Exam = evil. Each time there's an exam, I'd start thinking that I don't want to be a doctor anymore. I'd have to live with that thought for another at least 15 times. I used to be much more resilient when I was in college. I do get upset over revising but motivation was always sky high. Now I've just lost everything. Can you believe that I only started serious revision on Monday (that was the day before my semester 2 paper)? People won't believe me because I always seemed to know my stuff in the weekly PBL discussion. O well, time to rethink the protrayal of my nerdy personality - very misleading.
Overall the exams went OK. For the progress test, as usual, I was more than ecstatic to know (or even heard of) about 4-5 questions as it was a test of knowledge to be learnt from year 1-5. OSCE was a bit upsetting. I screwed up the blood pressure and pulse station. It's actually not a big deal as it was only one of the nine stations and almost everyone that I spoke to said they did badly for that station as well. The thing that pissed me off is that I've put in so much effort practising blood pressure taking (I even invested in a sphygmomanometer) and still end up failing to show my competence (Silly me, I even cried when I came back to my room). The good news is that I know I've got full mark for at least 3 stations: Radiograph, handwashing and anatomy. The revision for semester 2 test was a bit of a nightmare. I didn't have the motivation to open the books at all. I've only managed to force myself to sit down and cramp things into my head the day before the paper. I thought the paper was ok, again with doubts here and there. But as I was telling Cheng, judging from the effort I put in, I don't really expect an honour grade again. I'd be more than happy with a pass.
So exam's over and done with. I meant to go to the medics end of year party last night but didn't in the end. It's because I just lost the mood when Cheng told me that Yee Leng's admitted into hospital because she has loads of big ulcers on her throat that she couldn't eat, drink, talk or hear properly. It just scared me. The A&E doctor's comment that the ulcers were 'not normal' just made my feel worse. I talked to Yee Leng today through the phone and she sounded OK. Hopefully it's just some stress-exaggerated infection. Eventhough Yee Leng's a bit annoying at times, I have to say that I do care for her as well as everyone else in my family and I want her to be alright.
I went to return some books in the Stopford library today. It was so heavy and that was only six books! There are nine more library books in my room that I need to return. Then I went to walk around at the city centre, got so bored and wander into the Manchester Art Gallery. It's a really nice place and it's really hard to describe how art can convey abstract things like feeling and atmosphere. Then this man from China came up to me and ask if I'm from China. So I was caught into the usual conversation about being from Malaysia and studying here in Manchester University. He actually told me that I looked 'ancient'. I'll let u interpret what it means coz I haven't got a clue.
After that, I went for a PLAN meeting in Reache, Hope Hospital. Another good session, learnt so much about the kidneys today. I was interviewed by Ken who is doing his fourth year project option to evaluate the weekly sessions. One of his questions was (unsurprisingly) why do I attend these weekly sessions. I said something about improving my communication skills and meeting people. Yet, ultimately I think my primary motivation is still to help people in need. Especially for refugees, what we are doing during these weekly sessions can really turn their life around and improve their quality of life, which I think is really a necessity for every human being. Another thing is that I feel really flattered having people praising about my good English. One of the many barrier these refugee doctors have to overcome is the proficiency in English and most spent three/four years just to pick up English. So naturally, many of them were surprised to learn that I have only set foot in England about 9 months ago judging from the standard of English that I speak. I think I do pick up a language rather quickly, but the main thing that allowed me to know how the proper spoken English works is Choral Speaking in form 4. It taught me things like long vowel and differentiating between the 't' and 'th' sounds. These are very fundamental but unfortunately grossly neglected in the education system. Thanks to my three months of grueling Choral Speaking training, not only that I can declare myself a national champion, I am also now able to express myself with confidence and even match the standard of the Mat Salleh's English.
Wednesday, May 31
Wednesday, May 10
Can't get my head around
I don't know why but I just can't keep focused. I really can't remember how many times have I told myself that I ought to revise the cases but I just end up lazying around the internet or wasting time. Now I haven't even started on the cases... Other people are studying so so so seriously now... Yet it just doesn't push me to do the same. That's why I'm getting quite worried right now, especially when the progress test will be on next on monday, which is 4 days away. I'm still wasting lots of time doing non-academic activities, like teaching year 9 CPR with HeartStart this morning and just came back from the TeddyBear Hospital thing. I'm now waiting for time to pass in the microlab until 4pm, which then I'll go to Hope Hospital for Reache by bus and tram. I tried going to the library but only to end up feeling restless.
