1) This post marks 2,000 days since I first began my journey as a medical student. While there were no fireworks or partying to celebrate the longevity of my blog, there have been a few other milestones that make this post that extra bit special.
2) To start off, we had our final posting in medicine last week. Previously, we had spent two weeks of our medicine rotation in Hospital Taiping. I don't recall visiting Taiping often while growing up, but being in a different environment (after so long in Penang) was certainly very refreshing. We had our sub-internship week in Taiping as well - to observe, assist, and perform whatever procedures or examinations which we could. Overall, Taiping was both fun and surprisingly quite relaxing for us. Unfortunately, we weren't able to explore the city as much as we would have liked, mostly due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases at the time.
3) I would be remiss not to talk about exams. At the end of our medical posting was an OSCE examination. Initially scheduled for May, this was brought forward to the beginning of March due to changes in our schedule. In order to standardise the OSCE stations with those of the surgery examination, the time in station was reduced from 7 to 5 minutes, with only 1 minute for discussion. While some may be relieved owing to having less time with the examiners, I personally did not, as I felt the reduced time for examination would disrupt our overall flow and thought process.
4) Regardless, we finished our final medical OSCEs yesterday. As with most exams, I knew I could have done better, but I had already given my absolute best. Now that we're done with medicine (at least until May when we have our written papers and long case exams), we can focus on our final rotation - surgery. In my mind, surgery is more labour intensive than medicine, mostly due to us having clinical sessions every day from 8-12, with afternoon online classes thrown in for good measure. At the end of the day, I keep telling myself that this is indeed the final rotation of my six-year long journey, and that gives me the motivation to see this through.
5) Here's to the last two months till our final examinations. And with that, I'll end my blog post here. Thank you very much for visiting as always, and have a nice week ahead. Cheers!
And that's a wrap - final medicine rotation complete!
L-R: Helmi, Omar, Lilin, Myself, Sean, and Kuhan
Taiping Hospital - one of the first hospitals in Malaysia and the first to introduce the "Roentgen Ray Apparatus", otherwise known as an X-ray machine!
Interesting, the first X-ray taken here was of a pomfret - very clearly detailing all the little fish bones
Interesting, the first X-ray taken here was of a pomfret - very clearly detailing all the little fish bones
Ordered the char kuey tiao "special" from Restoran Doli
A bit pricey at RM17 but the next picture explains why...
I counted 36 shrimp from just one packet of noodles!
Taiping is a literal food haven. This is one of our favourite stalls - Sri Annapoorana Curry House.
L-R: Sean, Lilin, Helmi, Omar, Kuhan, Myself
Absolute feast of a meal for just RM10!
The fried bitter gourd is one of their specialties, but really everything is just so delicious
If only I can take credit for that detailed description of the examination of the peripheral nerves of the upper limb
Rachel seems to really know where the best food spots are - this is Habee's Kitchen
The milky noodles was delightfully rich and savoury, and went really well with the generous helpings of fried fish
Another feather in our cap :)
