Cattle Prodding

Early morning. Got ready and rushed out of home. In my best shirt and trousers. Always helps to dress better for a big day. Makes no sense to wear those special-offer shirts that look baggy and out of shape like pyjamas. Bus ride with 2 of my best friends, Talley and O'Connor again. The guy taking me for the practical test swears by that book I hear, so I had to get my steps spot-on. After 30 minutes of the 50 minute bus ride, I just slumped back on the seat, too frazzled to read 1 more word. For every new thing I learn off that book, another important fact gets pushed out from my memory. My brain felt like an open bucket filled to the brim. Lose one's balance and everything spills. Landed in NUH at 8.40am.

Paged the tester. Paged again. Arranged the time for the test. Changed the time again. And again, so the test ended up being scheduled at 2pm. It isn't all bad, at least I get to spend more time with my beloved pals who accompany me everywhere, even to bed - Talley and O'Connor.

==

So a word about practical exams. First of all, we have this thing called a long case, where we have 12 minutes to talk to a patient, get all the important facts about his illness/medical history/medications/social issues/family history. And after that we present the case.

In case you're wondering, yes. 12 minutes is insanely short. Especially when the patient tries to be helpful and talks on and on and on when you're just supposed to get a 1-word answer to the question.

"Mr Soandso, do you feel breathless when you climb the stairs?"

"Not really, it depends on how many flights of steps. But I think I'm alright. You know the train station? I am able to run up the - what do you call it? - escalator without problems, I'm not breathless. I don't know of being breathless, not that I know of."

"What medicines do you take for your high blood pressure?"

"I take this medicine called uh.... ah.... ABCDEFG. Haha I can never seem to pronounce it properly, everytime I fumble when I try to pronounce it. Also I take this pill, it's quite small, green in colour, but I don't know the name. Do you know what it is?"

*Looks at watch and sees the time ticking away and faints.*

If you really want to know, I didn't even come close to finishing that interview before the time ran out. But it wasn't that big of a problem eventually. Luckily.

==

Next comes 2 short cases. The tester goes "Examine the patient's gastrointestinal system." and I gotta execute a series of dance steps - greet the patient, introduce yourself, close curtains, switch on lights, examine the patient's appearance from far, look at the hands then the face for specific clinical signs, then jump onto the tummy directly, poking and prodding for masses, big livers, big spleens, fluid, et cetra.

I'm not too good at dancing I admit. But I guess I got through alright. The second case was someone with a one-sided coordination difficulty that caused him to have difficulty in walking and moving his leg smoothly. And I exposed my weakness at the understanding of the pathways involved in the brain. Oops.

It went quite alright I guess, as compared to my NIGHTMARE surgery end-of-posting test.

So that's one hurdle down, and there's the MCQ on Friday, which quite a number of people do fail. I hope I can get myself to do the practice questions soon enough.

==

And right after that is a boring lecture for the whole class. Since I had the test I went in through the back door late. Glad that a few of my friends were right next to the door so I sat behind them and we mused about our tests and stuff - while the boring lecturer droned on.

Sneaked out to get a curry puff. (I didn't eat any lunch.) Returned to the lecture hall, and was so bored, I was making snide comments at every slide. I'm very cynical when it comes to interpretating medical statistics, so I entertained myself poking holes at whatever was mentioned in the lecture and joking about them with my friends.

And then I got so bored I SMSed a few friends and stuff. Next came a stupid tutorial about the planning for the project that would come in a couple of months' time. Stupid cause only half the class turned up, and it was already almost 6pm. I didn't hide the fact that I was more concerned on whatever my pals were telling me on the phone via SMS. My pal was next to me and we discussed how he should do his end-of-posting test cause I know his tester's preferences and stuff.

Yeah. I'm a bad student. Cane me if you dare.

7pm and I lazily dragged myself to the bus stop. Went up the bus and dozed my way to Bishan. Ate dinner, and plonked myself in front of the computer. Dang. So tired. I can literally feel the waves of fatigue coursing through my nerves.

==

Oh and Tag-board is down. Bleagh. Still can't find a suitable tagging provider. And I suspect it's triggering a couple of popups. Need. New. Tagging. Provider. Cbox has disappointed me before so I'm wary, Flooble's style is a little too unusual for my liking.

Wheels

The wheels thuded dully while the bus speeds along the road just before evening peak. Tomorrow's my end of posting test and I'm honestly scared.

Am I cut out for what I'm doing? Sometimes I get this nagging feeling that I'd have been better off elsewhere, but my logical mind tells me otherwise. There's not many other fields that appeal to me- engineering? Too boring. Business? I don't have the cold cunning necessary. Law? Half of the time you're fighting for the bad guy. Too evil.

