Saturday, June 02, 2007

The tick tick tock of the countdown clock

Electives have ended, and I must say I really enjoyed the Neurology elective at EssJeeH very much. Apart from the many weird cases that we saw and learnt more from, I do think that the highlight of the posting was having such a dedicated tutor as Dr P guiding us along and imparting her little gems of neurological teaching as well as lessons of life. Truly a most motherly and benevolent doctor and teacher (though I wonder if that changes when she's your MBBS tester heh), mixed in with a liberal amount of sardonic humour and wisdom; every minute spent with her is a joy because it's never dull.

As she told us, the importance of doing a posting in neurology is as simple as being comfortable with the subject: knowing what you need to ask when taking a history, what differentials you can be considering based on the presenting complaint, and to be practised and smooth at doing the physical examination - that's half the battle won, and for MBBS that's the most crucial part, to show that you have the clinical skills. I'm quite glad I did the posting because I now feel like doing a neurological exam is no longer as daunting and a horror as it used to be for me. There's just that wee bit of confidence now that I should be able to at least do the exam properly even if I don't manage to pick up all the signs that are present.

And of course, the posting would have never been quite so fun if not for my elective mates, A and MF; though we didn't apply for the posting together, we ended up being under the same tutor and so did just about everything in a trio. I got to know 2 people in my class that I didn't know very well before, and they probably got to know me as well (unfortunately also finding out about my occasional eccentric mannerisms), and I think I may say with some confidence that we all had fun doing the posting together.

A pity that the posting had to end with the unpleasant incident that happened yesterday (M's stethoscope got stolen from her bag in the medical student's lounge, and despite confronting the suspect all we got were denials), sigh. It's really quite scary to think that these things can happen in the student's lounge, but they do happen. So please tell your friends and all that it's not safe to leave valuables lying around in the lounge, even if you think nothing will happen. Get a locker from the ADO and put your things inside.


Holidays have started and I get asked what I'm doing this break, which will probably be the last long-ish and relatively relaxed period of rest before the final year stress starts to mount. I'm not going overseas, that's for one. I might take the time to do a bit of reading, both medical and fictional - there's still so much neuro that's fascinating me but I haven't finished reading, and I also want to re-read the last books 5 and 6 of Harry Potter in anticipation of the final book's release in July (can't wait!). I have to also finish my ethics writeup, as well as the paper I wish to publish for the CHP follow-up; hopefully I can finish these by the first week. Must work hard! I was also considering doing some drawing if I have the time, since it's been ages since I last put pencil to paper. So much to do; with luck I will get most done.

Also some movies need to be watched. Zodiac is the one on my must-watch list, primarily because I am rather fascinated with its premise, and I tend to have a morbid fascination with serial killer movies (Se7en was really nice), though I don't harbour any such tendencies, I assure you. Heh. (Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the other reasons I want to watch Zodiac :P) The other blockbuster movies like Pirates, Shrek 3 and Fantastic Four aren't really appealing to me, mainly because the first 2 don't really look as good as their predecessors, and as for Fantastic Four, I haven't even watched the first movie. -__-; If anyone would like to watch Zodiac, let me know, but I'll probably watch it myself anyway.


Mom made homemade pumpkin croquette for dinner today after seeing how it's done on the Taiwanese cooking show two days ago. It's remarkably easy to make, but our pumpkin was a little too watery and it became very difficult to handle the paste because it was so soggy. Mom still managed to fry the croquette and it actually tasted remarkably like the potato croquette we get from Corochan's Corokke. Yummy! Next time we'll try with the potato.

Avaris / 6/02/2007 07:48:00 PM

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