As I wash and iron the collected mess of the last 3 weeks, and try to fit 100 litres of luggage into a 45 litre backpack, I can afford a few minutes to briefly run through all that happened in the closing days of the exam season.
Trying to put the ambiguity of the written exams behind us, we crammed as hard as possible for the practical exams a week later, in which we would have to rotate through 8 stations which would each last 10 minutes. Typical examples of a station topic would be to examine a basic bodily system, to take a history, or to do a basic procedure.
So, naturally, the revision centred around the most common topics that we'd be working on all year. The cardiovascular, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems, the specific medical history, and a few other common subjects.
Needless to say, the School of Medicine once again saw fit to omit all these from the exam, and instead included topics like Down's Syndrome, alcoholism, and an examination of the legs.
Unfortunately for them, we've all been on this course far too long to expect them to be anything other than grossly unfair with the questions, and had revised broadly enough to get through. My stethoscope was not used once.
I decided to dull the pain of the waiting for results by drinking and playing poker until 9am the night before the day they were due to be posted, even finishing about £50 up if my distinctly hazy memory has held firm.
After 2 hours sleep, fully clothed and drooling, I staggered with my friend down the road to the closest School of Medicine office to look at the results on the wall. Of course, I checked the "failed" list first, and once I'm weaved my bleary eyes down that one, with no sign of my identification number, I checked it again to make sure. Then I gradually worked my way down the remaining 200 names in the "passed" list, eventually finding my own number, next to two Bs and a C. I checked again, then again, just to double check that my eyes hadn't wandered down or up instead of horizontally. But it was correct. Even so, I still went back at 7pm to recheck.
I've got a funny feeling that the results were moderated up again this year, because the written exam question came totally out of left field and the OSCEs weren't exactly routine either. But even if they had been, my BBC grade couldn't have been a fail to start with.
So here I am, with a load of clothes on the floor, a pile of Loperamide tablets, and a little bit of nervous energy.
Because, at long last, I am a fourth year.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
It's a Miracle!
Who knows how, but I've actually managed to pass the bloody exams!
I have to spend some taking care of my preparations for my trip to India in a weeks, but soon I'll be back on with a full account of the business that's been going on around here.
I hope everyone in my year that reads this did well too.
Back on soon!
I have to spend some taking care of my preparations for my trip to India in a weeks, but soon I'll be back on with a full account of the business that's been going on around here.
I hope everyone in my year that reads this did well too.
Back on soon!
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Exams : A Review
Right, for my own record and for your curiosity, here's how the questions panned out today.
In the morning, we had a 2 hour long essay paper which involved 3 questions, which were further split into subsections. The first was on the menstrual cycle and the associated hormones, which I dealt with well, apart from the later sections in which everybody apparently did badly. I'd like to think I got at least a D overall here.
The second subject was renal failure. I answered a small sub question confidently enough, but the bulk of the marks were lost to nervous rambling about things which may or may not have been relevant. Given a day to think through the answers, I would've been okay, but the time restraints were extremely bad.
The final question was the compulsory bastard, this year on MRSA. It was safe to say that my classmates knew nothing about his from the books, and everything we wrote down was either common sense, or dug out from a distant, faded and dusty memory room of A Levels and first year lectures.
On one hand, I'd like to think that the combined average of poor performance of my peers and my own haphazard effort will combine to form a D grade, but wishful thinking is not unknown to me. An E is less unlikely than partially expected.
This leads me to my hopeful saviour, the afternoon short-answer paper. God knows I'm better when the answer is only one word, and if you don't know it, it costs you one mark at the most. There were many easy questions, for example the stuff on thyroid was just like taking candy from a baby, but the harder questions were bloody awful. Presented with a photo of a slice of brain, we had to define the abnormalities and name the area involved. To me, to most of us, it just looked like...brain. Luckily though, for the most part, it was a solid exam and I expect to get no worse than a C for it.
Which begs the final and most important question....is the solidity of the afternoon paper going to make up for the flimsiness of the morning paper? Only time will tell.
In the morning, we had a 2 hour long essay paper which involved 3 questions, which were further split into subsections. The first was on the menstrual cycle and the associated hormones, which I dealt with well, apart from the later sections in which everybody apparently did badly. I'd like to think I got at least a D overall here.
The second subject was renal failure. I answered a small sub question confidently enough, but the bulk of the marks were lost to nervous rambling about things which may or may not have been relevant. Given a day to think through the answers, I would've been okay, but the time restraints were extremely bad.
The final question was the compulsory bastard, this year on MRSA. It was safe to say that my classmates knew nothing about his from the books, and everything we wrote down was either common sense, or dug out from a distant, faded and dusty memory room of A Levels and first year lectures.
On one hand, I'd like to think that the combined average of poor performance of my peers and my own haphazard effort will combine to form a D grade, but wishful thinking is not unknown to me. An E is less unlikely than partially expected.
This leads me to my hopeful saviour, the afternoon short-answer paper. God knows I'm better when the answer is only one word, and if you don't know it, it costs you one mark at the most. There were many easy questions, for example the stuff on thyroid was just like taking candy from a baby, but the harder questions were bloody awful. Presented with a photo of a slice of brain, we had to define the abnormalities and name the area involved. To me, to most of us, it just looked like...brain. Luckily though, for the most part, it was a solid exam and I expect to get no worse than a C for it.
Which begs the final and most important question....is the solidity of the afternoon paper going to make up for the flimsiness of the morning paper? Only time will tell.
Friday, July 06, 2007
A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words
With barely two days until the exam, I thought I'd try to demonstrate how I'm feeling with the help of a visual aid. 
On the other hand, you never know, I might pass. And Elvis might crash his spaceship into the Loch Ness Monster.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
The Final Lap
With 6 days until the first and hardest exam of a total of three, it's about time we all dug deep inside of ourselves to try and find that impossible sixth gear which lets us work for ten continuous hours when we already have no fuel left in the tank. Like Roger Bannister without the flailing limbs and suggestively tight shorts, the idea is to grit your teeth, give it all you have and throw yourself over the finishing line with as little regret of wasted energy as possible.
For me, as is the case for nearly all of us, this isn't easy because with 5 consecutive years of exams already behind us, it's not exactly a novelty. And my own personal revision technique, involving re-reading the same text over and over again on a repeating schedule of topics doesn't really make me want to jump for joy.
The perfect balance between overconfident laziness and suicidal desperation is hard to achieve, let alone maintain, so it's time to fasten your seat belt as I try to hold on to my sanity, racing towards the exams, at last.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Dumbing Down
On one hand, I really don't mind that exams are easier now than they've previously been. It's hardly selfish to appreciate the fact that getting through University doesn't require as much work today than it might have done in the 80's, or before. But it doesn't half make me feel inferior. Granted, I may look rather stupid if I do still manage to fail my exams, which is not an entirely obscene proposal, but in the likely case of my actual passing them, I'll still be regarding myself as at least slightly second-rate in comparison to foreign and previous doctors.
My suspicions were confirmed today when me and a friend rummaged through the past exam papers in the hospital library and almost had simultaneous heart attacks when we saw what kind of questions medical students in our position had to answer 30 years ago. The papers were multiple choice, and they had to choose between an endless list of almost identical answers, referring to chemicals, anatomy and pharmacology with which I am wholly unfamiliar. And it was negatively marked, which meant that not only could they not guess, but any carelessness or imprecision and a perfectly well earned point would get struck off.
In the most recent past papers, we get asked to name 5 factors that might contribute to heart disease. Let's ask any bright 8 year old- smoking, drinking, being fat...and you have more than 50% already, which is enough to pass.
Bloody hell, I hope I haven't jinxed this.
My suspicions were confirmed today when me and a friend rummaged through the past exam papers in the hospital library and almost had simultaneous heart attacks when we saw what kind of questions medical students in our position had to answer 30 years ago. The papers were multiple choice, and they had to choose between an endless list of almost identical answers, referring to chemicals, anatomy and pharmacology with which I am wholly unfamiliar. And it was negatively marked, which meant that not only could they not guess, but any carelessness or imprecision and a perfectly well earned point would get struck off.
In the most recent past papers, we get asked to name 5 factors that might contribute to heart disease. Let's ask any bright 8 year old- smoking, drinking, being fat...and you have more than 50% already, which is enough to pass.
Bloody hell, I hope I haven't jinxed this.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Are Modern Doctors Underqualified?
Two posts in two days, I know, whats going on?
Recently I've been wondering if in the past few years medical training has become watered down, leaving junior doctors less medically and scientifically astute than in previous generations. I have no personal basis for comparison, of course, I'm only 21 and didn't happen to train in the 1960s in a past incarnation. But I know what the older doctors have told me, and I know what I've read in books and newspapers, written in jest or not. It seems like gradually over the past ten years or so medical school has been transformed. It used to be a industrial-age workhouse of penniless, sleep-deprived students who spent hour upon hour on the wards, seeing patient after patient in an endless drive to widen the scope and clarity of their medical knowledge. When they weren't at the hospital, they had their heads conveniently shoved inside a textbook. And junior doctors had it just as bad, working 50 hour shifts (honestly) for very average money and even less respect.
Nowadays, at least in my opinion, it's gotten easier. We still work very hard, it's true, but it doesn't seem like much compared to back then. If I fancy an afternoon off, hell, even a week off, I can make excuses and nobody will hold a grudge. Exams require 50% marks to pass, and although we revise like crazy and take them seriously I can't help thinking that they aren't hard enough to discern us as good enough for the job. And from me, always hard working but occasional a failing student, it means something.
We have a wider scope of subjects to learn about these days though, but many of these subjects, like communication skills, lend themselves to exceptionally easy exam questions and no form of efficient learning process. In turn, we learn less about the bread and butter of medicine, common diseases and normal physiology.
Why do I care, you might ask. Of course, it would be easier for me to become a doctor today than it would have 50 years ago, and not just because today's government makes it much easier for student from average-income families to progress into higher education. But if I had to choose between being a grossly under qualified doctor or not a doctor at all, I'd have to side with the latter.
I feel like I've missed out on an era, on a brotherhood of silent suffering, but suffering rewarded by feeling like you'd really achieved something. I feel like I'm drifting through medical school, and that the effort I do put in is simply optional at times.
I might be wrong, I hope I'm wrong, maybe medical school is as hard as it ever was and I just happen to not be feeling the stress of it all. But it doesn't seem likely.
