Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Graduated

I managed to pass my Final Year Exam (OSCEs) and graduated on December 14th, 2013.

In the Graduation Ceremony, when my name got called out, I collected my Testamurs (MBBS, BMedSci) which was followed by a huge applause and cheering from the audience (especially my classmates). All along I thought I was lonely, but at the end of the day, they apparently seemed to have an inkling about what I was going through.


7 years of University Study, over.

 It's difficult for me to articulate how relieved I am that I've gone this far and attained the Medical Degree. There were so many ups and downs, and whilst some Patients I found very annoying, I've also met Patients who were encouraging, and Doctors who were supportive and inspired me, as a few of them also had their trials and tribulations. The course was gruelling, and there have been times where I regretted studying Medicine, but given my personal circumstances (particularly my discovery of my AS), it's given the Medical Course even more value, even if I don't work as a Doctor in the future.

I know that there'll be many more hurdles ahead in the future. It's a matter of whether I can handle it or not, and whether the Fight is worth it.

I've been very burnt out and have decided to take a Gap Year to recuperate. I'm a Local Student, so apparently I'm still guaranteed an Internship for 2015 in Victoria, although things are starting to get tight given the local graduate oversupply. I'm supposed to feel extremely happy about graduating, but I also feel very empty inside, coz I'm not proceeding straight to Internship like everyone else.

I suspect a lot of this emptiness is that now my temporary battle in Medicine is over (for now), I have so much temporary freedom that I don't know what to do with it. The uncertainty over my future, and also the lack of guidance. Med School took over so much of my life, at the expense of my "Personal Life", Special Interests, and this Blog. I guess I should get back to rekindling some of my Special Interests, and possibly exploring new ones, along with learning other new skills, so I can have a greater "Armamentarium / Repository" of coping strategies to help reduce Burnout during the actual Internship. Oh and along with typing all those Blog Posts that I wanted to do, but never got to doing.

In retrospect, I could've gained even more from Med School if I had known back in 1st Year, what I know now, but that can't be changed. I just have to reflect on the past, and try to move forwards. Every day that passes, is one day closer to my Death. This Gap Year is my Saving Grace, for me to rest and sort through as many issues as possible.

I better get going for now.

Happy New Year to everyone!!!!!!


Sunday, July 28, 2013

Quotes in Med School

Medicine is taking over my life... I'm so damn behind in both my studies and blog entries and in some respects I'm frustrated with myself. The Medical Conditions are interesting in their own right, but I got a backlog to catch up on which reduces the fun due to the added pressure of going through a sheer volume.

In the meantime, here are some quotes that I've collected so far in Clinical Rotations. Enjoy...


From Consultants:

“When you get married, the expenses go up a lot more…See the trick is that they’re working when you meet them for the first time, but after you marry them and have children, they quit their job and you have to support them and the children - school fees, cars, holiday trips etc.”

“When people apply to us for a Trainee Position, we can already tell which people we’re going to accept.”

“You think you’re busy as a Medical Student? Wait til you become a Consultant.”

“We try to avoid Mediterranean patients as much as possible, they come in with all of these physical complaints and we usually don’t find anything… it’s usually their way of somatizing a mood condition such as depression or anxiety.”

“Didn’t you know it’s a birthright in Australia? “If anything wrong happens to me it’s your fault.” ”

“3 years will go by like a blip.”

“I think you’re in the wrong career.” (when I said I wanted to do a specialty that had office hours, Monday – Friday with no on-call.)

“You need to get a hobby, because Medicine will take over your whole life.” (to our tute group)

“That’s to teach you a lesson, that you chose the wrong career.” (when I said that we only had ~4 weeks of Summer Holidays.)

“I am bitter and jaded, there are all these obese patients and they don’t put in the effort to lose weight through diet or exercise even though we try to help them do so.”

“99% of patients are fat coz they have shit diets.”

“They don’t want to fail you, the government has already invested so much money into your education.”

“When you choose a Specialty to train in, you really need to consider if you’re happy dealing with the bread-and-butter conditions for 20+ years coz that is what you’re mostly going to deal with…There are a lot of burnt out consultants in their 40’s and 50’s because they see the same condition over and over again and it gets to the point where it feels monotonous.”

“Yeah he (another Consultant) lives at this hospital, it’s like his second home.”

“Yes that’s me in the photo, when I was young and free…”

“You need to know what conditions to look for before you start taking a history and doing a physical examination.”

“Don’t always believe what other people say about a patient. There will be times where you are right and everybody else is wrong, so you need to know how to do the history taking and physical exam yourself.”

