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.