Recently I've been wondering if in the past few years medical training has become watered down, leaving junior doctors less medically and scientifically astute than in previous generations. I have no personal basis for comparison, of course, I'm only 21 and didn't happen to train in the 1960s in a past incarnation. But I know what the older doctors have told me, and I know what I've read in books and newspapers, written in jest or not. It seems like gradually over the past ten years or so medical school has been transformed. It used to be a industrial-age workhouse of penniless, sleep-deprived students who spent hour upon hour on the wards, seeing patient after patient in an endless drive to widen the scope and clarity of their medical knowledge. When they weren't at the hospital, they had their heads conveniently shoved inside a textbook. And junior doctors had it just as bad, working 50 hour shifts (honestly) for very average money and even less respect.
Nowadays, at least in my opinion, it's gotten easier. We still work very hard, it's true, but it doesn't seem like much compared to back then. If I fancy an afternoon off, hell, even a week off, I can make excuses and nobody will hold a grudge. Exams require 50% marks to pass, and although we revise like crazy and take them seriously I can't help thinking that they aren't hard enough to discern us as good enough for the job. And from me, always hard working but occasional a failing student, it means something.
We have a wider scope of subjects to learn about these days though, but many of these subjects, like communication skills, lend themselves to exceptionally easy exam questions and no form of efficient learning process. In turn, we learn less about the bread and butter of medicine, common diseases and normal physiology.
Why do I care, you might ask. Of course, it would be easier for me to become a doctor today than it would have 50 years ago, and not just because today's government makes it much easier for student from average-income families to progress into higher education. But if I had to choose between being a grossly under qualified doctor or not a doctor at all, I'd have to side with the latter.
I feel like I've missed out on an era, on a brotherhood of silent suffering, but suffering rewarded by feeling like you'd really achieved something. I feel like I'm drifting through medical school, and that the effort I do put in is simply optional at times.
I might be wrong, I hope I'm wrong, maybe medical school is as hard as it ever was and I just happen to not be feeling the stress of it all. But it doesn't seem likely.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Pressure is on : BrownCom 3
Sorry I've been away so long, I've been shallowly trying to convince myself that staring into the middle-distance and dreaming of sleep actually counts as revision simply because I'm in the library. In truth, I've done a fair bit, but as usual it's all been slightly rushed and poor concentration has led to a jumble of unspecific, unrelated facts becoming the peak of my theoretical prowess.
My shit-yourself-o-meter has been increased accordingly, with the exams only 2 weeks away. Every other course has finished, and a lot of my friends have now completed their degrees and are out job-hunting with their 2:1s. Ah, money, I believe I remember what that looks like.
On the plus side, my mock practical exam went okay. Failing is nearly impossible because they give you half the marks you need to pass if you simply act in the polite manner and are "sympathetic" to the pateint while you make up some random lie-answers to their questions because you have no fucking clue.
Basically, I should be fine, unless we get an absolute bastard of a question in the essay-format exam.
I've said that before.....
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Jesus Saves!
Only kidding. In fact, just when you thought the Catholic Church couldn't get much more sanctimonious, they've found a new way to oppress poor vulnerable people with their faceless ethics. I don't think abortion is right or wrong, I just don't think it's their place to go telling people what to do with their lives in times of high emotional stress, simply because it's what they think. We're not all brainwashed into living by a list of ancient rules like do not covet they neighbour's ass. Fine, it has a modern translation, but Catholics only translate they Bible into what they want it to say anyway, so it doesn't matter.
So that's right, only the people that follow their pre-written, arbitrary rules to the letter deserve to be happy, regardless of what situation they find themselves in. Just follow the rules, it's what an all-seeing, omnipresent God would want.
It makes me sick.
So that's right, only the people that follow their pre-written, arbitrary rules to the letter deserve to be happy, regardless of what situation they find themselves in. Just follow the rules, it's what an all-seeing, omnipresent God would want.
It makes me sick.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Exam Shit-Yourself-O-Meter
Just to display my internal sense of crapping my pants in the build up to my Intermediate exams, I've designed a lovely meter so you lay people can see how I'm really feeling. As you can see, it's currently set on "Unpleasant Rumblings", but it's sure to go up soon. I'm pretty confident that the only reason I'm feeling so secure right now is that this morning I sat through a teaching session next to the world's worst medical student. One of the answers she didn't know was "inferior", so I tried to mouth it to her to help her out. Or to describe her ability in comparison to the rest of us. That's what you get it you only turn up once every 2 weeks, I suppose.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Crack open the Bubbly
I checked the calendar, it's not my birthday yet. But I suppose there's nothing wrong with an unexpected surprise every now and then, so join me in a toast to a rare moment of satisfaction with world events.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Here's an Idea...
I'm going to get drunk. Very drunk. I'm going to hang around in the clubs of L.A., getting totally wasted whilst the paparazzi hang on my every move and slurred word.
Then, I'm going to go home, get into my disgustingly polluting 4x4, and drive around for a while.
It doesn't matter if I get caught.
It doesn't matter if I hit someone, and kill them.
It doesn't matter if I get sentenced to 40 days in jail, my lawyers will get that down to 20. Then when I complain about the conditions (not enough butlers) my lawyers will exchange it for a ludicrous 40-day home electronic tagging, so I can be amongst my friends, family, antique furniture and miniature dogs as I comes to terms with what a terrible thing I've done.
Hey, if that's a problem, my Daddy can probably reduce it to some cushy community service order for which I'll have to work for about 20 minutes.
It's fine, because money can buy anything.
It's fine, because I'm arrogant, stupid and absolutely unaware of how much people hate me.
It's fine, because I'm Paris Hilton.
Then, I'm going to go home, get into my disgustingly polluting 4x4, and drive around for a while.
It doesn't matter if I get caught.
It doesn't matter if I hit someone, and kill them.
It doesn't matter if I get sentenced to 40 days in jail, my lawyers will get that down to 20. Then when I complain about the conditions (not enough butlers) my lawyers will exchange it for a ludicrous 40-day home electronic tagging, so I can be amongst my friends, family, antique furniture and miniature dogs as I comes to terms with what a terrible thing I've done.
Hey, if that's a problem, my Daddy can probably reduce it to some cushy community service order for which I'll have to work for about 20 minutes.
It's fine, because money can buy anything.
It's fine, because I'm arrogant, stupid and absolutely unaware of how much people hate me.
It's fine, because I'm Paris Hilton.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Surgery, Simply Contradictory
I'm actually holding somebody's guts. I have my hands on the slippery entrails of an actual human being. At the top end, half of the stomach is connected to the end of the small intestine, and most of the pancreas is attached to the middle. A gall bladder lies in another bowl close by. As I squeeze the head of the pancreas, I can feel a rough, gristled lump deep inside the tissue. That's why they've all been removed. Cancer.
A Whipple Procedure is a perfect demonstration of how both medicine in general and surgery in particular can be so conceptually simple yet so practically complex. The problem and the solution, on paper, are child's play- the patient has a tumour in their pancreas, so we get the surgeons to chop it out, and the surrounding bits too just to make sure the disease hasn't spread. We join the loose ends of the gut back up, and hey presto, we've cured you.
If only it were that easy. The whole thing takes around 4 hours, if you don't count the 10 years training you need to be able to run the show. I got tired just watching it, but in between his countless references to dogging, swinging, boobs and rugby, my consultant was able to get through the whole thing with minimal fuss, and still save a small amount of patience to teach me.
You could compare it with plumbing, simply removing the rusty, damaged old pipes, plugging the leaks and fixing the working pipes together again, but that denies it an intense theoretical basis. There are a million things that could go wrong, but they usually don't. And the human body is not as hardy as a set of pipes. You shouldn't be able to hack out the best part of half of the digestive system and see the patient up and about in a few days. But you can.
That's because the surgeons themselves are as enigmatic and contradictory as the artform itself. As my consultant stitches the hepatic duct onto a section of jejunum, effectively restoring the patient's ability to digest food, he asks me if I'm attached. I say "yes, for nearly two and a half years".
He guides the remaining portion of the stomach back onto the bowel with the fine detail of a seasoned professional. He asks what I like about her. I think of "chatty, sociable, sympathetic" and other such adjectives off the top of my head.
He continues to insert an enteral feeding tube into the gut in case of emergency, with great accuracy and dexterity.
"Is she from a rich family?" He continues in his inquisition.
"Not really.....", I reply.
"Bin her", he snaps, and begins to close the incision.
A Whipple Procedure is a perfect demonstration of how both medicine in general and surgery in particular can be so conceptually simple yet so practically complex. The problem and the solution, on paper, are child's play- the patient has a tumour in their pancreas, so we get the surgeons to chop it out, and the surrounding bits too just to make sure the disease hasn't spread. We join the loose ends of the gut back up, and hey presto, we've cured you.
If only it were that easy. The whole thing takes around 4 hours, if you don't count the 10 years training you need to be able to run the show. I got tired just watching it, but in between his countless references to dogging, swinging, boobs and rugby, my consultant was able to get through the whole thing with minimal fuss, and still save a small amount of patience to teach me.
You could compare it with plumbing, simply removing the rusty, damaged old pipes, plugging the leaks and fixing the working pipes together again, but that denies it an intense theoretical basis. There are a million things that could go wrong, but they usually don't. And the human body is not as hardy as a set of pipes. You shouldn't be able to hack out the best part of half of the digestive system and see the patient up and about in a few days. But you can.
That's because the surgeons themselves are as enigmatic and contradictory as the artform itself. As my consultant stitches the hepatic duct onto a section of jejunum, effectively restoring the patient's ability to digest food, he asks me if I'm attached. I say "yes, for nearly two and a half years".
He guides the remaining portion of the stomach back onto the bowel with the fine detail of a seasoned professional. He asks what I like about her. I think of "chatty, sociable, sympathetic" and other such adjectives off the top of my head.
He continues to insert an enteral feeding tube into the gut in case of emergency, with great accuracy and dexterity.
"Is she from a rich family?" He continues in his inquisition.
"Not really.....", I reply.
"Bin her", he snaps, and begins to close the incision.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Exams in Parenting
Over the last 4 weeks on Obs+Gynae the mothers I've seen can be basically drawn up into two groups. Firstly, there are the thirty-something married ladies who may have waited a little too long to start a family, but otherwise are in the best possible situation, both medically and socially, to raise children. They were both thankfully the majority of the case load, and the most enjoyable to learn from.
