The Last Semester of Med Sci

Posted by westenra at December 18th, 2008

So, the final semester of my undergraduate days as a Med Sci student was fraught with nothing short of chaos, turmoil and mayhem. Every scheduled appointment and due dates of assignments, I automatically calculated in my mind in reference to my med interview day. Paranoia? Only a mild case, perhaps.

 

I felt like I’d taken on 5 subjects instead of 4 – each commute to and from uni was filled with reading up on the legalities involved in medical scenarios and a variety of opinions in relation to controversial ethical topics. I found this gave me an invaluable framework from which to determine where my own sentiments lay.

 

In amongst my interview preparation, I was occupied by my uni subjects – a combination of neuroscience, musculoskeletal anatomy and psychology, which mercifully presented a light assessment load during the semester (even if that did exacerbate the pressure during the final exams!). Taking part in a research project for neuroscience allowed me to appreciate just how much time is required to achieve quality lab data – particularly with all the unexpected technical glitches and the refinement of newly developed lab techniques.

 

Musculoskeletal anatomy I chose for the invaluable help it would provide in Block 2 of the GMP, if I were fortunate enough to gain entry. This was the motivating thought I had to keep repeating to myself during prac classes as I stared, dismayed, at cadavers whose muscles appeared as an indeterminate conglomeration of nothingness. Despite the neat, concise muscular delineations of anatomical drawings, I found the reality of anatomy was somewhat different – and the sheer variation from person to person did not aid in my discriminatory confidence.

 

And so the interview arrived during the mid-semester break on a reasonably warm October day. I was clad in most original clothing – a black suit, with white shirt. Suddenly, when looking at myself in the mirror, all my insecurities came to the fore… was I too achingly conventional? Did my appearance lack credibility? Could I see myself as a doctor? I’d imagined it so many times, re-enacting that moment when the rejection email would arrive, I’d virtually convinced myself that this year wasn’t to be my year. The student helpers on the day did their best to assuage any fears amongst the interviewees – yet nothing could ease the sheer panic within me.

 

There were eight, seven minute scenarios with two minute breaks in between as the markers filled in their comments. I found that each of the seven minute intervals went by as a blur – certainly much faster than my practices at home with a cooking timer! By the time I struggled to open the fiercely resistant door to the interview room, exchanged greetings with the interviewer and skimmed through the scenario presented to me, I felt there was barely any time left to discuss the issues of the scenario in any adequate depth. Sometimes the questions were up to 10 lines long and the words started to swim before my eyes – I was incredibly worried I’d forget some pertinent detail of the scenario – was very difficult to absorb it all in the short time limit. I cut myself short on my discussion to allow the interviewers to ask the allocated prompt questions – questions heavily based on the marking criteria. There were times when the interviewer would ask prompt questions on information I thought I had already covered – this truly plagued me, since I knew they were trained to skip questions if the content had been previously addressed by the candidate. Had I not covered the content sufficiently? Were they looking for me to elaborate? In most cases I ended up repeating the points I had previously stated, worrying that I had failed to appropriately address the main consideration of the question.

 

I tried not be concerned with the facial expressions of the interviewers before me. I heard many fellow interviewees being distracted by the cold nature of some of their interviewers – yet I also found the overtly friendly interviewers to be greatly distracting. Were they simply smiling and nodding encouragement to all candidates regardless of their interview performance? The most helpful skill in an interview is to be able to focus totally on one’s words without looking to external sources for objective validation. Easier said than done though, it seems.  

 

In the wake of the interview came much deconstruction of my performance – a very soul-destroying process, I might add! I started looking into my musculoskeletal notes in the lead-up to end of semester exams. Thankfully, both neuroscience examinations were open-book and since I had been keeping (reasonably) up-to-date with the week-to-week readings, the main worry I had for the exams was that the essay questions might be based on an obscure tangent of the coursework we covered. My psychology studies did not begin in earnest until this point – the similarity between this and neuroscience proving to be my saviour.

 

The wait for med offers dragged on for a month. On the first day of Stuvac suddenly news came at 3pm that the first batch of offers had been sent out. By 3.15pm my inbox remained empty. By 3.30pm my inbox was still forlorn and empty, despite my frantic refreshing of the page. 3.45pm came and went and I started to feel the disappointment flood inside me. I thought of all the time and effort I had put into this – the Christmas holidays spent in GAMSAT preparation and all the time devoted to interview scenarios. My interview performance had been the best I could’ve reasonably expected of myself – I knew I would inevitably make some statements that I would later regret or perhaps I’d misinterpret a question in the heat of the moment (both of which I did). But I felt that I couldn’t pinpoint any major misgivings in my interview approach. If I had the opportunity I would’ve ironed out a few awkward pauses on the day and expressed myself more articulately in places but seeing a rejection email in my inbox would’ve meant immense disappointment – and facing the horrible self-doubt and uncertainty of not knowing specifically what led to my rejection.

