NEW STUFF!!! PRETTY STUFF!!!

You guys, my medical building's been revamped! Well, ok, that's not entirely true as it turns out that my school is chronically underfunded and whoring out all of its facilities in an attempt to repay all its debt (but you didn't hear that from me, ok?) Specifically, the basement of the medical building has been renovated. And it is delicious. We have new lockers. And bathrooms. With showers. And a kitchenette with a goddamn microwave and hot/cold water filters. And lounges. And two breath takingly beautiful new lecture theatres. (Where did the school get the money from? Beats me.)

I know, right? Why don't I just make love to the carpet or something equally questionnable? It's not that I'm crazy about interior design or anything but if you've spent the better part of two years walking through a building that was erected during your great grandparent's time and smells like formalin and gym socks, you'd understand.

If you ignore the part where the student's basement is located right next to the morgue, where we store all our DEAD PEOPLE, it's kind of great! Not so awesome at 3:18AM though, when you're the only person left in the entire fucking building and you're beginning to think that it's the perfect zombie film plot.

Medical students and mental health

So like, I know I sort of dropped off the face of the planet for the past couple of weeks (months) because I sort-of-broke, a la Meredith Grey. (See what I just did? I made a pop culture reference to Grey's Anatomy in an attempt to bridge the divide between anonymous blogger and audience.) I haven't been depressed per se, just very withdrawn, unmotivated and somewhat at a loss.

I've been debriefing a lot with my family and support network because, truth is, I seriously considered leaving medicine all together. I realise that this is something that every medico faces at some point in their education and careers but for the most part, my doubts about continuing had nothing to do with medicine at all. (Which, in hindsight, should've been enough to make me realise that leaving would've been the stupidest decision of my life, had I gone through with it.). I felt that I had to leave (at least temporarily) to try and get my personal life sorted out.

The Australian Medical Student's Association (AMSA) published another great issue of Panacea. I mention it because this issue focused mostly on the psychological wellbeing of medical students. (Give the entire issue a read here.) Here's a quote from a truly insightful article that my friend wrote for the issue-- it struck a chord with me.

Stigma is a negative stereotype that is overgeneralised.
In the case of stress or mental illness, medical
students associate feelings of weakness, shame and
embarrassment with seeking support. They worry about
whether counselling services are really confidential and
how accessing help will impact on future job prospects.
Stigma has such a profound effect that almost a third
of depressed medical students cite it as a barrier for
accessing treatment.

- James Hillus, Stigma: Enough is Enough,
Panacea Winter Edition 2009, AMSA Publications

It's a loaded issue. I'm sure I'll make a proper blog post about it after my exam (which is in 9 days). On a more light hearted note, University of Sydney are hosting their annual Med Revue this week! Make sure you hit it up if you're bored and in need of a good laugh!

The holiday update.

I'm on holidays at the moment. It's nice to not have to wake up and think about medicine, you know? Killer exam actually went much better than I expected. There was a party on that night for medlings which I was supposed to go to but, uh, that didn't work out too well. It's not the first time it's happened (or even the second, I think.) It's an alarming trend and I should stop telling people I'll be attending these things. During the exam itself, you're completely alert. You're on your game. You're in the zone. Everything's like a shotgun-- yes, yes, YES! When the academic stiff says "pens down," it's like your body takes it as a cue to call in its sleep debt and shut down. The sleepless nights suddenly catch up with you and all the caffeine in your system seems to vanish. Afterwards, you just feel like crap. Your hair's so greasy you can fry chicken in it, you're suddenly aware that the exam hall isn't keeping out the winter cold and you become self-conscious of the fact that you're wearing your pyjama pants and a food-stained jersey.

During the teaching session, it's easy to forget that you're a stupid teenager. Anyways, despite being on holidays, I've worked out a few extra clinic hours with my teaching hospital. I guess I'm still a medical junkie at heart. Today was sort of rediculous though. I made the effort of showing up at 9am only to find out that my facilitator's off with some mysterious "personal issues" and that I'm stuck following around a random SMO with an ego bigger than my ass during exam periods. Yeah. Not doing that again. My tweets give you a rough idea of how rediculous today was. Be warned, it's kind of pissy and cussy.

I'm currently reading Direct Red by Gabriel Weston. Excellent book. I recommend it.

Most embarrassing .

See Twitter; was at hospital today for a lecture on taking pediatric histories. Afterwards, we were allowed to run amok in the children's hospital and "get a feel for the place". Everyone took that as their cue to the get the hell out ASAP, but I did some exploring and found the super secret student's mess in the neurology wing and decided to get some work done. Fast forward to the part where I finished off my second Red Bull and started dancing vigorously to Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' on my iPod and couldn't hear when Dr Very Important Neurologist walked in with a coffee cup. He started sniggering and I reflexively covered my ID with my hand. Arghhh FML. It felt like a sitcom situation. These things aren't supposed to happen in real life.


On a not so mortifying note, anybody who doesn't already follow Cinammon Anna should head over there as her blog is incredibly upbeat and fun. I think our Star Trek obsessions were rekindled at roughly the same time. For me, this is terrible timing as I have another of those bitchin' exams on the 25th. I'm constantly torn between doing a marathon of the original series and studying. Ok, ok, ok, I'll shut up about Star Trek already.

Elsevier Saunders needs to buy me lunch.

Yes, that is a urine sample jar on my shelf. I've got no idea where it came from, so don't ask. The distortion represents the wooziness I felt when I added up the total cost of this lot.

Anatomy, physiology, pathology, pathophysiology, histology, embryology, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology, stats... As for communications and ethics, I can talk myself into forking out for science but there's no way I'm spending $120 on a book that boils down to "Be friendly and do the right thing, OR ELSE." I got panicked today when I realised that I'm going to have to grab another four textbooks this year (Gray's Anatomy, Clinical Examination, Dale's Pharmacology and Male's Immunology). I'm adding up prices in my head and it's pretty miserable. (How did I get through first year withough Gray's, you ask? Wikipedia, I say.)

When it comes to medical textbooks, I've come up with three rules. Firstly, the thicker the better. Also, trust the books that have about a squillion editions preceding it. Most importantly though, if it's published by Elsevier-We're-Going-To-Take-All-Your-Money-Saunders, you're set. A heady combination of Robbins and Guyton is supposed to cover you for a while, but if you're like me and are excessively paranoid about Guyton's lacklustre neurophysiology....

Random things I feel I ought to mention.

Damn you and your beautiful face, Zachary Quinto. Generally, I keep my geekiness quiet. By geekiness, I mean I'm a closet Trekkie with a very problematic Spock crush. In the words of a Wikipedian, "Quinto brings a bit more chill to the character [than Nimoy]." I like my men half Vulcan and chilly. I've spent the past couple of days doing a Star Trek original series marathon. Ergo, I turn up to morning lectures looking like death.

Anyways, let's talk about less important things. I recently picked up my copy of Robbins & Cotran's Pathologic Basis of Disease. Yes, it was bloody expensive but good god, the book is genius. Not to mention heavy. (Have I mentioned my theory that book quality is directly proportional to metric mass?) I've already uploaded it to my Elsevier Saunders online library (because we all love hoarding and collecting things) but at the end of the day, book is lighter than bricky laptop. It looks quite funny sticking out of my bag. Some students have ripped out the spine and loosened the sheets so as to only carry the relevant readings about. It's smart, but it's also sacrilege.

Forgot to mention; our annual Med Revue was a few weeks ago. Was very terrible. I was falling asleep and left during the intermission with some meddies from a different school to go eat Indian food. The skits were centred around first years faking orgasms. Not kidding. Incidentally, a bunch of Conservative Looking Asian Parents were watching in the backrow. I assume they were there to cheer on their seriously over-coddled spawn. How awkward. I mean, why would you want your parents to see that?

It's 4:22am. I'm going to start on some anatomy. Coffee number three, LET'S GO.

Kids these days...

I'm about halfway through my second round of embryology, and being a second years means I've got more assignments and clinical days. Funnily enough, one of these assignments involves sitting around for three hours every week at a children's daycare centre to observe "developmental behaviour".

1. I hate psychology. Believe me when I say I don't use this word lightly.


2. Kids have a discomfort/awkwardness radar. This attracts them.


3. I am terrible with kids.


4. Kids are nothing like they used to be. Back in my day...

So, besides spending most of my time devoting Larsen's Human Embryology to memory, I have to somehow come up with meaningful observations and interactions with little people. Do you have any idea how stressful this crap is? And is it just me, or are all kids kind of nuts? And how come some people are so good with them? And why are they all so tech savvy? Do their workaholic parents teach them how to make excel spreadsheets?

There is no reasoning with children. Don't call me crass. We're not talking general theory of relativity here, we're talking "So what did you have for breakfast today?" (Which was met with a rather angry "I don't want to tell you!") For chrissake, pumpkin pie. Sigh. Here are some excerpts.

Kid: Why are you wearing lots of blue? Are you going to a party?
M: No? And my jumper isn't blue. Don't you think it's more purple?
Kid: Like grapes?
M: Yeah. Like grapes.
Kid: I hate grapes. Mum makes me eat them. [gets angry]

M: What's your favourite game?
Kid: THROWING!!!

M: Ok, I'll see you next week.
[Kids laugh manically]

I'm really paranoid that these little gremlins are plotting my demise (i.e. they'll find my corpse facedown in the sandbox, with a plastic spade wedged between T5/T6). I'm a little concerned about this fixation on "moulding kids" at pre-school, too. Yeah, fine motor skills are great, but it's not a neurosurgery training program. Just ease up a little on the Fruit-o-Mathics booklets and give them more room to explore their mutual craziness. I'm no Piaget, but it sounds sort of logical. It's not that often your life gets to revolve around play dough and wood blocks.

I mean, it's how pre-school went for me and I turned out pretty normal. (Snicker.)