Critical Mass

 

A lot of people will have heard this term before – ‘critical mass’.  Normally, it refers to the amount of fissile or fissionable material required to sustain a chain reaction in a nuclear reactor.  In myself, however, it refers to fat.  I have reached a critical mass – and I dare not go further.

I would also like to augment the above definition to – “the amount of lipid or saturated fuels required for doctor007 to have a meltdown of nuclear proportions.”

‘Oh god,’ you’re thinking, ‘is he going to bitch and moan about being fat, seriously?’  Well, rest assured, I most certainly am.  However, I have resumed running, so it assuages my guilt, at least.  It’s strange, because as I was kicking RM’s arse at a 100m sprint (haha, that’s right RM – cry.), I looked around at the campus and slowed to a walk.  It was night, very cold to those with a normal heart rate, but refreshing to me.  The lights of the campus seemed brighter and sharper from the darkened track and everything seemed alive in the wind.  It was awesome, and I was on the point of telling myself that I had to stop being so dramatic and sentimental about such things when RM said, “I don’t know why we ever stopped running.  This is amazing, I love feeling like this.”  She gestured to the campus around us, and said how beautiful the clinical sciences building with it’s red lights was.

I could have made a moment out of it.  I mean, we were totally on the same page with this one.  There could have been a moment, and yet…

“God, RM.  You’re so bloody mushy!”

Hm.  Perhaps not.

 

Doctor007.

 

PS:  RM is my friend.  Her name is R____ M_______.  Hope that clears things up.

PPS:  You all see the clown face in the mushroom cloud, right?  It’s not just me…..right?

The Art of History

Every time you go to the doctor, he or she will be taking a medical history.  Only sometimes it doesn’t look like they’re doing anything but sitting there listening to you.  In reality, they are executing a strict protocol, manipulating you for information by asking you leading questions and occasionally allowing you to babble.  Sometimes you’ll flippantly mention something that seems incidental to you, but has just cemented your entire presentation in the eyes of the doctor.  Since you are completely unaware of the protocol and the flow of questioning, the doctor has to outmaneuver you to remain on track.

Why am I going on about doctors and medical histories?

For the past 6 (and possibly even more) weeks, we’ve been learning how to take a medical history in our Doctor & Patient sessions.  Apparently something like 90% of a diagnosis is made off the medical history alone, so it’s no wonder that this exercise will continue to be drilled into us for many more weeks to come.

In our sessions, we are divided into ‘doctors’ and ‘patients’, and the ‘doctors’ prepare themselves for questioning while the ‘patients’ are given a sheet of responses to give.  The ‘doctors’ introduce themselves, and begin questioning the ‘patients’ as though they had come to see them for the first time.  Of course there’s a bit of silliness involved: “Do you use any illicit or recreational drugs” to which the reply will always be something in the vein of “No doctor, just some meth with my grandkids every now and then.”

After the questioning is finished, we must present our patient to the class, and this can sometimes be a tedious process as the class shares three cases and ‘oh – haven’t we heard this one already?’  After the presentation (which you rocked out), the only real doctor in the room will nod and say: “And what was his occupation?”

You stare blankly and of course that immediately tells everyone that you don’t know, because you didn’t ask.  You admit this to the group and think to yourself: “thank god I didn’t forget to ask about allergies or something,” when the real doctor says: “your patient works in a nuclear power plant.”

Shit.  Fuck.  Of course, he couldn’t have been a bricklayer.

Thankfully this is a theoretical session and I’m supposed to get it wrong (though getting it right sometimes might be nice), but here’s what we look for when questioning a patient, so you can give us newbies a bit of a hand…

Missense

Those of us who make studying a profession – nay – an art, will know how unpredictable the study session can be.  On a good night, you can stay focussed for hours at a time, while still managing to have a laugh with friends, sharing some food, tunes and stories.

Other nights are a complete loss, and tonight is one of those nights. 

So far the topics of conversation between myself and BPMS have been:

• robbing the asian students for coke zero money
• who’s housemate to ring and wake up ‘accidentally’
• trying to stab someone with a 30.5G needle (hair thin)
• how to plant 5¢ pieces in order to ‘grow’ them into $2 coins
• how to use asian languages against asians (thanks KoreanFriend, you were very helpful)
• staging a ‘robbery’ at one of our houses in order to steal coke zero from a roommate, and
• my adoption (I was never adopted).

Suffice to say, this ’study session’ was a complete write-off.  However, it never hurts to have a bit of fun, right? 
Our geriatric patients have all the time in the world to wait for us to begin working on their cases.

The Problem is Choice

 

So my mate over at www.puddle.wordpress.com has just jumped on the specialties bandwagon, and being a shameless drone myself, I thought I’d follow suit!

That, and I’m also interested to see what medical specialties I’m interested in, because to be honest I’ve not given it too much thought beyond ’surgery’, but here goes…

Into the Fire

 

One year to this day has passed since I left the Student Doctor Network to start One Version of Things.  I’ve used this blog to satisfy myself alone, and hopefully it’s provided you at worst a distraction, and a good read at best.

The usual thing to say is “this has been an amazing year,” or “my life has changed so much.”  As cliched as it may be, it’s also the simple truth.  A lot has happened in the past year; I am not the same person I was on the 8th of April in 2007.  I’m not going to bore you with a blow-by-blow of everything as it is all available for you to read up on in the archives.  What I will say is that I can get a sense of my story here so far and I realised that I’ve mostly struggled to find my place, but I’ve had a lot of fun doing it.

As usual, things are set to change, both in my real life and in this life. 
The entry titles for each post will no longer be song names (this is the last), basically because I can’t be bothered.
And I’m going ‘annonymous.’
By that, I mean that I will slowly phase out all references to my name and the university that I’m currently attending.  I’m not completely committed to shrinking into the shadows, and it doesn’t sit well with me.  However, I must grow up and realise that there will be information here that is somewhat confidential.

Classes are supposedly kicking up a notch after next week’s break, and we’ll finally begin the ‘real medicine’.

Oh how I’m looking forward to that.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

A.

 

Thirteen Senses