And then there are the younger girls. Now let me start by saying that as a general rule, getting pregnant young is not something that I can criticise. The body is built to conceive in the early twenties, and plenty of people are perfectly well adjusted to have kids at that age.
Unfortunately, the real world is a different place. It seems that by some morbid irony, those same girls that don't have the common sense to use contraception properly end up with the most responsiblilty, in a baby. I can't use specific examples, of course, but some of the pregnant girls we saw in the Early Pregnancy and Ante Natal clinics astonished me with their attitudes. They turned down simple, possibly life-saving tests and missed important appointments on the weakest of pretexts, sometimes reducing even the wise old consultants to blank, stunned expressions with the risks they were taking for such petty reasons.
When I took histories from them they commonly smoked copiously, were proud of cutting back the booze to a few bottles a week, and had little or no knowledge of the mechanics of what was going on inside them. And the amount of times I finished talking to a pregnant lady whilst her other children bickered around her feet, only to return to her notes and find that she was younger than me, were too many to mention.
Maybe I'm more angry about it because abuse of babies always seems to be in the news. For example, take the vegan couple who unwittingly killed their baby by exclusively feeding it soya milk and apple juice. Words can't express how stupid these people were to subject their child to their extreme beliefs. You don't need to be a doctor (or an average medical student) to realise that your baby will suffer greatly from living by a set of principles wholly unsuitable for basic development. Nor do you need qualifications to realise that although hospitals may have more "germs" than your bathtub at home, they also have more trained professionals than your bathtub too, and hence it might have been a better idea to go in for the birth.
And what about the herion addict who gave his baby methadone to stop him crying? It beggars belief. News just in, you idiot, babies cry. They cry when they want something, they cry when they don't. They cry all the time. But you're supposed to have the maturity and knowledge to cope with it without giving it Class A drugs.
The easiest argument these people have is that I'm at medical school, and I'm exposed to all this knowledge about pregnancy and parenting which they don't have the opportunity to see. Wrong. I do 4 weeks of Obs+Gynae, and in comparison they have a fetus inside them for 9 months, when they have the chance to ask a horde of professionals every question they possibly can about babies and their care. And if they have any sense they'd have been learning about it whilst they were planning it too, although this genuinely might not always be possible. It's not opportunity that they fail to benefit from, it's common sense.
Anyway, seeing as how you have to pass exams to do absolutely everything bar raise a child these days, I thought I'd advocate a quick multiple choice paper, preceded by an algorithm, just to check that you're up to the task. Here we go.
1. Which foodstuff provides your baby with absolutely essential nutrients, without which it stands a significantly higher chance of becoming ill or developing a low IQ?
a) cow's milk or powdered baby milk
b) whatever you happen to be eating, blended or chopped up
c) breast milk
d) lager if my current partner offers it around
2. Your baby is crying. What do you do?
a) comfort it regardless of whether it needs anything or not (unconditional love)
b) ignore it until it shuts up, it's just been fed and we're watching Big Brother
c) give it a hit of premium crack
d) scream at it in a rage displaying my total lack of character and ability
3. You're pregnant and suddenly get headaches, eye problems, tummy pain and you can feel your heart beating hard. The midwife said that if this happens you should come in RIGHT AWAY. What do you do?
a) come in RIGHT AWAY so that I don't have fits and die
b) take 3 hours then laugh off a chastising from the midwife (I've seen it).
c) don't worry about it, doctors are always wrong in the news
d) Decide after Celebrity Chef Idol on Ice finishes.
And then there are the younger girls. Now let me start by saying that as a general rule, getting pregnant young is not something that I can criticise. The body is built to conceive in the early twenties, and plenty of people are perfectly well adjusted to have kids at that age.
Unfortunately, the real world is a different place. It seems that by some morbid irony, those same girls that don't have the common sense to use contraception properly end up with the most responsiblilty, in a baby. I can't use specific examples, of course, but some of the pregnant girls we saw in the Early Pregnancy and Ante Natal clinics astonished me with their attitudes. They turned down simple, possibly life-saving tests and missed important appointments on the weakest of pretexts, sometimes reducing even the wise old consultants to blank, stunned expressions with the risks they were taking for such petty reasons.
When I took histories from them they commonly smoked copiously, were proud of cutting back the booze to a few bottles a week, and had little or no knowledge of the mechanics of what was going on inside them. And the amount of times I finished talking to a pregnant lady whilst her other children bickered around her feet, only to return to her notes and find that she was younger than me, were too many to mention.
Maybe I'm more angry about it because abuse of babies always seems to be in the news. For example, take the vegan couple who unwittingly killed their baby by exclusively feeding it soya milk and apple juice. Words can't express how stupid these people were to subject their child to their extreme beliefs. You don't need to be a doctor (or an average medical student) to realise that your baby will suffer greatly from living by a set of principles wholly unsuitable for basic development. Nor do you need qualifications to realise that although hospitals may have more "germs" than your bathtub at home, they also have more trained professionals than your bathtub too, and hence it might have been a better idea to go in for the birth.
And what about the herion addict who gave his baby methadone to stop him crying? It beggars belief. News just in, you idiot, babies cry. They cry when they want something, they cry when they don't. They cry all the time. But you're supposed to have the maturity and knowledge to cope with it without giving it Class A drugs.
The easiest argument these people have is that I'm at medical school, and I'm exposed to all this knowledge about pregnancy and parenting which they don't have the opportunity to see. Wrong. I do 4 weeks of Obs+Gynae, and in comparison they have a fetus inside them for 9 months, when they have the chance to ask a horde of professionals every question they possibly can about babies and their care. And if they have any sense they'd have been learning about it whilst they were planning it too, although this genuinely might not always be possible. It's not opportunity that they fail to benefit from, it's common sense.
Anyway, seeing as how you have to pass exams to do absolutely everything bar raise a child these days, I thought I'd advocate a quick multiple choice paper, preceded by an algorithm, just to check that you're up to the task. Here we go.
1. Which foodstuff provides your baby with absolutely essential nutrients, without which it stands a significantly higher chance of becoming ill or developing a low IQ?
a) cow's milk or powdered baby milk
b) whatever you happen to be eating, blended or chopped up
c) breast milk
d) lager if my current partner offers it around
2. Your baby is crying. What do you do?
a) comfort it regardless of whether it needs anything or not (unconditional love)
b) ignore it until it shuts up, it's just been fed and we're watching Big Brother
c) give it a hit of premium crack
d) scream at it in a rage displaying my total lack of character and ability
3. You're pregnant and suddenly get headaches, eye problems, tummy pain and you can feel your heart beating hard. The midwife said that if this happens you should come in RIGHT AWAY. What do you do?
a) come in RIGHT AWAY so that I don't have fits and die
b) take 3 hours then laugh off a chastising from the midwife (I've seen it).
c) don't worry about it, doctors are always wrong in the news
d) Decide after Celebrity Chef Idol on Ice finishes.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Don't have Kittens
I'll be posting less frequently for a while because of revision, and the apparent shortage of things that piss me off.
Chill out, I'll be back soon.
Chill out, I'll be back soon.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Capital Punishment, or "Legalised Murder"
Hey, seeing as I have nothing more apt to write about, I'm going to do my best to sincerely criticise one of the staunch policies utilised by two of my favourite countries, America and China. Also, before I forget, good job for polluting our atmosphere with all those greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances guys, just great work.
Back on track, I want to talk about how moronic capital punishment really is. I admit, at face value, it seems like a considerable option. Someone kills another person, the punishment is them dying as well. 1+1=2. Well, okay, let's look at the specific arguments that pro-capital punishment lobbyists have come up with.
Back on track, I want to talk about how moronic capital punishment really is. I admit, at face value, it seems like a considerable option. Someone kills another person, the punishment is them dying as well. 1+1=2. Well, okay, let's look at the specific arguments that pro-capital punishment lobbyists have come up with.
- Punishment
Fine, this seems fair. Death is a pretty nasty punishment. Or is it? Think about it, a few days or weeks of awful fear, and then...nothing. Because you're dead. Being dead isn't a punishment, or a reprieve, it's nothing. When you're dead, you don't feel anything. So it's not really a punishment at all. I admit, the death of the victim will deny them their future, and all associated pleasures, but the death of the criminal won't be denying him a great life, will it? The alternative (which I condone) is life imprisonment (parole is subjective). That, compared to a bit of fear and 50 years rotting in the ground, is a considerably greater degree of punishment.
2. Safety of the Public
Another feasible point, if you happen to live in the 1800's and don't have a justice system that is perfectly capable of keeping the public safe by locking the perpetrator up in prison for a long time. But I suppose just killing the guy costs a lot less, so hell, let's do that.
3. Retribution (revenge)
Let's not sugar the pill by calling it retribution, a major argument for the death penalty is revenge. That guy killed your brother/son/friend, so you should be able to kill him back. Well, if anyone has a better example of Christians picking out Bible passages to suit their feelings, let me know. Usually it's "turn the other cheek", or "thou shalt not kill", but whenever it suits them they break out the Old Testament "eye for an eye" shit. What happened to forgiveness? I know it isn't easy, but for God's sake if you advocate killing someone you're just as bad as he was.
4. Deterrence
Give me a break. Despite the fact that innumerable studies show that having a death penalty doesn't put people off killing each other, the alternative of life imprisonment isn't much of a better option. If someone has a gun in their hand and someone they want to kill on the other end, they aren't going to be weighing up the subtle differences between spending the rest of their life in a wooden box in the ground or a 10' x 6' box above the ground.
5. No possibility of Rehabilitation.
Listen, I've seen a man in prison who killed another man over 30 years ago, as a florid racist and homophobe. Now, after nearly half a century in prison, he want to be paroled so that he can further his interest in book binding. No one person is constant, and just because the circumstances they found themselves in that led to them killing someone occurred, it doesn't mean that it will happen again.
Look, murderers need to be punished. Hell yes, of course they do. I just think that there are better ways to punish them than to murder them. Honestly, in this "civilised" society, can we not find a way to teach our offenders the error of their actions and encourage them to change their ways? I know, it sounds like a sermon, but come on. There's something about death that makes me think that it shouldn't be induced by anyone, for any reason. No crime, no matter how awful, deserves death. Every single aim of capital punishment can be attained to further and more efficient extent by keeping the offender alive.