“Medical Scientists can’t get sued, so if something goes wrong in the lab, they’ll try to go after the Pathologist.”

“The future of Medicine in Australia will be very different…you will be doing a lot of handovers due to 8-hr shifts due to the Medical Graduate Tsunami…you will be practicing conservative Medicine where you order less tests/investigations unless they’re very necessary.”

“There are a lot of Asian Med Students who are studying Medicine due to parental pressure…if they’re only in it coz of their parents, it’s going to fuck them up later on in life.”

“You need to be genuinely interested about a Medical Specialty…there are a lot of specialists out there who are not dumb but still managed to complete the training program, but their lack of enthusiasm manifests through multiple things that we politely call “hindrances” within the hospital system.”

“When you’re stressed, it’s hard to recall Mnemonics! Try to learn things conceptually instead.”

From Registrars:

“As a Med Student, you have the most opportunities to practice physical exams and search for interesting findings on patients, coz when you do Internship, you’ll be too busy with paperwork to have any time.”

“I just don’t feel happy. I work extra shifts so I can feel useful…”

“When you work in the ED, patients with Borderline Personality Disorder will be your bane.”

“Why does everyone talk about that? … Oh we just enjoy our work, the money you get in Internship will be much more than what you receive as a student on Youth Allowance… My friend works at Kraft and she gets paid a monthly salary… They should make doctors earn a monthly salary instead so they have to do all of the hours they need to do without complaining.” (in response to my mention of unrostered overtime.)
  
“If you don’t want to work your ass off, be a GP.”


From Nurses:

“Nurses are the ones that do most of the work.”

“The Hospital can’t run without us.”

“I often feel that in Palliative Care, people take things too far and give patients unnecessary interventions that just prolong their suffering even though they’re dying… Their family just wants everything done coz they know the staff will do it for them for free.”

“There will always be a proportion of doctors and nurses that have substance abuse issues, so you have to be mindful of that.”

“When I started smoking as a nursing student long ago, it was a common thing for us to do and a ritual. During our breaks we’d sit around a table and light our cigarettes together…I don’t really know if I actually got addicted to the nicotine given that I’m a light smoker, but you get addicted to the action itself.”

“If a patient is being aggressive to you, the trick is to try and look calm.”

“All of the Spinal (canal stenosis) patients smoke weed. We sometimes have them get admitted to ED due to being too stoned.”

“If you learn the information, the work becomes more stimulating because you can tell the subtle differences.”  

From patients:

“The thing is to try to find people who share similar interests to you.”
 
“The notion of Medicare has completely distorted people’s perceptions about the level of healthcare they can receive for free…they expect and want everything for free without realizing the true cost of the services, tests and treatments provided.”

“You can tell who your real friends are by how they respond when you ask if they’re actually coming to visit you when you’re sick in the hospital.”

From other people:

“Don’t lose that curiosity!”

Monday, June 10, 2013

ASD and Getting Bullied - MOVING ON (Part 6/7)




I got a clay pot that I made in Year 8, and with a permanent marker wrote “Bullies in my life, including XXX.” (XXX was the worst adult bully I’ve ever had, unfairly treating me based on premature assumptions about my AS, and manipulating me to cause a lot of stress and anxiety.)







I then went to the backyard and smashed the pot by flinging it on the concrete path as hard as I could. Here are the fragments when placed together:



I didn’t intend any malice, but it smashing it was so refreshing.

I was attempting to move on from my past in a symbolic manner, even though I’ll never forget it thanks to my very strong episodic memory. Clearly this doesn’t preclude me from being treated like shit again by others, but I hope that in symbolically wrapping up the series of traumatic events, I’ll have a better ability to focus more on my studies and other pursuits.

Regardless of the bullies’ childhood, it should never justify their attacks and harassment of others (especially adult bullying, and unprovoked). I would never bully someone just for the hell of it; it would hurt my conscience to replicate something that has potential to cause permanent scarring. Sometimes I flippantly wish they’d die, but another part of me thinks they too have underlying issues of insecurity or anxiety, or perhaps even a Cluster B Personality Disorder (of which I’m very vigilant of).  

I refuse to forgive bullies (without an apology), because it kinda means they get away with doing something shouldn’t be done in the first place.

I think it’s possible to focus on the present, but not forget the past, and only to bring it back up when the situation is right. I can remember upsetting incidents nearly verbatim. Unless I have ECT or temporal lobe damage (later on), the memories will remain. Undoubtedly, there are still some situations which provoke recollections of the trauma, though not to the extent of PTSD.

Therefore I have to internally reason that getting upset won’t help me pass my exams.

Only study, focus, intellectualization, and novel compensatory techniques will.