Sexy and I know it/ EOS 5

My End-of-Semester (EOS) 5 is in two days. 

Two. Days.

That's two and a half years spent in IMU accumulated in one exam. 

It's the last exam I'll ever take in IMU. 

It's the only obstacle standing between me and going to Liverpool.

Sigh.

I have the right to be melodramatic.

"Sexy and I know it."

That's the way I want to feel before I enter the exam hall: happy, positive, grateful that I've made it this far. 

Nothing short of a miracle, really. 

On a side note, I'm so grateful to have such amazing friends who keep me sane and grounded and positive despite the ginormous exam cloud hanging over everyone's heads. I just hope we all make it through. :)

Also, I'm so appreciative of how quickly my panic mode fades away. Thanks, God. 

The worse thing you can do now is panic. 

Ohhhh

Sleeping and TurbinatesThe turbinates are important for the sleep mechanism. When you sleep, you are supposed to turn some 50 times a night. This prevents you from getting pressure sores. What happens is that you sleep on the right side, with the right turbinate down. After a time, this right turbinate fills up with fluid, and expands so that it pushes against the septum in the mid line and this makes you turn on the left side until that side fills up and turns you again. This is why when you sleep cramped, where you can't turn, you get achey muscles and bed sores.

Was reading up for tomorrow's session with my ENT surgeon, Dr. Khoo when I came across this. 

This is one of those things that makes you go "Ohhhhhhh." 

haha well, for me anyway.

Anyway, totally embarrassed myself today sigh. 

But I'm definitely learning something from him so that's good. 

Saw him draining an abscess from a TB gland = GROSS.

He just sliced a small incision and basically, started 'gorek-ing' the crap out of that lump.

Arghh.. 

we were talking earlier and he said that medical students have to choose between two categories when they want to pick a speciality, 

namely to choose the medical aspect of medicine or the surgical aspect of it. 

I think I'm definitely more of a medical person, like a GP or physician. 

Argh then he sutured up the incision. 

I don't know what's with me but, 

I never liked the idea of stitching skin up together. 

Argh.

 What kinda pathetic medical student I am uh? 

Hmm.

im a grown up yall

okay so i lied. I swiped the dustmites and took off again. Ahhh 

but I have a good reason. I'm coming towards the end of another week attached to Normah Hospital in Kuching.

 For my first week, I was attached to one of the two cardiologists there, Dr. Peter Wong, whose actually really good friends with my dad. 

So I think I had that advantage in the sense, he felt was awkward as I did when we spoke for the first couple of times.

 Haha I was always just walking through conversations between my dad and him, with the typical "Hi Uncle", "Bye Uncle" and smile politely as I scurry off to watch the last few minutes of Bones.

So he doesn't know me per say, but I guess he recognizes my face.

 So it was a bit of a shock when I introduced myself to him on the first day, as he wasn't even informed of the arrangement. 

Haha but he was nice and let me tag along behind him like a lost puppy. 

It.Was. Exhausting.

Few things I learnt so far being attached to Normah:
1) No one walks. Everyone either runs (ie. emergency) or walks -no sorry, more like- breezes across the floor. I seriously had some difficulty keeping up with him on the first few days. At the end of the day, my feet were really really sore from all the prepping for a marathon walking.

2) Don't try to be pretty and match your outfit with brand new shoes which you just bought from the UK. My feet were so sore and one time, I felt this slight sting on my left foot and thought it was a mosquito sucking my lifesource so I used my other foot to scratch it. I looked down and saw a small flab of skin hanging off my foot -.- The edges of my shoes had rubbed the top of my foot raw, so the skin was really fragile. -.-

3) If you thought of being like the doctors of Grey's Anatomy, where when it's lunchtime, everyone gathers around the cafeteria and gossip about their cases, think again. I've only managed to talk to Eric once throughout the whole two weeks because his doc was on the phone and I couldn't locate mine lol. All the doctors have different schedules and the number of patients that come for their consultation varies so it's usually only when there's nobody left to inspect, that they are reminded of the poor deadbeat medical students slowly staggering behind them. Haha I'm exaggerating (just a tad) but Dr.Love (my cardio) usually gave breaks whenever he remembered it but my current doc (Dr. Gabriel Teo - internal med) is on the dot about lunch time. In fact, he gives me like 2-2.5 hour lunchbreaks (WOOHOOO) cause unlike Dr.Love, Dr. Teo does actually go out for lunch. (Dr. Love just munches on a piece of chocolate and a cup of sweet black coffee. When I was with him, I just skipped lunch)