As for those countries which use the death penalty for non-fatality related crimes, such as drug-trafficking, homosexuality, or "political deviance", I have a message for them. If you're doing this in the name of a God, then here's some good luck from me. Because if there is a God, you're damn sure going to need luck when he judges your disgusting, pathetic, warped selves.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Eurovision. Enough Said.
Yes, it's that time again, when every country in Europe works up a great big figurative belch and throws the musical equivalent of a torrent of fetid air wafting across our screens.
At first glance, I thought that Eurovision was still a good old-fashioned competition in which votes were awarded for garish homosexuality, completely tone deaf singing and horrendously vile colour clashing outfits. And that would've been fine. I could've switched it off half way through the first song and stumbled upon the result on the internet the next day, as usual.
The fact that the favourite was a Ukrainian transvestite coated in tin foil with an oversized Christmas star on it's head doesn't even make me blink. I say it, and not he or she, because to be perfectly honest I couldn't tell if it was male or female. Either way I wouldn't leave it in charge of my kids (if I had any). The only entry I saw that was non-homosexual to any extent was the Turkish entry, sung by a man radiating so much pent-up patriarcy that you wouldn't be surprised if his hobbies including slaughtering goats and slapping his wife.
But the irritating thing is that the whole thing is a pointless farce, because every country votes for the countries that border it, give or take a few exceptions. Wogan said before the voting began, Sweden, Norway and Finland would scratch each other's backs, and so would the ex-Soviet bloc. Even Ireland and the UK swap votes, in a vague silent gesture of Anglophone solidarity. Exceptions occur when on the rare occasion a country has a undeniably shite entry, or when a country in generally unpopular in a political sense.
Cue Britain's entry. The rest of Europe couldn't give a toss if we got up on stage and sung about flight attendants, football hooliganism, crack addiction or the ten commandments, the only thing they're interested in is the fact that we bombed the crap out of Iraq with that cretin Bush leading the way.
And thus the problem arises. I can switch off Eurovision, but when I go abroad I can't switch off the fact that everyone thinks I'm a staunch racist who eats oil for breakfast and shits greenhouse gases and toxic waste. Cheers for the national perception Tony.
In fact, without Wogan's perfect comedy timing as he antagonises every word of the unsurprisingly androgynous Finnish hosts, it might have been a total waste of the ten minutes I spent watching it.
At first glance, I thought that Eurovision was still a good old-fashioned competition in which votes were awarded for garish homosexuality, completely tone deaf singing and horrendously vile colour clashing outfits. And that would've been fine. I could've switched it off half way through the first song and stumbled upon the result on the internet the next day, as usual.
The fact that the favourite was a Ukrainian transvestite coated in tin foil with an oversized Christmas star on it's head doesn't even make me blink. I say it, and not he or she, because to be perfectly honest I couldn't tell if it was male or female. Either way I wouldn't leave it in charge of my kids (if I had any). The only entry I saw that was non-homosexual to any extent was the Turkish entry, sung by a man radiating so much pent-up patriarcy that you wouldn't be surprised if his hobbies including slaughtering goats and slapping his wife.
But the irritating thing is that the whole thing is a pointless farce, because every country votes for the countries that border it, give or take a few exceptions. Wogan said before the voting began, Sweden, Norway and Finland would scratch each other's backs, and so would the ex-Soviet bloc. Even Ireland and the UK swap votes, in a vague silent gesture of Anglophone solidarity. Exceptions occur when on the rare occasion a country has a undeniably shite entry, or when a country in generally unpopular in a political sense.
Cue Britain's entry. The rest of Europe couldn't give a toss if we got up on stage and sung about flight attendants, football hooliganism, crack addiction or the ten commandments, the only thing they're interested in is the fact that we bombed the crap out of Iraq with that cretin Bush leading the way.
And thus the problem arises. I can switch off Eurovision, but when I go abroad I can't switch off the fact that everyone thinks I'm a staunch racist who eats oil for breakfast and shits greenhouse gases and toxic waste. Cheers for the national perception Tony.
In fact, without Wogan's perfect comedy timing as he antagonises every word of the unsurprisingly androgynous Finnish hosts, it might have been a total waste of the ten minutes I spent watching it.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Magners: The Drink of Sheep
Two years ago, did you ever see anyone drinking cider with ice cubes in it?
That's because the ice melts, waters down a previously manly drinking experience, and generally gets in the way of the mechanics of sipping anyway.
Until Magners started brainwashing everybody with their blatant propaganda. It tastes like every other cider, but because it's been on TV and is instantly recognisable, people suddenly love it. And just as the adverts suggest, all the bleached blonde blazer-loving ex-public school sheep can't resist loading up the glass with half a tonne of ice.
Where I come from, the only things that should be found floating in your cider are the remnants of apples, the odd drowned dormouse or two, and a thick sediment of solid masculinity.
Whenever I see yet another yuppie late-middle-age corporate sheep slap his hooves down on the bar and order another Magners, "with ice", I laugh on the inside.
I'm not sure if it's the cunning way that the company displays their bottles as leaping out of the water and flying through the air like salmon (the mark of a better tasting cider), or simply their audacity at trying to convince me that I'd be better off drinking their piss water than a half quart of whisky, but either way it's just another good example of how brilliant people are at being unwittingly influenced.
Honestly, if Magners told you it was cool to slice off your little fingers and drop them into your glass for an "extra-fleshy taste", people would start turning up to pubs with meat cleavers.
That's because the ice melts, waters down a previously manly drinking experience, and generally gets in the way of the mechanics of sipping anyway.
Until Magners started brainwashing everybody with their blatant propaganda. It tastes like every other cider, but because it's been on TV and is instantly recognisable, people suddenly love it. And just as the adverts suggest, all the bleached blonde blazer-loving ex-public school sheep can't resist loading up the glass with half a tonne of ice.
Where I come from, the only things that should be found floating in your cider are the remnants of apples, the odd drowned dormouse or two, and a thick sediment of solid masculinity.
Whenever I see yet another yuppie late-middle-age corporate sheep slap his hooves down on the bar and order another Magners, "with ice", I laugh on the inside.
I'm not sure if it's the cunning way that the company displays their bottles as leaping out of the water and flying through the air like salmon (the mark of a better tasting cider), or simply their audacity at trying to convince me that I'd be better off drinking their piss water than a half quart of whisky, but either way it's just another good example of how brilliant people are at being unwittingly influenced.
Honestly, if Magners told you it was cool to slice off your little fingers and drop them into your glass for an "extra-fleshy taste", people would start turning up to pubs with meat cleavers.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
I Hate Paris Hilton
It's my least imaginative title ever. I tried to think of a more interesting one for ages, but nothing else could quite cut it for accuracy.
You see, every time that stupid cow does anything it pisses me off. Her head is so far up her own arse she should actually be choking. Here's hoping.
I like to give people a chance, but honestly, she's the most repulsive person I've ever heard of. First, she polluted my television with that genocide, "The Simple Life". I assume the title referred to her mental capacity, because it took her approximately two seconds to come across as an arrogant dim-witted bitch who treats honest hard working people like shit.
But hey, I'm a forgiving guy, I hoped it might just be her way of coping with growing up under the media spotlight. Then straight after her second series of genre-massacring crap (none of which I watched, I enjoy my sanity) she got caught drink driving. Whoops, well that's a bit silly. I know there must be something in the Constitution that protects your right to bear arms, fight for your homes, drink as much as you physically can and pilot a tonne-heavy piece of metal around the streets of L.A., but to me it just sounded a bit foolish.
Oh well, we all make mistakes. But most of us don't do it again. And again. And most of us don't try to defend ourselves in court by telling the judge that the only reason we get caught over and over again is because the police continually pull us over to try to chat us up. I'm not kidding, she actually said that. Apparently, the officers all admire her nauseatingly anorexic, plain, featureless figure and they can't resist her dry, glazed, acne ridden face, so they pull her over on the weakest of pretexts.
Yeah, I can understand that, maybe they heard her cool slogan, "That's Hot", and were hypnotically entranced by her mystery. Wake up you stupid cow, you can't own a two word phrase that's already used virtually every day by 90% of people. Obviously she disagrees, because she tried to get it copyrighted.
Add that to the music "career" she assumed she could have just because daddy owns a few hotels, and you're beginning to get a more rounded picture of the limits of human stupidity. Sure, you can buy music, but not a voice that doesn't sound like a dog being raped by a power drill. Even Britney knows that.
But there's more. One of her other defensive arguments was that she thought her driving license probation had already finished. Why did she think that? Because she openly admitted that she never reads anything that she signs, and never opens her post. Hmmm. Not so much a defensive argument as admitting to being a total cretin, is it? If I never open my gas bills, it doesn't mean I get free gas. Stupid bint.
One last thing, before I explode with frustrated anger at the levels of arrogant sanctimony that people can reach. Her friends have started a petition to save her from jail. I know it sounds a bit lame, but it must be official, because it's on MySpace. Apparently her air headed bimbo friends have seen Clueless and Sweet Valley High too many times and think that you can avoid punishment for a serious crime if you ask nicely, flutter your eyelashes and point out how sorry you are.
Well, you can't. I hope they lock her up until she realises that she's a dumb irritating slag with no discernible skills, attractive features or redeeming traits. Hopefully, that will be never.
You see, every time that stupid cow does anything it pisses me off. Her head is so far up her own arse she should actually be choking. Here's hoping.
I like to give people a chance, but honestly, she's the most repulsive person I've ever heard of. First, she polluted my television with that genocide, "The Simple Life". I assume the title referred to her mental capacity, because it took her approximately two seconds to come across as an arrogant dim-witted bitch who treats honest hard working people like shit.
But hey, I'm a forgiving guy, I hoped it might just be her way of coping with growing up under the media spotlight. Then straight after her second series of genre-massacring crap (none of which I watched, I enjoy my sanity) she got caught drink driving. Whoops, well that's a bit silly. I know there must be something in the Constitution that protects your right to bear arms, fight for your homes, drink as much as you physically can and pilot a tonne-heavy piece of metal around the streets of L.A., but to me it just sounded a bit foolish.
Oh well, we all make mistakes. But most of us don't do it again. And again. And most of us don't try to defend ourselves in court by telling the judge that the only reason we get caught over and over again is because the police continually pull us over to try to chat us up. I'm not kidding, she actually said that. Apparently, the officers all admire her nauseatingly anorexic, plain, featureless figure and they can't resist her dry, glazed, acne ridden face, so they pull her over on the weakest of pretexts.