I know that the other professions simply won't allow me to make lives better with such intensity. I want to be the one who right the injustices that lady luck bestows us with- cancers at a young age, painful diseases, disability. It's just not fair for them.

But I don't know if I'm capable to make that work. It's no secret that it takes a whole lot of hard work to graduate with a medical degree. And I'm not doing well in school. Perhaps it's because I've never been hardworking in life.

I admit it. I survived secondary school and junior college with my intuition, my unexplainable knack of being able to figure things out without much hard work.

But university is a whole ball game altogether. It's not about using your intellect to draw up a mathematical equation or finding the right phrases to chain up into an engaging essay. It's mostly memory work. Stuff that makes hard work essential.
It seems like hard work comes so easily to everyone else. They can plonk themselves in front of the books and study for hours and not feel exhausted.

2 years I've tried learning to work hard, but I just can't get the hang of it. My brain needs stimulation from other fields too. I know I probably know more about electronic circuits and world philosophies than most of my classmates. But to just concentrate on the field I'm studying? Nopes, I'm unable to do that. I'll go crazy if I'm not already so.

But then, all this discussion is for naught since I don't have any choice anyway but to soldier on. I'm in too deep. Sigh.

Soldier on gonococcus!

Linkies!

OK I've added some links on the sidebar. If you don't see yours, it means I dunno if you want yours to be private or not, so give me a message on MSN or something or just tag on the tagboard with the URL!

Test. Is. Tomorrow.

*Dies of panic.*

Bah so tired of it all. Just found out that J. G. Ballard went through 2 years of med school only to quit and write instead. So did Alfian Sa'at after some years. Now this sounds tempting, if only I had the talent of writing well enough to recoup all those losses.

Nah I'm just fantasising.

Clear Skies/ Magical Mystery Project/Unproductive

Clear Skies

No haze today! Lovely. Waking up and seeing the faraway buildings clearly from the window is just lovely, even if I'm still groggy from still owing a sleep debt to myself.

Went for a run in Bishan Park, taking in all that smoke-free air. Lovely. Too bad I bonked early cause at that time breakfast was still sloshing around my intestines and was yet to be absorbed.

Clear and clean air rocks.

Magical Mystery Project
I'm undertaking a magical mystery project on the human psyche. What does it mean? It means I can't tell you what it is! Haha.

Stay tuned for the next half a year, when I might release results IF the project is a success.

Unproductive
So the rest of the day was unproductive. Tried this program for my mp3 player - to allow me to upload files without using Sony's software. All it did was to crash repeatedly so I gave up on it. Went back to the Sony program and uploaded 1.9GB of songs using the random mode, so I have no idea which 1.9GB of my mp3 collection I'll be listening to for the next week.

And I didn't get much studying done. Only some rehearsal of the steps of how to do physical examinations. Poke, prod, tap, knock, touch, press. But I hope it's alright, cause if I were to plonk myself in front of the books, I won't even know which chapters will or won't help me.

OK then, that's all for today. Boring me.

Fury/Taking a Break

USUALLY I go to STOMP forums to just hang out and relax in this virtual world where everyone's friendly and cool and all. It used to be a good distraction to all the stresses of real-life, and those who I've met the recent gathering are equally nice in real life.

BUT being me, I feel that I have a responsibility to correct any fallacies of logic or fact in the forums. It's like, I know my stuff, I can see what's wrong, so I have this need to correct any mistruths. Especially when it comes to medical mistruths that can be disastrous if taken too seriously.

It's getting tiring. It's not easy to construct a reply. Everytime I do it I have to make sure I get my facts right, and often it requires some Googling or refering to books. And I have to fend off all the rebuttals to my posts, no matter how illogical they are.

There's this recent barrage of medical mistruths on the forums - one says that if your stools float you're getting enough fibre. Another says that right-sided neck aches are caused by some little obscure muscle in the neck - how come so many of us have neck pain with tenderness that can be outlined by the shape of the trapezius muscle rather than that little deep muscle?

That same person also says that neonatal medical research ought to be done on the babies of medical professionals before they are done on the public. That'd be so very easy won't it - finding enough children to do large-scale studies from such a limited and biased pool?

I have had it with the forums for now. There's too many idiots who're trying to push their radical viewpoints - some even extremist-religious, too many idiots who're just plain insensitive, too many idiots who simply don't care about the people behind the nicknames and avatars.

I'm taking a break for now. I dunno for how long. A night? A week? I dunno. Hopefully those idiots get bored of being idiots soon. Oh I'll still be lurking around, should anything regarding the Ghost Tour need my reply.

Feeder - My Perfect Day (Live)

One of the best live rock performances ever.

Feeder - My Perfect Day