adelaidemedblog

For those who do not know and are interested, year 2 (and year 3) at Adelaide comes with the opportunity to learn anatomy through dissection. It is a rather popular elective - so for those year 1’s reading - get in fast, if that’s your thing.

Limb dissection (or, the beginning of) has got to be the most gory thing I have done so far. Each student pairs with another student which then pair with another pair to learn anatomy through dissection - one pair dissecting a leg, one pair dissecting an arm. Cadavers have their head removed (the head is then given to the 3rd years for cranial nerve dissection) and are then quartered, each pair receiving a quarter. Our job the entire semester is to dissect the limb according to Dr. Jaliya’s instructions (which are a bit vague, but that’s probably because my knowledge is limited). Each cadaver is fresh from preservation (okay so not fresh) and there is a lot of preservative and other mixed fluid seeping out whenever anyone touches anything - so stuff has to be cleared all the time, and we will go through several pairs of gloves (we double glove each hand) due to the fact that latex is actually quite permeable to cadaver juice. I’ve learned also to roll up my sleeves before putting my lab coat on.

First session was spent removing the internal organs, to make the cadaver lighter. This requires no tools whatsoever except a pair of strong, daring hands. Anything removed from the cadaver is placed in a special bag with only that cadaver’s remains (which eventually will get cremated when the university is done with the entire cadaver.) Each session after that so far has been spent removing fat (all ONE sessions after that) because our cadaver happens to have a high fat content.

I’m not allowed to show pictures, but if you were in first year and walked through our dissection room to get to Resource, you’ll see how gory it is Or, you might see how interesting it is and be mesmerised. Yeah right.

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while.

I know that makes it sound like some sort of desperate cause that I’ve been championing since I was born, such as the non-consumption of broccoli stalks. And so I shall have to disappoint you all… a while only really means a few weeks, a month and a bit.

And it has nothing to do with medicine but I guess it’s prime blogging material.

…ironic, because I used to sit - usually on a long boring bus ride home or similar such situation (lecture anyone? ) - wishing “something” would happen, just to break the apparent monotony of life in general. I think a lot of us do. Or maybe I’m just ungrateful for stability. Or have an overactive imagination that longs to tell stories. hmm. I like the idea of the latter. Let’s leave it at that!

But yes, so something happened that is blog-worthy. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t one of the things that I daydream about whilst the bus gets stuck going round a particularly small roundabout on the route (eg. “win the trip of a lifetime rafting down the amazon”, “buy winning lottery ticket”, “maybe that guy two seats in front is actually the Prince of Fairytaleland and lives next door to me for some reason and we’ll fall in love and I’ll become a princess” -NB: any of these for my birthday *wink wink nudge nudge*… maybe not the last one, I think that’s a bit much to expect >.< )

Basically, as many of you would know, my medball night ended in a less than glamourous fashion. Well it didn't "end" full stop, which is a very very good thing, but other events took over. And without going into details, I learnt just how scary a car going at 45 km/h can be. And what it's like to be on your feet (in beautiful silver heels) one minute and then accelerating head first into the road at approximately 9.8 m/s^2 the next. And what it really is to be shivering cold (I'd like to be able to say I haven't complained about being cold at any time since, but unfortunately I have...).

I also learnt how valuable friends are, no matter how close or distant they are to you, strangers even. And how lucky we are to have a healthcare system that will take care of you, although maybe it isn’t perfect.

But most of all (and what I think I really wanted to write about -finally, sorry ), what it’s like when something terrible that you never ever thought would physically happen to you in your lifetime happens, and to remember every single moment of it.

You can watch this sort of event happen in a movie, or hear about it in the news, and think “ow that must hurt” or “how horrible that must have been”… but my experience has been that it’s really not the same. There’s something about being able to connect all those causes and consequences with the “physical” memory of an experience that’s branded onto your mind.

The knowledge that you never want it to happen again imparts a sort of fear - not a disabling fear but one of protection. Then something strange happens. Well as I see it, anyway. For me that memory is starting to become “normal”, just like many other significant memories I have. The colours are the same but the lines are fainter. Or is the detail the same but the colours less vivid? I’m not sure. But I can see the bruises are almost all gone now, and just the obvious mark remains. Maybe as a link to that memory…

I found this interesting Video on Youtube, I believe that it has good ideas for the future of teaching styles. I currently find that both lectures and PBL groups in medicine to lack motivational concepts. As lectures are follow the leader, and although PBL encourages discussion, many people have other commitments and so don’t fully participate in the PBL process and so they are also following the knowledge of other people in their PBL group. Another issue that came up in the first semester of this year was that two text books provided contradictory evidence. Now if only one person looked up this information and didn’t question it then this would lead to a problem as they could have the wrong information and therefore a group of theoretically well trained medical professionals could have the wrong information and therefore provide incorrect treatment for their patients. So I think that this approach might have a way in the future teaching of medicine.