4) The doctors in Normah are busy. Like my cardio guy comes in at like 7am ish to do his rounds, and leaves around 8pm ish at night. Which I find amazing cause one time, he made me stay till 7.30pm to witness a PCI he was doing. I nearly almost just fell off my chair cause I was so tired from the entire day of running around. But it was interesting, I'll have to say, seeing the guy's messed up coronary arteries on the angio.

5) Healthcare is EXPENSIVE! Know what's not? Dieting, making drastic lifestyle changes, exercising EARLY! The percentage of patients I've seen walk in who are diabetic, hypertensive, or have some sort of health-related problem caused by their own doings, is astonishing. It's really bad the stats. Being diabetic already opens up so many dangerous health risk doors, like it increases your tendency of getting cardiac risks like CAD. Your cholesterol levels are so important. In percutaneous coronary intervention, one stent costs rm7-8k whereas ballooning costs about rm3-4. This patient had to have FOUR stents and TWO balloonings just in his LEFT coronary artery. His right side is messed up as well but the procedure would have taken too long and it was already 5pm so the doc scheduled it for a latter date as he didn't want to be weary from the estimated 4-5 hour procedure. And the guy is only 40+ years old, his heart is already so messed up. Ahh

6) I need to learn more of the local languages in East Malaysia. I only know Foochow, English, BM, and vague amounts of Hokkien, Mandarin. While being with Dr. Teo, half of his patients spoke Hokkien which I had no idea what they were saying so I just idly stood there as the doc replied them and consulted them. I feel so helpless, not being able to speak the language cause it's important to gauge the information from them.

7) Normah is COLD! Always forget to bring my cardigan. Argh.

Hmm, that's about all I can think of, lying in this really uncomfortable position on my bed, blogging. 

Haha well tomorrow's another day. 

But thankfully, Dr. Teo said it's only a half day tomorrow so I'm off by lunch.

 WOOHOOO! 

I'm such a bum, after a week with Dr. Wong, I'm so lazy to go to work now. 

Ah, I feel like such a grown up now. 

Hee :)

End of a long day.

Sitting on a bench outside the basketball court, observing my surroundings.
The first thing that comes to my mind is, how colorful the world is.
From the bright greens leaves, the beige apartments of Savannah, the dull & slightly depressing colors of vista B, to the cool light blue afternoon sky.

You can't help feeling a sense of peace after a good couple of breaths of fresh air. 

I just finished my PBL session and it was.. a wake up call, to say the least.
So many of us are so used to taking advantage of what's been given to us.
We always don't see the bigger picture, we're all too preoccupied with our own needs & wants.
For example, I don't know how many people take PBL seriously,
as a platform to connect all our anatomy, physiology, epidemiology with pathology knowledge that we've learn from lectures.

Well, I certainly didn't.
I liked PBL in the sense that I could meet & get to know more of my batchmates.
 And yeah it stimulates us to think and work on our communicational skills but i guess somewhere in between, I forgot all that. 

PBL became more like a burden, a chore that I had to do, otherwise there'll be severe repercussions.
I think I stopped learning somewhere.
But recently, with the change of a new facilitator, one who really knows how to grind & drill us.
The first two facilitators we had in this semester were good but they weren't as particular as my current one. The third facilitator was more like part of the room's furniture & only spoke when we were discussing the change in schedules.

Ahh it's been a long day.
Several long days actually.
If I'm free, I'll share about my last CSU experience where a whole group of us got skewered by Dr. Jac. 

Yes, it's been a long day.

Thank God for the weekend.

But today had its perks too :)

vote for me? :)

hey so I'm running for SRC President of IMU. SRC stands for Student Representative Council which is basically the student government. Competition is pretty fierce this year as there are 3 other candidates for the President post. Last year's election definitely pales in comparison, since every post had only one candidate except for the VP of Medicine, which had two or three. 