I need good motivation. Hope that I'd find it at Reache later on, somehow.
I need good motivation. Hope that I'd find it at Reache later on, somehow.
Friday, May 5
Phew... It's finally weekend!
Today and the past two days had been one of the busiest and the most eventful days I've ever had. Hope this blog doesn't go too long... I know people don't like reading an extremely long entry.
Let's start off with Wednesday. Went to the dissection room first thing in the morning coz the dissection room's only open this week for people to look at prosection and revise. I was fine with the thorax bit coz I revised the night before, but just couldn't handle the upper limb at all. So I thought I'd go back and get the bones, muscles, vessels and nerve names right first. Around 1pm, I attended the Medical Assessment via Enquiry Based Learning project meeting (MAEBL) involving progress test practice question authoring. It was rather shocking to have only 2 first years and 3 second years out of about 30 who committed to the project. It's basically like an experiment which they run on medical student volunteer like myself to see if this method of learning helps to improve our progress test (PT) scores. I participated coz I think there's nothing to lose on my part. In fact, in every meeting, we get free drinks and sandwiches, which is really nice! The MAEBL meeting ended at about 3:10pm. I went to the library after that to stuff some names of the hand muscles into my head. Then at 4pm, I boarded a bus to Piccadilly Garden to catch another bus to Hope Hospital in Salford (an hour away) for another voluntary job. This time, with REACHE, I played the patient role with suspected angina. REACHE is an organisation to help refugee doctors requalify to practise in the UK, so sessions like this would definitely help them improve their communication skills in English. I had a really really good time there, and again, got free food! It ended at around 7pm. I took a tram back to Piccadilly Garden then took a bus to Fallowfield for my Judo training in Armitage sports centre. By the time I got back to my room at 10pm, I was absolutely worn-out, didn't even had the energy to eat. I went straight to bed after a shower.
Thursday was slightly better. Had lectures+PBL+Physiology lab skills OSCE practice from 9-3pm non-stop. That's quite draining I must admit. Not exactly helped by my own insistance of going to the dissection room again to get the hand muscles right. I went to the dissection room with Alistair and we both forgotten our gloves. So, guess what.... I touch the prosected bodies with my bare hands. Despite that, had been rather unproductive yesterday. I just hate the muscles on the forearms. Absolutely confusing. So after wasting an hour and a half in the dissecting room, I head to Sainsbury for some food shopping and head back to my home. Had a quick chat with papa and mama and of course wished Cheng 'Happy Birthday' slightly after 12 midnight Malaysian time. Couldn't talk to them for long coz I've got to rush off to Rusholme for yet another voluntary job, that is teaching the kids in the Somalian refugees community. Neither Sophie nor Clemmy were there to organize the session, so I took charge and glad that the kids didn't give me any problem. I was also quite happy that I spurred interest in one boy whom I suspect has short concentration span. I taught him about all the major organs in the body and he's just showing interest and fascination all the time... really rewarding. Finally got back home at 7:30pm. Tried to cram more of anatomy into my head before I slept at 12:50.
Today's a bit of a crazy day for me. Started off with lectures from 9-11. In the first lecture, the consultant gave us a clinical scenario in which a mid-aged 6-weeks pregnant woman present to A&E with severe bleeding per vagina - to transfuse or not, and I thought no. Because I was sitting at one of the front rows and I sticked up my hand when nobody else did, the lecturer pointed at me and said 'tell me why do you think so'. I thought I was going to have a heart attack... I DON'T KNOW! I gave rubbish reply like 'because the blood's useless...'. Clearly not satisfied, he asked me to elaborate, and I went like 'presumably the blood's that's coming out from that area is used to support the baby'... and he went 'good thinking, but that's not the reason'. Gosh.. that was so embarrassing! 