P.S. I know it’s kind of a long Video but it’s worth watching.

P.P.S I hope everyone is having a great holiday

Now now nownownownow, we’re sitting in Ventrilo, playing DotA, and feeling sad.  Sad for reasons other than computer game addiction, that is.

At the very end of the MCQ/SAQ I sat on my chair and pondered.  Pondered my line of reasoning, my thought process, the journey that brought me to that very place, to think that very thing.  That I was SAD.  Not sad in the sense of having no life, though that may be the case in the eyes of whoever.  But sad that I would soon be free of the shackles that be exams and student life.  I miss being stressed.  I miss the pressure that keeps my eyes glued to the page and what it is that keeps me studying late, what wakes me up after a 3am night at 6am the next morning, to study without a headache.  I don’t understand why I can sleep for 12 hours and still start to fall asleep in the middle of a 9am lecture during the term, and yet I can concentrate perfectly during an intense 2 hour study session on the morning of the SAQ/MCQ at 6am after only 3 hours of fitful rest.   It’s the energy that nerves gives.

Yong went back to Korea.  Selina went back to China.  Gloris is going to Melbourne soon.  And I’ll be left…. well not really alone because Ariel (fortunately or no) will be here, but kind of.  At least for a few days.  So Selina might be gone for good.  I wonder… I didn’t really feel anything when she left.  No, I’ll correct that… when she left I WAS SLEEPING.  But in all fairness, I did have an exam the next day and I stayed up until 7am that morning studying (I mean studying DotA, but we’ll leave the details alone).

Selina.  How long has she been here for?  I mean, at least for long enough that she deserves her own paragraph.  Going-on-middle aged Chinese accountant working in a cheese factory that might as well be next door to the house I’m living in but is most likely multiple connecting bus routes away.  Lived here for 1 year, nearly more, might come back but cleaned out her room.  Tall and skinny, desperately trying to gain weight via whatever means possible: ate fast food 257 out of 365 nights for dinner after work, alternating between Mc.Donalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks all in or near Rundle Mall with or without the cake and coffee at Gloria Jeans afterwards.  Bought 23 packs of Shapes, 13 packs of TimTams, numerous fun-size packs of chocolate bars (Picnic was the last), and borderline obsessively cooked chinese cabbage and carrot fried in oil Jiangsu style on those 107 nights she ate dinner at home.  Constantly commenting on the food to Gloris in Chinese, as she opened the back door in the evening to get her dried underwear off the line.  The cake today was too dry, the meal at KFC was too oily (!!!) and so on.  Her mum even visited for a few days.  I guess I AM fond of her after all.  Talked to her all of two weeks - when Gloris was in Macau and it was just her and I in the house.  In that time, I improved my Chinese.  It was good timing too - just after I had vowed to start practicing again after a year’s leave of absence.

So, she took one last day off work on Friday, “They said there’s not much work today,” and was gone on Saturday morning, before I (or Yong) had got up to say goodbye.  I shed a (metaphorical) tear at her absence and carried on with exam revision.  Now I reflect… or I am reflecting.  She might not ever come back, and I never really said goodbye.

Then Yong left.  After that it was just Gloris and I, and then just I at night.  I think it’s interesting to think that I like people being around.  I like business, chatter, liveliness.  I like hyperactivity, sound, music.  I need quiet to study, though.  So that doesn’t really make sense… but maybe that’s just because I like concentrating…  but then… whenever the stove fan is turned on, it makes that constant whirr…rrr….whirr… then when it turns off, I almost feel something in my chest, as if something is suddenly gone and there’s a hole in my chest.  I can really feel it, physically.  It’s really strange - I feel the physical absence of sound.  I might try next time to turn the fan back on and see if that hole fills up.  It almost helps me to concentrate, THAT sound.  It’s like white noise… letting me block out other things, so there’s no distinct things I can subconsciously process.  So I can’t study when people are talking around me.  But it’s sad when they’re gone.

Take now, for instance.  Gloris and two friends in the house, walking around, watching a movie, laughing.  One’s using a laptop and chatting to her boyfriend while the other and Gloris are sitting/lying on the couch, heads cocked, blue/blue/white wool blanket on top, watching Casino Royale.  Their presence is energy in the room.

Well… at least it was a long paragraph.

Well all my exams are finally over, yay, so I’m going to be relaxing over the next few days, hopefully everyone’s exams are going/gone well. I know have three weeks of holidays and so I’m going to do things that I should have been doing for ages. I’m going to finish off a collection of games that I have to finish. I’m also going to hang out with friends that I haven’t caught up with in ages. I have some beers that need to be drunk as well. Oh well I guess it’s going to be a fun three weeks then. I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays.