING COVERED BY A HUGEASS FLOWER. HUR.

---------------------------------------------------------------

just had a taste of the surgical osce exam.
which went quite well, except for the QUINSY.

oh man, ENT surgeons sure like to kid.

anyhow, have to mug for med! and psych! woo hoo!

looking forward to the weekend!
sleeping in
shopping
eating indian takeaways with friends!
going to the hills to find a pie shop
playing baddy

WOO HOO.
come on come on!


now im worried.
what will i do post-BARRIER exam?

try bungee jumping?
o.0