I won't go into detail about why I'm running now cause I really need to catch up on my studying. But my next post will be about it, for sure. :)

So, yes! It's going to be exciting, tiring, nerve-wrecking, headache-causing couple of weeks. Campaigning starts on Monday but I'll be flying back to my hometown till Friday. So that leaves me with only ONE week to campaign and convince the different batches to vote for me. And on Friday, I have a ton of stuff to do, including being intensely interviewed by the current SRC council members and then, somehow I have to find a way to get to church for an equally important meeting at 8pm. So flying back to KL at 3pm, going to be drilled by intimidating experts at 6pm, and church meeting at 8pm. Hmm

Piece of cake. Right? 

:) Hope everyone's having a great day.

that must have been some kiss

This headlining article title is something you never thought you would ever see:

"Shy girl, 18, shares first kiss with boyfriend... then collapses and dies from rare heart condition"

Either the boy is a Death Eater or he's a really really really amazing kisser.

Poor guy, probably traumatized for life now. Wonder if he'll ever be able to kiss someone the same without his heart skipping a beat. (not in romantic sense, but in the omg-am-i-gonna-kill-her-too-shit-shit-shit-please-don't-die-whew sense)

Apparently, she has a rare heart condition called Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome (SADS). I thought it sounded very strange, to good to be true sort of way, so I googled it up. And it's a real disease.

"Sudden arrhythmia death syndromes (SADS) are genetic heart conditions that can cause sudden death in young, apparently healthy people. (the girl was said to be very athletic and joined numerous sporty activities.) These conditions can be treated and deaths can be prevented.

Warning Signs: family history of unexpected, unexplained sudden death under age 40; fainting or seizure during exercise, excitement or startle; consistent or unusual chest pain &/or shortness of breath during exercise."

Wrongdiagnosis.com had this to say about SADS:

"A genetic heart disorder characterized by an abnormal heart rhythm which can result in sudden death in otherwise healthy people. It is caused by a genetic defect which affects the hearts electrical activity. Examples of disorders that can cause lethal heart rhythm abnormalities are Long QT syndrome, Brugada syndrome, certain drugs, idiopathic ventricular fibrillation and sodium channel disease."

Hmm, interesting. At least now if SADS ever turn up in PBL, I'll be able to not look completely daft :)

Clinic Visit to Cheras Baru

I think the clinic visits that IMU have, are really awesome. It never occurred to me how realistic medicine was, until today. You get several clinics like DBKL, Jinggang, Nilai, Dato Keramat and Cheras. My group were instructed to go to the Cheras Baru Clinic which happened to be the nearest. We got slightly lost halfway but thankfully, we managed to get to the right building. It was so small though. I felt a pang of sympathy for all the old patients who had to slowly climb up the steep steps to the top of the hill, to get to the clinic. There was another entrance where cars could enter but it was narrow and difficult to maneuverer.

I think it only hit me when an old man suddenly started conversing with me in Cantonese, while we were huddled outside the clinic, waiting for one of our group members. He was speaking quickly while pulling up his sleeve to show me this right arm. I was so stunned I couldn't speak at first, but I couldn't reply either as I only speak 3 languages, Cantonese not being one of them. It was after that when I realized that everything I had been studying was related to REAL life.

I mean, obviously, I know that medicine is about helping and treating people but because of the simulated patients that IMU has for all our clinical practice sessions, I sort of forgot the whole patient part. These were real people, with real illnesses and real symptoms. It was all so REAL.

Then, I felt terrified for a moment. Was I capable of taking their history? Was I qualified enough to even have the indecency to ask about a patient's condition?

Overall, it was a very good experience because I learnt lifelong lessons today. I learnt how to communicated with different people with different backgrounds, religions and races. I also realized how useful it was to be able to speak Mandarin fluently. I should definitely learn to converse in it fluently before I graduate. It's such an embarrassment to be a Chinese but not speak it, especially while studying abroad. People would definitely look to you if they need a translator and it's just really lame if you shake your head and say 'Sorry, I can't speak Mandarin.'