 

Finally at 4pm my offer email came through. Seeing the words “USyd Provisional Offer” in the subject line of the email was so incredibly gratifying after pinning my hopes on this moment for the 3 years of my undergraduate degree. Needless to say, it took quite a number of hours for the news to sink in and also to return to study mode. Yet despite the excitement of that Monday, by Thursday celebrations came to an abrupt close. Only 3 days after my acceptance into Med School, my grandfather suffered a stroke and became critically ill. By the following Saturday, he had passed away. The funeral was held 2 days before the commencement of my end-of-semester exams. With all that was going on around me, I just fervently hoped that I’d have the strength to pull through the exams. In some ways, I found studying has a numbing power against emotion. Thankfully, I passed.

 I hope next year proves to be one of contentment, that I have found where I want to be and that all the painstaking waiting of 2008 will be vindicated. Surviving the arduous waiting game that is med school application certainly does teach one patience – good things do ultimately come to those who wait.   

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The Aftermath of 1st Semester, 3rd Year

Posted by westenra at July 6th, 2008



I’d have to say this semester has been one of the most off-beat, strangest, protracted, agonisingly long, anti-social 13 week periods of my uni career to date. I didn’t realise how accustomed I was to being in the same subjects, with the same people and having exactly the same timetable day in day out last year. But the first semester of this year proved to be somewhat different – returning to subjects filled with a mix of science/med science/nutrition students and having lots of independent free time which was subsequently spent in the library… undertaking scholastic… pursuits, yes.
 
While my timetable varied from week to week (mainly due to different timetabling of Neuroscience anatomy tutorials and practical sessions) I averaged just under 20 hours/week, which allowed me some valuable study time at home. Being able to take on Psychology as a first-year elective was something I really enjoyed this semester – the assessment schedule wasn’t overbearing (which I was particularly grateful for, given the heavy load of my other subjects) and it allowed me to flex my writing muscles in its essay component – which I’ve been sorely missing since the HSC. My other subject choice of Toxicology turned out to be rather intensive – with fortnightly quizzes. This meant that every second weekend was devoted to Pharmacology study, largely at the expense of my other subjects – but I found that by the end of semester I was (on the whole) conceptually up to date with at least one subject – a feeling I haven’t been accustomed to in a very long time.
 
The major defining factor of this semester was the release of GAMSAT results. Not having risen to the GAMSAT challenge in the penultimate year of my degree, I was reticent about finding out my marks to say the least – given that I didn’t have any marks from last year to cover me if 2008 wasn’t my lucky GAMSAT year. So the long wait ended on 13th May (seems like years ago now!), and to my surprise ACER had brought me some happy news (unlike the disappointment of UMAT 3 years ago). The next few tasks involved printing off confirmation emails, collecting my academic transcripts and calculating my GPA before I mailed off my application – a very nerve-racking process that was hastily completed one maniacal Tuesday in the ten minutes before I had to be at work.
 
I was pleased with my results, but I’m continually being reminded of those who have failed to gain entry on marks the same as my own. The interview seems to be morphing in an increasingly insurmountable barrier in my mind – mainly due to my lack of awareness as to the exact expectations and my tendency to self-evaluate to a crippling extent which renders me silent at critical times. The idea of having to do a role-play particularly sends me into paroxysms of fear – hypothetical situations being far from my strength. I guess if my Med application falls through this year, I will take on Honours next year. I have heard from various sources that the Honours workload is quite intensive – with daily hours from 9-5, but frequently exceeding that. Only time will tell.
 
The end of this semester was marked by a neurotic textbook-speed-reading, hyperventilation-wrought, sleepless stint of Stuvac followed by an onslaught of 6 exams – 4 for Neuroscience (2 of both theory and practical each focusing on either sensory systems or motor units), Toxicology and Psychology. As far as exam format, I was presented with both extremes of the scale – with Psychology consisting solely of multiple choice questions and Toxicology being solely short-answer style questions. Toxicology was especially anxiety-riddled for me due to the highly specific marking criteria encountered in the quizzes throughout the semester – hopefully the markers will be more lenient in the final exam given the significant amount of content covered.
 
