1) As we approach Day 1000 (imagine that for a second - 1000 days since I set foot in Ireland to begin my studies in medicine) - we have just finished our first semester back home in Malaysia. It has been three rotations - Surgery, Medicine, and Public Health. It definitely took some adjusting to, especially when we first got back and had to start off with our surgery rotation; not the easiest rotation by any means haha. Anyway, medicine was pretty much the same as surgery, with a little more "flexibility" in that there were less write-ups and we could type them out.
2) Public Health has been particularly interesting for me, with all the visits to the Health Clinics and various field excursions. It also provided a flavour of managing patients on a population-scale, and how to investigate outbreaks (occurrence of disease in excess of the normal frequency). At the end of each rotation, we had our EORA (end-of-rotation assessments), except for Public Health where there was none. At the end of the semester i.e. just this week, we had our end-of-semester exams in the form of an MCQ paper for Medicine, and three papers for Public Health - MCQs (objective paper), SAQs (subjective paper), and OSPA.
3) The concept of OSPA (Objective Structured Practical Assessment) is fairly new to us. Basically we were shown 20 slides over the course of 1 hour; this equates to three minutes per slide. Within these 3 minutes, we had three questions to answer - mostly simple, short answers. At each 3 minute interval, a bell rang, and the next slide was shown. According to our Professor, the OSPAs would help make up for the difficult MCQs, so here's keeping my fingers crossed haha. I personally preferred the Public Health paper to the Medicine one, but whatever it is, the past is the past, and I'm finally FREE!
4) Free - it's been a good 5 or 6 months since I was last free. And now, for the next three weeks at least, I'm free to my own machinations. The only thing left to do is to catch up on sleep i.e. by hibernating throughout the holidays XD. I'm really glad that I was able to adapt to the new environment and new modes of lectures etc. For the next semester, we have the module "POPFM" - which is an acronym for Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Psychiatry, and Family Medicine. My group starts off with Paeds, considered one of the more syllabus intensive rotations.
5) But before we can begin our new rotation, we still have to finish off our Forensics and Legal Medicine (FLM) module. We've had most lectures throughout this semester, but there will be more after our three weeks break. At the end of next month, we will have our FLM exam, and then progress to the POPFM module the very next week. As the saying goes, it never stops. But I am honestly really grateful for the opportunity to dip my toes in different rotations i.e. to explore my interests and to gain a wider appreciation for the different departments in a hospital/clinical setting. Anyway, here's looking forward to what the future may hold! For now at least, it's going to be kicking back and getting a well-deserved rest :) Thanks so much for visiting, and have a nice day. Cheers!
So today was clinical skills day - and we had lots of fun poking around - literally XD
Glove as make-shift tourniquet (yeap that's my arm)
I've lost any fear of needles to be honest
Izz getting her revenge on me after poking her arm XD
And that's my blood in that EDTA vacutainer blood tube
Another successful venepuncture done :)
It actually doesn't hurt much :)
You can see two puncture marks on my right arm - the product of having my friends' poking haha
Two blood samples for testing ^^
Looks like I'm not diabetic then...
Fasting blood glucose normal range should be <5.5mmol/L
And today - we had lessons on legal medicine, by an actual lawyer from Sheffield!
Back to Coffee Elements @ All Seasons Place for their delicious chicken cheese lava :)
This may be the end of our first semester back from Dublin, but it's also the beginning of our clinical training as we continue our journey to become the competent and emphatic doctors of tomorrow :D