You know, my first patient was this middle aged woman who was lying down on a bed. Her left leg had a huge open wound where I could see blood and flesh. The nurses were changing the dressing. However, the woman only spoke Cantonese so she was telling Steph about what happened. According to her translations, she had been bitten by a mosquitoe and it got swollen a few days later. It got so bad, they had to operate on her leg. The most heart wrenching part of the day, was watching her face distort with pain as the nurses cleaned the wound and placed the gauze on it.

I felt such a yearning to help her but obviously, what could I do? I'm just a measly second year medical student which no qualifications whatsoever. It's really amazing, that few minutes made me really consider returning to Malaysia to work after I'm done with my studies. Just looking around the clinic which was overcrowded with people waiting for their turn, I just felt like helping them. There's no reason why someone should ever wait so long to get treated.

I just really felt like helping them, but I didn't know how.

Before we left, Kash had to take a picture. 

Off to Ampang's famous Yong Tau Foo 

 This was quite yummy though. Deep fried pork thingys

We ordered like 20+ cause we were hungry.

 No idea what this was. Some soup thingy with the same dumplings like thingys, just not in fried form.

Maybe it's a sarawakian thing but I didn't think it was that awesome

Our local photographer and guide. Haha

pray - JB

I just can't sleep tonight.
Knowing that things ain't right. - Justin Bieber


It has already been 15 days into the new year of 2011.
And things in uni are good. At least, now I feel like my lectures sort of feel more medical related.
In the beginning, in semester 1, we were learning about biochemistry, which is about as interesting as my toes.
We slaved through stuff like behavioral science which had stuff, what are the four types of memories? Or what is pain? It was torturous.
Let's not forget about pharmacodynamics and pharmackinetics, which I still have trouble understanding o.o
Community medicine was still not that bad, with stuff like how waste water was maintained in Malaysia and about maternal health etc.

BUT it still didn't feel medicine-ly enough. NOW, we're really doing stuff I feel like I can call myself a medical student. For instance, my last lecture on Friday was about the major arteries and veins in the upper limbs. The lecturer, Nilesh Kumar was good so it was a fairly okay lecture, though I did fall asleep a little in the beginning so I chewed gum.

Hm, so far this year, it doesn't feel any different. Pastor Jojo was talking about how we shouldn't be focusing on making it a great year, but a Godly one. Hmm, uni just ended with its second week. Life at the moment is good, typical university lifestyle.

Had the most interesting conversation with Pastor Tim the other night after LG. I'm still not used to a pastor, well, technically, head pastor, taking the time to hang out with the students in his church. And, he's a very busy man, I'm sure, what with his business and his ministry. I thoroughly enjoyed his humorous company and we all even went to mamak after at Steven's. The night was all laughter, well most of it at least. :) But it felt good. He gave me some really good advice which I'm praying will work.

So, so far, so good.

Exams are a pain

I have not left my house for 3 days...
I wake up way pass noon, watch tv, eat, tv, computer, tv, eat, computer, tv, eat, sleep at 4am or so.
I slept at 4 something last night cause I was busy reading Nicholas Spark's Safe Haven online. Got to love the internet.

For some unknown reason, well, maybe it's because I haven't been out in sunlight for a couple of days, but my nose is acting up again. Argh. I am so bleh. I don't do anything besides watching tv or movies or checking facebook. Argh. Wish I could do something more useful with my time. Hmm. Blogging seemed like the best idea, besides, drinking tea. Which I have. Been. Doing. For. Many Days. Now. My mum taught me the art of brewing the perfect cup of tea, the one you get at coffee shops, or even better. Still haven't mastered it completely but I'm getting there.

I've considered going back and reading my notes. To see if my answers in the exam, matched the ones in my notes. Hmm.. I felt kind of unprepared for my third paper. I felt confident on my first paper which was a MCQ and I got an A- if I'm not mistaken. I mean, judging by the number of mistakes I made. The second paper consisted of 24 SAQS and 60 MCQs. That one was alright, I guess. There was one whole page about water and sewage treatment which I, thankfully, had read up on last minute so I could do that. But I completely left out on my genetics and most of my comm med. Which, sadly, came out as well.