'The blood's useless?' How could I say that?! Nevertheless it I didn't feel terribly bad about myself after that (which I used to do all the time). Thought the lecture had been extremely helpful in orientating us to begin to strategize patient management like a doctor. Right after the lecture, my PBL group had a commucanition skills session. I was so proud that I was the first one to volunteer to interview the patient. A bit surprised that people didn't want to volunteer at all especially since OSCE is in two weeks time. Anyway, eventhough I wasn't quite satisfied with my own performance during the interview, I guess Charlie and I pulled it through while interviewing togather. Didn't really have any negative feedback at all, plenty of positive feedback. The simulated patient said we made her feel comfortable talking to us eventhough she wasn't in a good mood at that time, which was an amazing feat! I think this is definitely my first time doing well in communication skills and interviewing patient judging from the feedback I received. And just to mention, it was really funny that Siobhan who's facilitating another communication skills session next door and our facilitator, Carol kept telling the workers to open up, then closing and again to open up the barrier between the two rooms. The workers were too fed up to entertain their final request. Communication skills ended at 12:35 but I was supposed to be at Rusholme Health Centre, which is about a mile away, at 12:30... So I was walking at the quickest walking pace to reach the centre at 12:50. Fortunately Dr Hart didn't mind since I'd already emailed her saying that I might be late due to the communication skills session. I was there with another girl Lisa, to give feedback on the guidance provided for our portfolio on behalf of the over 350 first year medical students. It went well as I felt that I was able to lash out everything I thought and feel about the portfolio. Just hope that I wasn't too harshly critical about it. And since Jo Hart's a communication lecturer, I also took the opportunity to express my concern about not being able to understand patients' accent in almost all of my patient contact. Doesn't really bother me now since my communication and interpersonal skills have greatly improved since I started the many voluntary work, but it must have been a problem to many other international students. I don't know if she's able to do anything about it, but at least she knows that some students are struggling. And ate loads of free sandwiches in the process! I headed back to Stopford Building at 2pm to meet up with Jamie as we were going to find our way togather for our meetings with Bob, our PBL tutor in some new building about half an hour away called the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre. We eventually got there about 15 minutes early and had a chat with the other PBL-mates. Feedback from Bob about me was good. Everything seems to go well... he said I'm a good contributor in PBL and ask revelent questions to stimulate good thinking which many people fail to do most to the time. But he said I have ugly handwriting judging from my scribing yesterday... I was too tired to explain myself then. Had a drink at the cafe with Andrew, Jamie, Cindy and Catherine after that. Thought I want to just have a quick look at the hand anatomy before going home, so I walked back to Stopford Building and went all the way up to the dissecting room again on the third floor, only to meet Uzo who told me that it's closed and they are packing up already. O well... waste of energy but I guess there's no harm to have a few calories burnt. Finally hit home at 5pm. Called home, nobody wants to talk to me except for Cheng. Nevermind. Somehow I just couldn't get angry at anything today. Have this surge of euphoria for three days already. Hope it's wear off by tomorrow so that I can study without feeling the surge of excitement every half an hour.
Let's start off with Wednesday. Went to the dissection room first thing in the morning coz the dissection room's only open this week for people to look at prosection and revise. I was fine with the thorax bit coz I revised the night before, but just couldn't handle the upper limb at all. So I thought I'd go back and get the bones, muscles, vessels and nerve names right first. Around 1pm, I attended the Medical Assessment via Enquiry Based Learning project meeting (MAEBL) involving progress test practice question authoring. It was rather shocking to have only 2 first years and 3 second years out of about 30 who committed to the project. It's basically like an experiment which they run on medical student volunteer like myself to see if this method of learning helps to improve our progress test (PT) scores. I participated coz I think there's nothing to lose on my part. In fact, in every meeting, we get free drinks and sandwiches, which is really nice! The MAEBL meeting ended at about 3:10pm. I went to the library after that to stuff some names of the hand muscles into my head. Then at 4pm, I boarded a bus to Piccadilly Garden to catch another bus to Hope Hospital in Salford (an hour away) for another voluntary job. This time, with REACHE, I played the patient role with suspected angina. REACHE is an organisation to help refugee doctors requalify to practise in the UK, so sessions like this would definitely help them improve their communication skills in English. I had a really really good time there, and again, got free food! It ended at around 7pm. I took a tram back to Piccadilly Garden then took a bus to Fallowfield for my Judo training in Armitage sports centre. By the time I got back to my room at 10pm, I was absolutely worn-out, didn't even had the energy to eat. I went straight to bed after a shower.
