Semester 12

This will be my final semester at Melbourne. There will be three rotations during this semester (Medicine, General Practice and Surgery). Each rotation will be 5 weeks and at the end of 15 weeks, there will be 10 OSCE stations and 1 long case.

I am looking forward for this semester since it means that my 6 years of studying in Melbourne will end very soon. At the same time, I am feeling a bit anxious knowing that I will be working as a doctor in less than 6 months time. This will be my transition point from being a student to someone who will be looking after many sick people.

For GP rotation, we were instructed to choose 10 places that we would like to go and at least 3 of them have to be rural places. For this rotation, I was hoping to get somewhere close to home. Unfortunately, I got rural place for my GP rotation. It is so far that I don't think I would be able to return home every week. Hopefully, there will be internet access over there.

My first rotation will be medical rotation and it starts tomorrow. Despite being a final year student, I still believe that there are so many things that I didn't know and I am expecting a busy semester ahead. Hopefully I can survive this semester.

p/s: It is interesting to read what I have predicted 5 years ago. Read future predictions (In Malay)

Winter Holiday

I haven't been updating this blog regularly. Perhaps I am having writer's block which is perpetuated by the cold temperature of winter season. This condition might be precipitated by not having much interesting activities to be written on the blog. However, I believe there are few protective factors that will protect me from giving up blogging.

p/s: The paragraph above was written in the format of formulating a psychiatry history. Usually, you need to mention 4P (Predisposing, Precipitating, Perpetuating and Protective factors) at the end of your presentation

Swine Flu (H1N1) in Melbourne

In response to one of my commenters, I will try my best to illustrate what is happening in Melbourne regarding to the famous swine flu.

Up to 2nd July 2009, there have been 1691 cases in Victoria out of a total of 4568 cases in the whole Australia. Melbourne has among the highest swine flu cases per capita in the world.

However, this does mean that there is a widespread panic among people living here. Despite there were many school closed down and intensive media coverage, there were not many deaths associated with swine flu.

You should know that swine flu is not a dangerous disease. It is known to be extremely contagious but it is less likely to kill you. The normal seasonal influenza kills more people than the current swine flu.

Right now, I'm glad that the media has shifted their attention from swine flu and focus more on the death of an artist .

A frustating OSCE

I finished my exam yesterday. One of the main reasons I took a day to write about OSCE were that those OSCE were quite frustating.

There were 5 OSCE stations.

1. Take history from patient with symptoms of depression.
2. Take history from patient with bulimia nervosa. Describe the management.
3. Elderly women with Colles' fracture. Describe your findings in clinical examination and x-rays. Management of Colles' fracture.
4. Patient with advanced lung cancer, want to die at home. Has several issues. Medication, feeding, EPOA.
5. Elderly patient with side effects of medications (MS Contin and Naprosyn).
   

The first station I had, was the depressive patient. I had to exclude whether this patient has Major Depression. I almost forgot all the symptoms of depression due to anxiety. Fortunately, I'm able to remember few of the symptoms before the bell rang.

Bulimia nervosa again. This disorder has been featured in the previous written exams and I'm not sure why the medical faculty is so interested in asking medical students about eating disorders. During this station, I'm not sure what else to ask after eliciting all the DSM IV criteria for bulimia nervosa.

Colles' fracture. Hmm, I'm stumbled quite a lot in this station. When the examiner asked me to do physical examination of the wrist, I'm not sure how to neuro exam of the hand, so I quickly do a random examination of the hand. Hopefully, I can get enough points in this station to pass the ED station.

The last two OSCE stations were quite a puzzle. I'm not sure what else to say in patient with palliative care needs and not sure what are the side effects of those medication.

Overall , this semester which is made of RAPP (Rehabilitation, Aged Care, Palliative Care and Pyschiatry of Old Age), Rural rotation, Emergency Rotation and Psychiatry has been a frustating semester. Let us hope that all my friends and I could pass this semester exam.

p/s: Before the OSCE, we were given surveys for this semester to fill in. This was what I wrote for RAPP: The RAPP handbook is too painful to read.

Hopefully they will make significant improvement for RAPP :)