I should have really read up on genetics and comm med more detailedly. I absolutely detest genetics because I just don't get anything the notes says. I remember one question was, define recombinant DNA. The subsequent question was 'define recombinant DNA technology'. Haha it's almost funny now to imagine the look at my face or anyone else whom never touched that part of the notes whatsoever. I guess I felt alright about that paper because I could still come up with a lot of bullshit. I think I left two questions blank, basically because I run out of creative yet logical answers. There was another question asking about the services provided by primary healthcare system in Malaysia which completely left me dumbfounded. I made up some nonsense just to fill in the empty spaces and moved on.

Now, the third paper was the one that really killed me. It was the paper that really made me stand back and think, "Wow, gee I could really blow this." What's so special about the third paper is that, instead of sitting down for 2 hours cordially scribbling answers on a desk, we have stations. More specifically, we have 24 stations which contain graphs, pictures, tables, diagrams etc.

My first station was not that great but alright as well. There was a picture of a blastocyst and arrows pointing at the inner and outer layer of it, and at the cavity inside. I had to name them, and I was kicking myself because I drew the small picture a few weeks ago and stuck it in my handy dandy notebook which never parted from me. I remembered vaguely the names and scribbled down what I could.

In 5 minutes, a buzzer ran and everyone had to stand up and move to the subsequent station which was only like one feet away. One of the things to know about me is, I do not work well under pressure. Add a 5 minute timer to the recipe, and I'm bound to burn whatever it is I'm suppose to make. I learnt this a long time ago, like when I was in Form 3 and in some sewing class. For the life of me, I couldn't get the stitches right and my teacher came over and yelled into my face, shouting obscenities (alright they weren't exactly obscenities but she was really angry and scary.. and evil.. and.. mean.. and no one liked her.. yeah..)

Instead of the light bulb switching on or whatever like in the movies, my brain kind of just shut down and my mind was a blank. I stopped working, stopped moving, maybe even stopped breathing for that few seconds that followed. I don't know how some people excel under pressure but I'm most certainly not of the same breed. All things considered, I'm the exact opposite actually.

Where was I? Oh yeah. The third paper was horrible and I came out really sad and a little depressed. After discussing the ordeal with my friends, I realized I made even the simplest of mistakes in the questions that I should have scored. That was as painful as stubbing my toes. For instance, (and I really can't emphasize how stupid this was) there was a picture of several viruses under the microscope and we were suppose to name them. Instead of the obvious answer which was rabies virus, I wrote down the family virus name of rabies which is rhabdovirius. Completely idiotic of me. I didn't bother rechecking cause I've seen that picture a thousand times and rabies is one of those special and distinctive viruses that with one glance at the microscopic picture, you'll know it was rabies.

Yet, the oh so brilliant one got it wrong. Fool. I'm annoyed. TV time. Bleh.

Cheers

P.S. on a totally unrelated topic whatsoever, this made me laugh.

whaat? first year? done? seriously?

Wow, time just flew right by me. A statement proven by my last post which is entitled 'week 4 of med school'. I have no idea what week it is now. I just know that my exams have ended. My-big-arse-important-exam-which-decides-whether-I-stay-in-med-school-or-get-kicked-out exam. Yeah, piece of cake.

Can't believe it's finally over. Now, all that's left is the torturous wait for the results on the 19th. Excellent. So now I'm back home, anxiously awaiting my destiny? Alright, that was a little melodramatic. But I am a wee bit anxious though. I'm pretty sure I'll be posting again on the 18th. Hmm.

Will post more about my first year some other time. Hate wordy posts. Well, to be fair, this isn't very wordy but the tv's calling my name.

Took this during a roadtrip to Ipoh.

Week 4 of med school

Today's lecture was about parasites. I think.

I had to get up waay earlier because I had a CSU session with the nurses.
And also, HY was spending the night so I knew not feeding her breakfast in the morning would be a big no no.

Haha today in CSU, we learnt how to do effective handwashing, how to properly put on and remove gloves and gowns, and how to inject syringes etc. The first half of it was pretty okay, a little dull because we were basically just watching the nurse teach us how to wash our hands the right way. There's like 6 steps lol.

Then we watched her wore gloves and the gown. I know from a third party, it seemed pretty pointless but I'm very sure if anyone was asked to demonstrate all the steps before the CSU session, no one would pass. But the process was made lighter and slightly more jovial with the nurses cracking jokes every now and then.
I liked the injecting part.

Since IMU doesn't have any cadavers, we had to practice injecting air into dummies. On a table was a part of person's buns, and we took turns finding the location at which we were to inject the medication. Thank God, I didn't go first because the girl next to me who did, got pretty roughed up by one of the nurses.
(I have issues with dealing with authority. Exactly like Dr. Arizona from GA :-))

For some reason, I felt super drained after the session. But we had two lectures back to back right after that, so I hurried over with KV. I noticed something odd about the gloves. When you took them off, they left strange white smooth powdery substance on your skin. It smelt pretty weird too. Anyway, I was completely out for the good first half of the lectures. I was just so so so mentally drained. Probably because I've been sleeping pretty late due to my temporary insomnia (self diagnosed, of course.)

Thankfully, I bounced back though but the damage was done. Towards the end of the second lecture, I was totally lost because the lecturer was going so fast over the parasite terms. But I learnt many lectures ago to record all the lectures so I could go back and playback them. So at least, I can write down whatever I missed.

Ah, it's been roughly 2 weeks since I've not had any astro. Oh God.

I've sent a report two times now, going to be three -.- The lady on the phone told me to try again in 3 hours. It's been roughly 2 hours. -.- This is so pathetic.
I should probably start my PBL now. Argh. Anyone know what filariasis is?

CPR 101

Today during my CPR lecture:
Doctor: What do you do if the person who fainted has really big breasts? Like if she was a Westerner.

 [no doubt acknowledging the abundant blessing that God probably forgot to add to Asian women ;P]

 Me: You press harder!

 Doctor: No not really. Anyone else?

Me: Oohh, you push it aside! Like... you clear the way. So you just.. yeah push them aside!

Doctor: Correct! Here you go!

 

This is what I got. So awesome!
I wanted it since I saw the EMT people demonstrate how to use it. So cool. Hee hee.

Actually the EMT lady sitting next to me, told me if I answered his questions correctly, I could get it that's why I answered.
Otherwise, I usually act like part of the wallpaper in lectures. Eric got the other one. (There were two).

His Question:

Doctor: What do you do about the bra of the lady? You can't put the sticky pads of the AED on the bra. So what do you do?

Eric: *high pitch yell* TAKE IT OFF!!!
[no doubt he understood the game now and probably noticed that there was only one mouth mask left on the table ;P]

hahaha apparently, it was correct.



P.S. it's a mask for when you breathe into the mouth of the person who fainted, you won't contract anything like HIV especially if the person is bleeding or has ulcers or whatever.

Hence, it's more hygienic and safer. I gonna carry it wherever I go. :D

Unexpected inspiration

Was watching season 6 of Grey's Anatomy earlier, and it kinda spoke to me.

And it's not just about the sex, love triangles and other plots written just to grab the attention of viewers but.. the fact that a doctor having the power to determine his patient's future, which door his patient enters metaphorically. 

It really struck a chord with me.

In the medical world, there's always only two exits, life and death.

Watching the show just made me see that, every decision a doctor makes, is crucial in the recovery of his patient.

One mistake, and it all goes to hell.

This is probably one of the best tv shows ever, in my opinion.

A little exaggerated and a little dramatic here and there but, yeah.

It makes me laugh, cry, sad, happy all in 40+ minutes.

It makes me want to pursue my studies even harder, just so one day, I can get the chance to hold a patient's life in my hands too.

To be honest, just the idea of it scares me to death.

But, at the same time, it's really exciting.

At least it inspired to do some revision.

 Dr. Meredith Grey: After all this time, all your warnings about me sleeping with my boss and you're doing the same exact thing. 

Dr. Cristina Yang: Oh, it's not the same thing. 
Dr. Meredith Grey: It's the exact same! 
Dr. Cristina Yang: No, it's not. You and McDreamy are in a relationship.
Dr. Meredith Grey: And you and Burke are in? 
Dr. Cristina Yang: Switzerland. It's very neutral there and they make very nice watches.

IZZIE: "I wouldn't have called you, but I can't get hold of a translator. Can you just ask her what's wrong?"
CRISTINA: "No."
IZZIE: "Why not?"
CRISTINA: "I grew up in Beverly Hills. The only Chinese I know is from a Mr. Chow's menu. Besides, I'm Korean."