Next semester’s timetable looks to be only 14 hours/week – which is incredibly promising – especially with the idea of an entire day free, a privilege of second year I largely took for granted. In a way, it almost feels like year twelve again as I enter the last semester of my undergraduate degree, with the impending prospect of change, of interviews and of potentially entering another course. I’m just dearly hoping that the stars align in my favour. 

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Reflections on GAMSAT

Posted by westenra at March 17th, 2008

It was to be a day of extreme demand to cognitive processes, of unending masses of text and of sheer terror as the clock marched on impatiently – unwilling to pause for the feeble winces of mortified Gamsatters.
 
Suffice to say I should’ve heeded the uncanny foreboding of my temperamental GPS, when it repeatedly warned to “do a U-turn at the first possible opportunity” every 500m leading to the test venue, despite the car travelling in the right direction.
 
So the ordeal began at 5.30am. In no way different to my usual Uni routine which proved marvellous training for such scandalously early wake-ups. After managing to clinch a record 7 hours of sleep, I found myself in the gloomy milieu of an exam hall – an endemic atmosphere of despair unabated by the one measly ray of sunshine streaming through the window. As fortune would dictate, by the end of the day the celestial movements of the earth relative to the sun ensured I had more than my share of quantal light energy. It felt like 40°C.
 
A one hour wait, involving repeated exchange of dismayed glances with the USyders in my vicinity, led me to section 1. It was unexpectedly demanding. The passages of text towards the end were incredibly long, convolutedly philosophical and remained frustratingly inaccessible despite 5 re-reads
– monism,
dualism,
parallelism,
cause and effect relationship of physical and mental states…
- merely a few of the terms and their definitions that had to be internalised in a matter of minutes from a ~1000 word dissertation.
 
I felt as though I’d concentrated far too much on the first 10 questions in a vain attempt to glean their deeper meaning… cue: loss of planned schedule. But thankfully a combination of adrenaline and sheer panic brought me to my senses. I literally finished with one minute to spare (no hyperbole).
 
[Intermission of invigilators collecting papers…]
 
And onto Section 2… There was such an indescribable feeling of inner relief when I saw the topics. The first was on past/present/future and the second dealt with the relationship between knowledge and wisdom. My essays vehemently disagreed with both quotes. What can I say? Sitting in the midst of an examination hall wasn’t exactly conducive to being agreeable. Neither was observing the person sitting to my right who’d completed 3 full pages within 20 minutes.
 
[Intermission of Lunch Break, much socialising AND the incredible discovery of sensor-triggered automatic liquid soap dispensers in the bathrooms – was such an exquisite novelty I insisted on washing my hands twice.]
 
Section 3. The piece de resistance. At this point my neurons were being consistently frazzled by sunlight. I’ve now only been left with vague recollections – a veritable blur –
 
of questions on the role of hormones in bug development,  
of the difference in half-life between drug concentrations in alcoholics and non-alcoholics,  
of differing methods of calculating oxidation numbers,  
of the pineal gland and the effect of light on the functioning of rat ovaries,  
of calculating radiation doses and acceleration of a runner 
of organic chem reaction patterns 
of reaction rate equations 
of ventricular volume and pressure
 
… and that list does no justice to the fear reliving all that instils in me… I’m not sure I could say how many questions I had to make an (un)educated guess on due to time constraints…
 
So now I have a very long two month wait ahead of me for the first (and hopefully not last for this year) moment of truth…
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The USyd Medical Science blog is in no way affiliated with Sydney University or the USyd Science Faculty and the views held by this blogger are not shared by Sydney University.

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Reflections on Second Year 2007

Posted by westenra at January 9th, 2008

Academically, 2007 proved to be far more enjoyable than first year Med Sci. I found the subject content more varied, more integrative and far more medically related.
 
First semester was particularly interesting for me, with a strong focus on physiology and anatomy that helped to concurrently supplement knowledge on body and organ systems. Assessments throughout the semester were predominantly in the form of reports and intermittent quizzes (the reports I found particularly useful in consolidating knowledge and concepts covered in pracs). At times, one can begin to feel somewhat disconcerted at inability to follow the aim/methodology of different sections in the prac outline (eg. especially when dealing with the electrophysiology of the nerve), but having to compile reports helps to clarify the reasons behind methods of testing various hypotheses.
 
Some of the more memorable prac sessions included observing the effects of various drugs on guinea pig ileum (the first time I’d ever seen a small critter’s intestine contract so dramatically), testing the effect of codeine on our sensitivity to submerging one’s entire arm in ice-cold water (not a pleasant experience, I can assure you) and measuring each other’s forced expiratory volume and systolic and diastolic blood pressures (how I managed to score a blood pressure in the normal range when I only submit to the idea of exercise once every five years utterly baffles me).
 