Thursday was slightly better. Had lectures+PBL+Physiology lab skills OSCE practice from 9-3pm non-stop. That's quite draining I must admit. Not exactly helped by my own insistance of going to the dissection room again to get the hand muscles right. I went to the dissection room with Alistair and we both forgotten our gloves. So, guess what.... I touch the prosected bodies with my bare hands. Despite that, had been rather unproductive yesterday. I just hate the muscles on the forearms. Absolutely confusing. So after wasting an hour and a half in the dissecting room, I head to Sainsbury for some food shopping and head back to my home. Had a quick chat with papa and mama and of course wished Cheng 'Happy Birthday' slightly after 12 midnight Malaysian time. Couldn't talk to them for long coz I've got to rush off to Rusholme for yet another voluntary job, that is teaching the kids in the Somalian refugees community. Neither Sophie nor Clemmy were there to organize the session, so I took charge and glad that the kids didn't give me any problem. I was also quite happy that I spurred interest in one boy whom I suspect has short concentration span. I taught him about all the major organs in the body and he's just showing interest and fascination all the time... really rewarding. Finally got back home at 7:30pm. Tried to cram more of anatomy into my head before I slept at 12:50.
Today's a bit of a crazy day for me. Started off with lectures from 9-11. In the first lecture, the consultant gave us a clinical scenario in which a mid-aged 6-weeks pregnant woman present to A&E with severe bleeding per vagina - to transfuse or not, and I thought no. Because I was sitting at one of the front rows and I sticked up my hand when nobody else did, the lecturer pointed at me and said 'tell me why do you think so'. I thought I was going to have a heart attack... I DON'T KNOW! I gave rubbish reply like 'because the blood's useless...'. Clearly not satisfied, he asked me to elaborate, and I went like 'presumably the blood's that's coming out from that area is used to support the baby'... and he went 'good thinking, but that's not the reason'. Gosh.. that was so embarrassing! 'The blood's useless?' How could I say that?! Nevertheless it I didn't feel terribly bad about myself after that (which I used to do all the time). Thought the lecture had been extremely helpful in orientating us to begin to strategize patient management like a doctor. Right after the lecture, my PBL group had a commucanition skills session. I was so proud that I was the first one to volunteer to interview the patient. A bit surprised that people didn't want to volunteer at all especially since OSCE is in two weeks time. Anyway, eventhough I wasn't quite satisfied with my own performance during the interview, I guess Charlie and I pulled it through while interviewing togather. Didn't really have any negative feedback at all, plenty of positive feedback. The simulated patient said we made her feel comfortable talking to us eventhough she wasn't in a good mood at that time, which was an amazing feat! I think this is definitely my first time doing well in communication skills and interviewing patient judging from the feedback I received. And just to mention, it was really funny that Siobhan who's facilitating another communication skills session next door and our facilitator, Carol kept telling the workers to open up, then closing and again to open up the barrier between the two rooms. The workers were too fed up to entertain their final request. Communication skills ended at 12:35 but I was supposed to be at Rusholme Health Centre, which is about a mile away, at 12:30... So I was walking at the quickest walking pace to reach the centre at 12:50. Fortunately Dr Hart didn't mind since I'd already emailed her saying that I might be late due to the communication skills session. I was there with another girl Lisa, to give feedback on the guidance provided for our portfolio on behalf of the over 350 first year medical students. It went well as I felt that I was able to lash out everything I thought and feel about the portfolio. Just hope that I wasn't too harshly critical about it. And since Jo Hart's a communication lecturer, I also took the opportunity to express my concern about not being able to understand patients' accent in almost all of my patient contact. Doesn't really bother me now since my communication and interpersonal skills have greatly improved since I started the many voluntary work, but it must have been a problem to many other international students. I don't know if she's able to do anything about it, but at least she knows that some students are struggling. And ate loads of free sandwiches in the process! I headed back to Stopford Building at 2pm to meet up with Jamie as we were going to find our way togather for our meetings with Bob, our PBL tutor in some new building about half an hour away called the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre. We eventually got there about 15 minutes early and had a chat with the other PBL-mates. Feedback from Bob about me was good. Everything seems to go well... he said I'm a good contributor in PBL and ask revelent questions to stimulate good thinking which many people fail to do most to the time. But he said I have ugly handwriting judging from my scribing yesterday... I was too tired to explain myself then. Had a drink at the cafe with Andrew, Jamie, Cindy and Catherine after that. Thought I want to just have a quick look at the hand anatomy before going home, so I walked back to Stopford Building and went all the way up to the dissecting room again on the third floor, only to meet Uzo who told me that it's closed and they are packing up already. O well... waste of energy but I guess there's no harm to have a few calories burnt. Finally hit home at 5pm. Called home, nobody wants to talk to me except for Cheng. Nevermind. Somehow I just couldn't get angry at anything today. Have this surge of euphoria for three days already. Hope it's wear off by tomorrow so that I can study without feeling the surge of excitement every half an hour.
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