Second semester predominantly concentrated on the subjects of microbiology, immunology and there was a significant undercurrent of endocrinology in our study of the digestive and reproductive systems (necessitating a lot of brain-bending recollection of negative and positive feedback systems). Microbiology offered us the opportunity of examining our own individual microflora (most notably from inside the nose and adjacent to the tonsils). After incubation, my particular plates ended up being rather deficient in bacterial growth, which can only mean one of three things – (a.) I’m a clean individual, (b.) my agar plate streaking technique is inadequate or (c.) something went wrong in the incubation process. My unbiased powers of deduction tell me the reason has to be (a.). At least, it’s what I hope.
 
In addition, through our lectures on diabetes and related pracs, we were fortunate enough to be able to monitor our urine and blood glucose levels after various sugar loads. Seeing the daunted expressions of each group’s volunteer, I had to thank my rigid advocacy of eating breakfast – since I hadn’t fasted, I couldn’t take part in any analysis of my own data. But now that I’ve realised the experience wasn’t at all traumatic, I’d consider volunteering next time – if not to further my academic understanding of the workings of my body, then for the appetising assortment of bread, yoghurt and soft-drink that were the experimental carbohydrate/sugarloads.  
 
In short, second year Med Sci was strikingly different to the generic sciences of first year. It opened my eyes to just how insurmountable the knowledge base of the medical sciences really is and thus gave me a heightened sense of respect for medical research that is being, and will continue to be undertaken. It is only by constantly seeking new knowledge that we can advance science and technology to unravel life’s many mysteries and progress in our understanding of the phenomenon of the human body.
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The USyd Medical Science blog is in no way affiliated with Sydney University or the USyd Science Faculty and the views held by this blogger are not shared by Sydney University.

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Hello world!

Posted by westenra at December 8th, 2007

Hello world!

(This opening was also eloquently used in the generic first blog entry provided by the blog software. I was inspired to use it due to my unimaginative self. Alas, uni has woefully withered my brain. Forgive me.)

I’m not sure how far the reaches of my readership will span, but again forgive me for having delusions of grandeur.

Prologue: The 14th November 2007 signalled the conclusion of my Second Year of Medical Science and thus completing 2/3 of my first undergraduate degree.

I’ve had aspirations of studying Medicine since Year 10, but up until Year 12 I found myself considering many other options and career paths (among them Commerce/Law – a field diametrically contrasted with Med). Ultimately, I found Med was a discipline that interested me more than any other, would provide me with something to aim for and would challenge me. 

After an unsuccessful attempt at Undergraduate Med Entry, Med Science at USyd with the aim of graduate entry was my next preference.

First Year Impressions: My HSC subjects had consisted of an even mix of humanities and the sciences. So entering a course with completely science-oriented subjects was difficult to contend with – especially with the long hours 28 + hours/week, gruelling 4 day/week 8am starts and 1/8 of my day being devoted to travel to and from uni.

First year met with a lot of questioning the wisdom of choosing Medical Science. To some extent, it was triggered by self-doubt and impatience at having to wait another two…three… possibly more years for setting the wheels of graduate entry in motion.

One of the drawbacks of first year was the lack of medically oriented subjects. The prospect of having to delve into physics (a subject that I’d been unwilling to even contemplate during high school or even touch with a ten-foot pole) was daunting. Until I discovered that the content and conceptual emphasis of the uni chemistry syllabus was so far removed from that of the HSC that I began to realise chemistry would be equally overwhelming. 

What did appeal to me about Med Sci at USyd was the clearly defined structure in First Year which ensured adequate preparation for content assessed in GAMSAT. Having the subjects dictated also meant that the clueless naïve Year 12 graduate I once was – a girl incapable of decision-making, did not have to agonise over subject choices.

Overall, my favourite subject of first year was Molecular Biology in second semester. A mixture of both biology (but without the ecology part) and chemistry (but without the inordinate number of equations), it was a lot of work but I found it the most rewarding of all the subjects. Despite the laborious 5 hour pracs every fortnight, I now happily reflect on those times– and the afternoons of taking relaxing breaks while waiting for biochemical reactions to take place and then returning to take spec readings.

The end of first year saw me very happy to say goodbye to maths. I’d enjoyed maths throughout high-school, yet uni maths (with the exception of Integral Calculus) didn’t take kindly to me.

I was ready for a change of subjects, and to delve into physiology, anatomy, histology, immunology and pathology of 2nd year.

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The USyd Medical Science blog is in no way affiliated with Sydney University or the USyd Science Faculty and the views held by this blogger are not shared by Sydney University.
 

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