Yeah, I can understand that, maybe they heard her cool slogan, "That's Hot", and were hypnotically entranced by her mystery. Wake up you stupid cow, you can't own a two word phrase that's already used virtually every day by 90% of people. Obviously she disagrees, because she tried to get it copyrighted.
Add that to the music "career" she assumed she could have just because daddy owns a few hotels, and you're beginning to get a more rounded picture of the limits of human stupidity. Sure, you can buy music, but not a voice that doesn't sound like a dog being raped by a power drill. Even Britney knows that.
But there's more. One of her other defensive arguments was that she thought her driving license probation had already finished. Why did she think that? Because she openly admitted that she never reads anything that she signs, and never opens her post. Hmmm. Not so much a defensive argument as admitting to being a total cretin, is it? If I never open my gas bills, it doesn't mean I get free gas. Stupid bint.
One last thing, before I explode with frustrated anger at the levels of arrogant sanctimony that people can reach. Her friends have started a petition to save her from jail. I know it sounds a bit lame, but it must be official, because it's on MySpace. Apparently her air headed bimbo friends have seen Clueless and Sweet Valley High too many times and think that you can avoid punishment for a serious crime if you ask nicely, flutter your eyelashes and point out how sorry you are.
Well, you can't. I hope they lock her up until she realises that she's a dumb irritating slag with no discernible skills, attractive features or redeeming traits. Hopefully, that will be never.
Monday, May 07, 2007
White Men Can't Jump (or do Medicine)
For those of you that didn't know, I'm part of an "ethnic minority". On Friday last week, for the millionth time on my course, I found myself sitting in a group of about 8 medics, only one of whom was male, and only one of whom was white. They were both me. For some unknown reason, white guys aren't doing medicine as much as they used to.
I can understand the guy bit. Girls work harder, girls are more conscientious, girls are more meticulous, girls chat more rubbish, and so on, and so they've ended up filling 60% of the slots at the very least, just like every other degree course barring Auto Mechanics and Synchronised Farting. No problems there, and between you and me they'll probably be better doctors anyway for the most part.
And I have no problem with the large numbers of non-white students doing medicine here either- in principle. I know a lot of the Muslim guys on the course, and a few other guys from India and other parts of the world. In most cases, they're as committed and intelligent as the average medic, and fit in really well with the whole state of things here. It's quite possibly the tough work ethic of their different culture that got them here over the countless applications of lazy white boys like myself, and they deserve their place here.
But just a few students, their circumstances piss me off a little. And before you break out the megaphones and start crying racist, I'm talking about as many white students as non-white here.
There are more than a few people who speak broken English, know next to nothing about the culture of the typical patient, and always seem to be giving moronic answers to the most basic questions during rounds. It reeks of suspicion, and whether the reason for their appearance on the list of successful applicants was aided by love or money, I don't like it much. There were thousands of people who craved a place here, and they got denied.
I know the Medical School has to make money somehow, sometimes by taking paying students from abroad, and I know that the system of application here involves no formal interview, leaving a small chance of a few unsuitable candidates slipping through the net, but it can't be too hard to ensure that the 200 people who train here are actually good enough to do so.
Anyway, it won't matter now that Labour have started leaving piles of junior doctors unemployed.
I can understand the guy bit. Girls work harder, girls are more conscientious, girls are more meticulous, girls chat more rubbish, and so on, and so they've ended up filling 60% of the slots at the very least, just like every other degree course barring Auto Mechanics and Synchronised Farting. No problems there, and between you and me they'll probably be better doctors anyway for the most part.
And I have no problem with the large numbers of non-white students doing medicine here either- in principle. I know a lot of the Muslim guys on the course, and a few other guys from India and other parts of the world. In most cases, they're as committed and intelligent as the average medic, and fit in really well with the whole state of things here. It's quite possibly the tough work ethic of their different culture that got them here over the countless applications of lazy white boys like myself, and they deserve their place here.
But just a few students, their circumstances piss me off a little. And before you break out the megaphones and start crying racist, I'm talking about as many white students as non-white here.
There are more than a few people who speak broken English, know next to nothing about the culture of the typical patient, and always seem to be giving moronic answers to the most basic questions during rounds. It reeks of suspicion, and whether the reason for their appearance on the list of successful applicants was aided by love or money, I don't like it much. There were thousands of people who craved a place here, and they got denied.
I know the Medical School has to make money somehow, sometimes by taking paying students from abroad, and I know that the system of application here involves no formal interview, leaving a small chance of a few unsuitable candidates slipping through the net, but it can't be too hard to ensure that the 200 people who train here are actually good enough to do so.
Anyway, it won't matter now that Labour have started leaving piles of junior doctors unemployed.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
The Great Vanishing Act, and Betting on Babies
Paul Daniels could make elephants disappear from a crowded stage. David Blaine can levitate, and can make a playing card of your choice appear instantly in a bottle. Houdini could escape from a submerging casket whilst simultaneously removing 3 pairs of unbreakable handcuffs.
But they've got nothing on me. I can pull off the most incredible piece of magic that you'll ever have seen. I can make entire swathes of knowledge vanish in a microsecond. Months of learning, into thin air. The entire learning process of the third year removed from my head in one swift blow.
Psychiatry, gone. Paediatrics, gone. Primary health care, missing. Respiratory, AWOL. Gastroenterology, presumed dead. As for clinical skills like examining a patient, or showing them how to use inhalers, or even talking to them, I resemble a drunken Teletubby trying to hail a taxi. I'm not slick at it, that's for sure.
In case you hadn't guessed, exams are round the corner once again. The 8th consecutive year of exams for me, if you count pointless exercises like SATs and mocks, and the 6th year by any body's standards. It seems like yesterday when I got my AS Level results back, but it was the best part of 4 years ago. I've never been a big fan of exams (who is?), and that's partly due to my increasingly common tendency to forget things very quickly. I often find myself checking the ward board for a patient's name 5 seconds after I saw it. And to think at 6th Form I could remember an entire textbook for revision.
It doesn't help that the last few weeks before our slender revision period are taken up by some of the most intense attachments to date. Right now I'm on Obs+Gynae. I admit, I'm not your textbook "baby person", although I do occasionally catch myself mindlessly smiling at the baby when I should be listening to a doctor or watching the surgeons close up after a Cesarean.
In fact, babies have recently become interesting to me for another reason.
In theatre yesterday, as the newborn baby was being passed from the surgeon to the midwife after the Cesarean, I lent in and asked for clarification from the doctor, "a boy or a girl?".
"Boy", said the surgeon. I quietly pump my fist and mouth "Yes!".
It isn't my baby, of course not. I'm not related to it, and it's not even my patient, I'm only a student. But my friend and I have opened a book on the predicted sex of the baby, and I'd staked a quid on the lucky little thing having a Y chromosome. Easiest pound I ever earnt. And think of it like this, that child's first act in this world was to make me money. He is a winner, I can tell. Unfortunately, using that premise makes the girl that was delivered an hour later a loser, but I can live with that. Win some, lose some.
But they've got nothing on me. I can pull off the most incredible piece of magic that you'll ever have seen. I can make entire swathes of knowledge vanish in a microsecond. Months of learning, into thin air. The entire learning process of the third year removed from my head in one swift blow.
Psychiatry, gone. Paediatrics, gone. Primary health care, missing. Respiratory, AWOL. Gastroenterology, presumed dead. As for clinical skills like examining a patient, or showing them how to use inhalers, or even talking to them, I resemble a drunken Teletubby trying to hail a taxi. I'm not slick at it, that's for sure.
In case you hadn't guessed, exams are round the corner once again. The 8th consecutive year of exams for me, if you count pointless exercises like SATs and mocks, and the 6th year by any body's standards. It seems like yesterday when I got my AS Level results back, but it was the best part of 4 years ago. I've never been a big fan of exams (who is?), and that's partly due to my increasingly common tendency to forget things very quickly. I often find myself checking the ward board for a patient's name 5 seconds after I saw it. And to think at 6th Form I could remember an entire textbook for revision.
It doesn't help that the last few weeks before our slender revision period are taken up by some of the most intense attachments to date. Right now I'm on Obs+Gynae. I admit, I'm not your textbook "baby person", although I do occasionally catch myself mindlessly smiling at the baby when I should be listening to a doctor or watching the surgeons close up after a Cesarean.
In fact, babies have recently become interesting to me for another reason.
In theatre yesterday, as the newborn baby was being passed from the surgeon to the midwife after the Cesarean, I lent in and asked for clarification from the doctor, "a boy or a girl?".
"Boy", said the surgeon. I quietly pump my fist and mouth "Yes!".
It isn't my baby, of course not. I'm not related to it, and it's not even my patient, I'm only a student. But my friend and I have opened a book on the predicted sex of the baby, and I'd staked a quid on the lucky little thing having a Y chromosome. Easiest pound I ever earnt. And think of it like this, that child's first act in this world was to make me money. He is a winner, I can tell. Unfortunately, using that premise makes the girl that was delivered an hour later a loser, but I can live with that. Win some, lose some.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Dextrocardia
Down in A+E today, I was casually listening to yet another chest. On the left side, I struggled to pick up anything suspicious, it all seemed fine. Breathing was a bit quick, but otherwise absolutely fine. Moving on to right side, the lungs seemed okay again, and the heart was beating strongly and regularly. I was struggling to understand why the SHO had told me to listen to this guy's chest, and was now hovering over my shoulder in excitement.
Hang on a minute. Right side.... Heart....... Right side................. Heart.
Right side.
Heart.
Isn't the heart meant to be on the left side? The rusting cogs that fill my head were finally heaved back into motion by a dropping penny. This guy's heart is on the wrong side, or as we medically inclined people say, dextrocardia. Affecting only 0.01% of people, most of whom will never know it, it's quite an interesting catch for a third year student. There are a few dangers of having the condition, mostly to do with sufficient oxygen getting through the lungs to the body, but to be honest I haven't done enough research to explain them.
I mean, it's not likely to come up in any of my exams, is it?
Hang on a minute. Right side.... Heart....... Right side................. Heart.
Right side.
Heart.
Isn't the heart meant to be on the left side? The rusting cogs that fill my head were finally heaved back into motion by a dropping penny. This guy's heart is on the wrong side, or as we medically inclined people say, dextrocardia. Affecting only 0.01% of people, most of whom will never know it, it's quite an interesting catch for a third year student. There are a few dangers of having the condition, mostly to do with sufficient oxygen getting through the lungs to the body, but to be honest I haven't done enough research to explain them.
I mean, it's not likely to come up in any of my exams, is it?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Layman's Terms
"Do you want me to take an ECG on him?", the extremely lovely nurse asks me. The junior doctors have all gone to lunch and she seems to think that in their absence I constitute some kind of feasible replacement. I bask in the glory of having somebody assume that I have the faintest idea what this patient needs, before sneakily telling her that he probably doesn't need an ECG but that she should double check with somebody else later.
"Could you fill out his drug chart?" She isn't taking the hint. Yes, I could fill out the drug form, with his name, patient number and known allergies, but despite the fact that me giving him any drugs is distinctly illegal, I wouldn't even know if aspirin would be a good idea. I smile, and say that I know how to but I'm not allowed. She smiles back. How rare.
The junior doctors finally reappear, smirking with each other about the 300ml of pus they just drained from a wound.
"300ml, about the size of a can of coke" I say, I am the embodiment of medical description. "Yep", says a junior doctor, with a giggle. They are mostly female and today they seem mostly cheerful.
At that second, a registrar, who has come to the ward to fill in my assessment form, appears from nowhere. Did he hear my razor sharp coke-can one-liner? Luckily, it appears not.
He gives me a rough grade for my attendance, interest, knowledge, and all manner of other vague criteria, taking breaks to ask me spontaneous questions based on notes he finds littered around the nurse's station. I do alright, mostly Bs and Cs. The last criterion is "communication".
"How would you describe yourself here?", he asks me, honestly expecting me to give an answer different to "good, fine".
"What about with patients, talking in layman's terms?" he asks. The junior doctors giggle close by, sipping their cokes.
Bugger, he heard me. Luckily, he turned out to be the most likeable surgical registrar in the entire hospital. We spent a further 20 minutes chatting about how irritating it is when patients describe their pus volumes using the empirical system. How much is half a quart anyway? We agreed that everyone should go metric, so we could quantify pus much more easily. Modern medicine, an ever changing science.
"Could you fill out his drug chart?" She isn't taking the hint. Yes, I could fill out the drug form, with his name, patient number and known allergies, but despite the fact that me giving him any drugs is distinctly illegal, I wouldn't even know if aspirin would be a good idea. I smile, and say that I know how to but I'm not allowed. She smiles back. How rare.
The junior doctors finally reappear, smirking with each other about the 300ml of pus they just drained from a wound.
"300ml, about the size of a can of coke" I say, I am the embodiment of medical description. "Yep", says a junior doctor, with a giggle. They are mostly female and today they seem mostly cheerful.
At that second, a registrar, who has come to the ward to fill in my assessment form, appears from nowhere. Did he hear my razor sharp coke-can one-liner? Luckily, it appears not.
He gives me a rough grade for my attendance, interest, knowledge, and all manner of other vague criteria, taking breaks to ask me spontaneous questions based on notes he finds littered around the nurse's station. I do alright, mostly Bs and Cs. The last criterion is "communication".
"How would you describe yourself here?", he asks me, honestly expecting me to give an answer different to "good, fine".
"What about with patients, talking in layman's terms?" he asks. The junior doctors giggle close by, sipping their cokes.
Bugger, he heard me. Luckily, he turned out to be the most likeable surgical registrar in the entire hospital. We spent a further 20 minutes chatting about how irritating it is when patients describe their pus volumes using the empirical system. How much is half a quart anyway? We agreed that everyone should go metric, so we could quantify pus much more easily. Modern medicine, an ever changing science.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
I should've played dumb
Today I answered a question during the ward round to which the answer was "erectile dysfunction". The consultant spent the remaining hour of the round pointing to me and patting me sympathetically on the shoulder whenever the subject came up. Slightly embarrassing.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Smacking
Isn't it strange that one of the ways parents use to teach their children the difference between wrong and right is to hit them? The difference between wrong and right. Hitting them. Funny kind of logic.
If your child doesn't behave, if they doesn't do what he or she is told, you can hit them. I won't sugar the pill and call it "smacking", because that paints a more placid picture. What it is is hitting. Assault.
You don't have the right to punch your friends if they don't obey your orders, so why the hell should you be able to hit your children? At least your friends are adults and can summon up some resistance, your children are helpless. And what is worse, they rely on you for survival, for food and water, for warmth and love. How do you think they feel when the two people who provide everything for them, and are the biggest role models in their lives turn around and physically abuse them? Yes, I said abuse. It's not a nice word, but look it up in the dictionary. It fits.
You wouldn't lock them in a cage without food for a week would you? You wouldn't leave them outside overnight? You wouldn't put cigarettes out on them, would you? So why would you hit them? Hide behind your safe word, "smacking", or your traditional image of putting your child over your knee, the result is the same as slapping them across the face.
It's going to torture their self confidence, and the conflicting emotions and confusion must be horrible. Let alone the possibility of them growing up to believe that it's acceptable to hit their own poor children.
I can't stand some of the arguments people come up with to defend this abuse. "You have to make children understand". "The only language they understand is smacking". "They won't forget their lesson now".
Of course they won't forget the time their own parents hit them. Ever. They're children. Nothing they could do in their innocent way could ever deserve to be punished by being struck. Yes, children need discipline, sometimes hard discipline, but what does physical violence and fleeting pain and fear teach them about life? Go on, tell me, I want to know.
If you don't have the love and patience necessary to teach your children about how grow into acceptable, responsible adults without raising your hand to them, then it's you that needs to be on the end of it, not your child.
[note: I was not abused as a child, just to clear that one up, mother.]
If your child doesn't behave, if they doesn't do what he or she is told, you can hit them. I won't sugar the pill and call it "smacking", because that paints a more placid picture. What it is is hitting. Assault.
You don't have the right to punch your friends if they don't obey your orders, so why the hell should you be able to hit your children? At least your friends are adults and can summon up some resistance, your children are helpless. And what is worse, they rely on you for survival, for food and water, for warmth and love. How do you think they feel when the two people who provide everything for them, and are the biggest role models in their lives turn around and physically abuse them? Yes, I said abuse. It's not a nice word, but look it up in the dictionary. It fits.
You wouldn't lock them in a cage without food for a week would you? You wouldn't leave them outside overnight? You wouldn't put cigarettes out on them, would you? So why would you hit them? Hide behind your safe word, "smacking", or your traditional image of putting your child over your knee, the result is the same as slapping them across the face.
It's going to torture their self confidence, and the conflicting emotions and confusion must be horrible. Let alone the possibility of them growing up to believe that it's acceptable to hit their own poor children.
I can't stand some of the arguments people come up with to defend this abuse. "You have to make children understand". "The only language they understand is smacking". "They won't forget their lesson now".
Of course they won't forget the time their own parents hit them. Ever. They're children. Nothing they could do in their innocent way could ever deserve to be punished by being struck. Yes, children need discipline, sometimes hard discipline, but what does physical violence and fleeting pain and fear teach them about life? Go on, tell me, I want to know.
If you don't have the love and patience necessary to teach your children about how grow into acceptable, responsible adults without raising your hand to them, then it's you that needs to be on the end of it, not your child.
[note: I was not abused as a child, just to clear that one up, mother.]
Thursday, April 19, 2007
My Consultant, Doctor Invisible
I started my surgical placement 3 weeks ago, and in that time, I have met my consultant precisely zero times. For the first two weeks, he was on leave, and for the last week, I have tried desperately but in vain to catch a fleeting glimpse of the lesser-spotted senior doctor. Our lack of contact is not as worrying for me as it should be for you, seeing as he is the most important resource in the education of 3 people who will in the very near future be shoving their hands around in your guts and playing "eeny meeny miny mo" to decide which artery to clamp. I have parasitically sucked as much information out of the junior doctors as I can, and the occasional scheduled teaching session with another class is all well and good, but basically I'm on my own, and it isn't good.
At the risk of shattering the public's illusions of consultant surgeons as hardworking, humility-bound bundles of benevolent cuddliness, I have found a few incriminating photos taken during his time spent "at work". Observe.
Here he is in Monaco with his latest Porsche, whilst Mr.Smith bleeds out on the table thanks to his unsupervised cretinous underling doctors.
At the risk of shattering the public's illusions of consultant surgeons as hardworking, humility-bound bundles of benevolent cuddliness, I have found a few incriminating photos taken during his time spent "at work". Observe.
Here he is shooting a personal best of 4-over-par when he was meant to be conducting an urgent radical nephrectomy.
Here he is in Monaco with his latest Porsche, whilst Mr.Smith bleeds out on the table thanks to his unsupervised cretinous underling doctors.
And here is Doctor Workshy again, coating himself in the gentle, relaxing sunbeams of Muscle Beach, as his own patients are ironically dying of untreated skin cancer.
Fine, maybe I'm overreacting, but it's not my fault if the weekly schedule of his activities I was given is 100% inaccurate. I'd ask the cleaners how to do a cystoscopy, but they only speak Polish. Just pray you don't need an operation in 10 years!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Children are not Accessories
Why the hell would Madonna fly to Malawi to adopt a child when her own fallopian tubes seem to be working fine? Why doesn't she just do the natural thing and actually have another child of her own? I've been theorising, and basically I think it's due to one of a few possibilities.
- She thinks adopting a child from a third world country is the new black, and has upped the stakes in the hideous game between her and Angelina Jolie to decide who really is the most detached from reality by completing the entire set of ethnic children, like a football sticker collection. Babies are not accessories. Dressing them up in little burberry jackets and back-facing caps makes you look like an irresponsible dimwit who treats their totally dependant child like a Barbie doll. By the way Britney, I recommend sterilization. Drinking and smoking the amount you are already should do the trick anyway by around 2010.
- In her own tiny little head, she actually thinks that ripping a child away from their entire culture, heritage, and groups of friends and ancestors constitutes saving the world. If she really wanted to do something helpful, she'd get off her fat fake-Brit arse, go down to the bank, and use the interest she accrued on her fortune in the last millisecond to build a new orphanage and furbish it with staff, beds, food and clean water, so that she could prospectively save thousands of kids. But, like the spoilt child she really is, she stands against the shop window, staring at all the poor faces of starving children and proclaims obstinately that she only wants one. The cute one. Well guess what, that's not how it works.
- She thinks that black people are genetically gifted with better rhythm, so when the kid grows up he'll be able to write her a few albums, distancing her nose from the grindstone by a further million miles.
- All of the above.
Self-Serving "Musicians"
Some "artists" are really beginning to piss me off. I like my music as much as the next guy, but some "musicians" are testing my patience just a little too much.
I am especially beginning to despise rappers and R'n'B singers who insist on singing their names at the start of every one of their identical, uninspiring tracks. No, it is not part of the new way of recording, it is arrogant. And anyway, if you where any good at all I might remember your name in the time it takes to get the CD from the case with your name on it, to the player. Not that I ever buy your music anyway, it sucks. You never heard a Beatles song with John Lennon and Paul McCartney shouting out "The Beatles, yeah The Beatles!" at the start, did you? That's because they were so good people remembered them from their last song, and the ones before that. They actually had a body of work, not that you'd know about that, what with being replaced by someone more "bling" after just one awful, idiomatic single, which by the way rapes the memory of real rappers, who could actually discuss issues other than guns, bitches and cars.
Leading on to my second point. Who the hell gives a flying fuck that the profits from your last album (impressive, 10 or more identically soporific tracks in one year) bought you a Ferrari, or a pointless medallion which is bigger than your youngest illegitimate child? I certainly don't, and it sure as hell won't make me want to go out and buy the new one. Quit talking about guns too, I know you get all stroppy when people accuse you of being irresponsible, but maybe if your songs didn't paint you as moronic imbeciles without the ability to tie your own shoelaces without four hands, we might possibly let you own a gun that doesn't fire red plastic arrows.
And quit being so hypocritical. If I'm not wrong, Ms Dynamite managed to squeeze out two albums of sanctimonious bullshit about teenage pregnancy and surviving the "ghetto" (East London) before she moved to Surrey and got up the duff to her best mate's husband. Dumb.
I am especially beginning to despise rappers and R'n'B singers who insist on singing their names at the start of every one of their identical, uninspiring tracks. No, it is not part of the new way of recording, it is arrogant. And anyway, if you where any good at all I might remember your name in the time it takes to get the CD from the case with your name on it, to the player. Not that I ever buy your music anyway, it sucks. You never heard a Beatles song with John Lennon and Paul McCartney shouting out "The Beatles, yeah The Beatles!" at the start, did you? That's because they were so good people remembered them from their last song, and the ones before that. They actually had a body of work, not that you'd know about that, what with being replaced by someone more "bling" after just one awful, idiomatic single, which by the way rapes the memory of real rappers, who could actually discuss issues other than guns, bitches and cars.
Leading on to my second point. Who the hell gives a flying fuck that the profits from your last album (impressive, 10 or more identically soporific tracks in one year) bought you a Ferrari, or a pointless medallion which is bigger than your youngest illegitimate child? I certainly don't, and it sure as hell won't make me want to go out and buy the new one. Quit talking about guns too, I know you get all stroppy when people accuse you of being irresponsible, but maybe if your songs didn't paint you as moronic imbeciles without the ability to tie your own shoelaces without four hands, we might possibly let you own a gun that doesn't fire red plastic arrows.
And quit being so hypocritical. If I'm not wrong, Ms Dynamite managed to squeeze out two albums of sanctimonious bullshit about teenage pregnancy and surviving the "ghetto" (East London) before she moved to Surrey and got up the duff to her best mate's husband. Dumb.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Creationism: How Gullible are you?
I once read a book about elaborate hoaxes, and how the very best cons are so good that when the ringleader finally tells everybody that it was all a joke, no one believes him, and the hoaxed people refuse to get wise.
Creationism is like that. Honestly, if someone tried to pull that one on me on April Fool's day, I would have believed it for precisely zero seconds. Nobody would have, because the whole idea is totally ridiculous. The only reason any one falls for it is because the whole idea is such an elaborate hoax, just one idiocy in the mile-long list of religious lies, that deluded people find it easy to go along with anything you tell them.
I'm not against the idea of a higher power, I don't think it's possible to tell if there is one or not, but some theories are quite clearly absolute tripe. I mean, really, if my mum had tried to bring me up as a creationist, I would've had her committed.
Let's examine a few minor flaws-
Creationism is like that. Honestly, if someone tried to pull that one on me on April Fool's day, I would have believed it for precisely zero seconds. Nobody would have, because the whole idea is totally ridiculous. The only reason any one falls for it is because the whole idea is such an elaborate hoax, just one idiocy in the mile-long list of religious lies, that deluded people find it easy to go along with anything you tell them.
I'm not against the idea of a higher power, I don't think it's possible to tell if there is one or not, but some theories are quite clearly absolute tripe. I mean, really, if my mum had tried to bring me up as a creationist, I would've had her committed.
Let's examine a few minor flaws-
- God created the world in 7 days, creating one thing a day. Firstly, how can there be days if you haven't created the world yet dumbass??? A day is a revolution of the planet.
- God took Saturday off because he wanted to rest. This is bullshit. You could get this kind of stuff from the Brothers Grimm. If there is a God, he wouldn't need a day off ever. He would've done the job in one "day", and might even have had some time left to make humans less idiotic.
- He did this a few thousand years ago. Okay, fine, that just goes against all the real evidence we have, like how we can carbon date things to millions of years ago. This is usually where creationists go "yeah, but science is fallible". Wake up and smell the moronic assertions, you idiots, it's not science, it's common bloody sense.
- God left traps like fossils to test our faith. No, he didn't. What is this, life, or a giant game of Cluedo? Maybe God created the world in the study with the candlestick, or maybe you're a dipshit. Stop trying to incorporate things into the Bible just because you've realised that they totally contradict your half-baked ideas. In the real world, if an idea is stupid, we drop it, not twist it beyond recognition just to keep it alive.
- Creationists love to break open the argument explaining how the world we live in, "which is perfect", must have a designer, like a finely tuned pocket watch. Have you ever opened your eyes, ever? The world is a shithole. Half the world's population is starving, or fighting over nothing, or diseased, or French. It's not a very nice place. And as for the universe, it's basically a massive mess of burning gas and icy rock, as we cling to the only barely habitable rock in the galaxy. Great design job, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen makes you look like a child with crayons.
- Animals are totally different to humans. Guess again you mindless clones. Humans eat, breathe, reproduce and shit like, let me think, animals. And then I could go on about DNA but you'd probably burn me at the stake. In fact, I'm quite happy to be related to apes, they show remarkable signs of intelligence, like not falling for dumbass children's stories.
I reckon there was some middle eastern man, walking around Jerusalem around 2000 years ago, seeing how dedicated people had become to Christianity. He'd mumble under his breath, "bloody hell, they actually fell for it".
Get A Life
I had a good night out clubbing tonight, and after the club closed at 2am I brang 2 of my mates back to my house to play a few hands of social poker and drink a few beers. It only took 5 minutes for one of my socially deprived housemates to crawl out of her room of Christian idealism to mumble to me that I was being "quite inconsiderate".
Well, okay, let me check my watch. It says it's 2007, which means that I'm 21, which vaguely infers that I should be having some fun. If she wants to prematurely surrender her youthful years and willingly become geriatric then fine, but don't bitch onto me about it. Don't whine to me because your tender ears can't take the awful sounds of us chatting through the wall at 3am. Don't cry because we are staying up past your bedtime without mummy's permission and it confuses and scares you. Don't tell all your friends that I am the spawn of Satan just because one of my mates wanted to take a fag break and I opened the back door for her.
I know you want to needlessly surrender you life and aspirations in return for a future of hollow promises and regretful traditional gender roles, but don't impose your pitiful choices onto my life.
Get over it.
Live a little.
I know I'm not Jimi Hendrix, I'm not going to start a love revolution with my social stance, but for fuck's sake, even I realise that chilling out and not caring is a good thing sometimes.
I know that this post has next to no relevance to most of you, but please, I beg you, relax.
Cool down. Take that iron rod out of your backside. Everyone will hate you less.
Well, okay, let me check my watch. It says it's 2007, which means that I'm 21, which vaguely infers that I should be having some fun. If she wants to prematurely surrender her youthful years and willingly become geriatric then fine, but don't bitch onto me about it. Don't whine to me because your tender ears can't take the awful sounds of us chatting through the wall at 3am. Don't cry because we are staying up past your bedtime without mummy's permission and it confuses and scares you. Don't tell all your friends that I am the spawn of Satan just because one of my mates wanted to take a fag break and I opened the back door for her.
I know you want to needlessly surrender you life and aspirations in return for a future of hollow promises and regretful traditional gender roles, but don't impose your pitiful choices onto my life.
Get over it.
Live a little.
I know I'm not Jimi Hendrix, I'm not going to start a love revolution with my social stance, but for fuck's sake, even I realise that chilling out and not caring is a good thing sometimes.
I know that this post has next to no relevance to most of you, but please, I beg you, relax.
Cool down. Take that iron rod out of your backside. Everyone will hate you less.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
"Retard Probable"
Sorry for my recent absence, I've been in France checking up on my multilingual globetrotting girlfriend.
Anyway, as I waited for my return train, I noticed that the train operator saw fit to include the comment "retard probable" next to the details of several trains on the departures board.
A number of thoughts entered my head-
Anyway, as I waited for my return train, I noticed that the train operator saw fit to include the comment "retard probable" next to the details of several trains on the departures board.
A number of thoughts entered my head-
- It's quite un-PC to actually advertise the fact that there may be people with learning disabilities on board the train.
- It's also fairly un-PC to call them retards.
- Will the retards be driving the train? Positive discrimination gone mad.
- Isn't "retard probable" French for "probable delays"?
- The French are morons in a general sense.
Yes, my train did end up being late. And my connecting train was also late. And my third and final train, a poor replacement due to me missing my original choice by 5 minutes, was also late. This leads me to the conclusion that the French are responsible in some way for the vast majority of human suffering. Consider these points-
- Thievery. French cricket. French toast. French fries. Stop stealing our perfectly valid inventions, attaching your prefix, modifying them in some tiny detail to make them easier to understand/more pungent and pretending that you thought of them yourself. Especially stop claiming to have invented the theory of the republic, Plato did it 2000 years ago, you morons. Also, invent a proper sport. We came up with football, rugby and cricket, not to mention snooker, darts and many athletic events. You have tennis, which frankly is about as enticing as your body odour.
- Body odour. It is not acceptable to smell overly of urine or cheap aftershave, which on my limited experience applies to around 90% of French people. Foodstuffs are also not fragrances.
- Introductory cheek kissing. He is a man. I am a man. No. What the hell is wrong with a masculine handshake involving a non-spoken competition for superior firmness between the two participants? Too manly for you? Thought so.
- Mint sauce, baked beans and marmite are not "specialist" foods. They should be stocked in all your shops regardless of whether that means you have to move the horse or the dog to a different shelf.
- Stop surrendering. You've used up all you credits for us coming to your rescue, so the next time you get invaded by Albania or Zambia, we're going to get out our telescopes and watch. We might even have a celebratory baked beans party as the smoke of your burnt-out onion fields drifts across the Channel.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Not Dead
That's right, despite your pessimistic predictions, I survived my 10km race. I actually managed to achieve all my goals, including to do the whole thing without stopping, and under an hour (actually 53 minutes, I'm chuffed). It was pretty painful, lonely at times, embarrassing when kids kept up with me by the side of the course for half the race, and nauseating when I decided to sprint the last 100 metres and retched up a load of air on the finish line, but I did it.
My whole lower body aches like hell today, but I managed to squeeze out a slow 3 mile jog to try and get the blood flowing again. I think it worked, but maybe the pain is just waiting until I least suspect it.
My support crew (mum, sister, uni mate) seemed disproportionately proud of me, maybe they didn't see that about 80% of the field, including octogenarians and part timers with jean-shorts and iPods were driving home by the time that I'd finished. I don't care though, I'm constantly told that I should only be competing with myself, which I'm beginning to really appreciate.
The next step, apparently, is a half marathon. And if I'm competing against myself, I don't think I can lose.
My whole lower body aches like hell today, but I managed to squeeze out a slow 3 mile jog to try and get the blood flowing again. I think it worked, but maybe the pain is just waiting until I least suspect it.
My support crew (mum, sister, uni mate) seemed disproportionately proud of me, maybe they didn't see that about 80% of the field, including octogenarians and part timers with jean-shorts and iPods were driving home by the time that I'd finished. I don't care though, I'm constantly told that I should only be competing with myself, which I'm beginning to really appreciate.
The next step, apparently, is a half marathon. And if I'm competing against myself, I don't think I can lose.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Gearing up for my 10km
Instead of ranting, for a change I'm going to chat about an upcoming event in my life, my first 10km race tomorrow.
I love the way the organiser chose to call it a race, it leads people towards the wholly untrue conclusion that I will be racing, and therefore running fast to try and beat other runners. This is bollocks.
I will be firstly trying to finish the course without collapsing into a sun-drenched pile of huffing, puffing sweaty pale mess on the course. My secondary goal is to run the whole thing, not taking any walking breaks. I have done an 8km training run, and it wasn't too hard, but you never know, the last 2km could kill me. My final goal, and the one that I will forget about quickest when the start gun goes, is to finish in under an hour. A respectable runner's time would be under 50 minutes, a great one under 40. But despite the misleading facts that I am young, and do quite a bit of exercise, I simply can not keep running that fast for that long.
Because I naturally have the ego of an 8 year old, which needs constant reasurring and compliments from my parents, my mum and sister are coming along to cheer me on. I have devised a list to help them find me in the pack. It will help them spot me as the runners come home.
From first to last, the groups of finishers will be-
I love the way the organiser chose to call it a race, it leads people towards the wholly untrue conclusion that I will be racing, and therefore running fast to try and beat other runners. This is bollocks.
I will be firstly trying to finish the course without collapsing into a sun-drenched pile of huffing, puffing sweaty pale mess on the course. My secondary goal is to run the whole thing, not taking any walking breaks. I have done an 8km training run, and it wasn't too hard, but you never know, the last 2km could kill me. My final goal, and the one that I will forget about quickest when the start gun goes, is to finish in under an hour. A respectable runner's time would be under 50 minutes, a great one under 40. But despite the misleading facts that I am young, and do quite a bit of exercise, I simply can not keep running that fast for that long.
Because I naturally have the ego of an 8 year old, which needs constant reasurring and compliments from my parents, my mum and sister are coming along to cheer me on. I have devised a list to help them find me in the pack. It will help them spot me as the runners come home.
From first to last, the groups of finishers will be-
- The elite runners.
- The highly trained part timers.
- The social runners with a bit of natural talent.
- The average social runners.
- The poor social runners.
- The people who signed up for a dare last night.
- The fatties.
- The concurrent walking race leaders.
- The under 10's race leaders.
- The race marshalls that were keeping the road blocks in place.
- Pedestrians who happen to be walking the same course by coincidence.
- The litter they've dropped that has been blown by a gentle breeze around the course.
- Next year's winners.
- Me.
The fact that my right shin has had a nasty bruise next to the bone for 3 weeks now isn't helping, so I guess I'll be gritting my teeth and throwing myself over the line.
If I don't post tomorrow, I died trying.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Patients are Liars
During a history-taking session with a 35 year-old male patient today, I asked him the routine question about his previous operations.
"None", he stated firmly. I am curious.
"Are you sure?" I reiterate. He looks at me like I'm calling him stupid.
"Yes. Positive." I finally decide to show my hand.
"Only I've looked through your notes and they say you had a kidney transplant in 2005".
He is nonplussed- "oh, does that count as an operation?".
This is typical. Medical people don't expect their patients to know much about their problems, or remember the finer points of their treatment for later, but we have to draw the line somewhere. Strangely enough, putting somebody to sleep, cutting a big hole in their side, tearing out a vital organ and stitching in somebody else's counts as an operation. It's crazy, I know.
I've had worse though. I once chatted to a man who swore blind that his lungs were working fine, never any problems there. He only had one, the other had been whipped out last week for his apparently minimally irritating lung cancer.
"What about allergies, to any drugs or foods?" I continue on down the path of foolish questions.
"Oh, no, definitely not. I'd remember that."
Well guess again jackass. Your notes say you're allergic to all kinds of penicillins, and the most common way to find that out is to have them given to you and watch as you blow up like a anaphylatic hot air balloon and almost die from airway obstruction. But I guess it's easy to forget, you know, that time you nearly died.
So, my conclusion is that some patients are extremely forgetful, plain stupid, or my own personal theory, they are playing games with me and creating a whole new character every time somebody with an ID badge speaks to them.
Anyway, my patient has asked me to kindly tell the surgeons during the operation tomorrow that it is his right testis that is cancerous and needs removing, not his left. Well now, how good is my memory?
"None", he stated firmly. I am curious.
"Are you sure?" I reiterate. He looks at me like I'm calling him stupid.
"Yes. Positive." I finally decide to show my hand.
"Only I've looked through your notes and they say you had a kidney transplant in 2005".
He is nonplussed- "oh, does that count as an operation?".
This is typical. Medical people don't expect their patients to know much about their problems, or remember the finer points of their treatment for later, but we have to draw the line somewhere. Strangely enough, putting somebody to sleep, cutting a big hole in their side, tearing out a vital organ and stitching in somebody else's counts as an operation. It's crazy, I know.
I've had worse though. I once chatted to a man who swore blind that his lungs were working fine, never any problems there. He only had one, the other had been whipped out last week for his apparently minimally irritating lung cancer.
"What about allergies, to any drugs or foods?" I continue on down the path of foolish questions.
"Oh, no, definitely not. I'd remember that."
Well guess again jackass. Your notes say you're allergic to all kinds of penicillins, and the most common way to find that out is to have them given to you and watch as you blow up like a anaphylatic hot air balloon and almost die from airway obstruction. But I guess it's easy to forget, you know, that time you nearly died.
So, my conclusion is that some patients are extremely forgetful, plain stupid, or my own personal theory, they are playing games with me and creating a whole new character every time somebody with an ID badge speaks to them.
Anyway, my patient has asked me to kindly tell the surgeons during the operation tomorrow that it is his right testis that is cancerous and needs removing, not his left. Well now, how good is my memory?
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Me vs. Stephen Hawking: Gameshow Challenge
We all know Professor Stephen Hawking is one of the leading minds of our time, but how would he fare in a duel with me? My chosen weapon- pistols? No. Swords? No. It's game show time.
Round One- Countdown
It's pretty obvious that Hawkers would shit on me at this. Not only can I never manage more than a 4 letter word when I play it at home, Hawkers probably has Google on his computer and could pretty much come up with a perfect score.
Hawking 1-0 Me
Round Two- Mastermind
It's not looking good for me here. I'd have to choose "rare symptoms of hangovers" as my specialist subject, whereas he could probably take "the life and achievements of Stephen Hawking" and get away with it. Unless I get asked 20 consecutive questions to which the answer is "pass", I'm done for.
Hawking 2-0 Me
Round Three-Big Break
Although this one seems a bit physical, if you remember correctly it's only the professionals who play the shots, while the contestants sit in their chairs and answer questions. It was looking like 3-0 until I realised that at the start of every episode the contestants have to choose a snooker ball from a bag to determine their partner. Hawking has a problem here-disqualified.
Hawking 2-1 Me
Round Four-Bullseye
Hawkers doesn't seem like much of a darts man to me, and I see no projectile-firing devices on his chair. So even though I can only hit the board about once an hour, I win by default.
Hawking 2-2 Me
Round Five- The Weakest Link
Despite being the smartest sod in the line-up, Hawking wouldn't fare to well here because he'd get voted off towards the end due to some tactics by the other surviving contestants. It was all going well for me here until I realised that I'd probably get thrown off first for forgetting how many days there are in a week, or what colour grass is.
Hawking 3-2 Me
Round Six- Stars in their Eyes
Steve probably can't knock out much of a tune, I have heard. Apparently he lacks pitch or something. I, on the other hand, can get through a Frank Sinatra without having anything thrown at me. I don't murder them, just assault them.
Hawking 3-3 Me
Well well, looks like good old Hawkers can conquer the world of theoretical physics, but can't put me away in a good old fashioned round of game show marathon.
Round One- Countdown
It's pretty obvious that Hawkers would shit on me at this. Not only can I never manage more than a 4 letter word when I play it at home, Hawkers probably has Google on his computer and could pretty much come up with a perfect score.
Hawking 1-0 Me
Round Two- Mastermind
It's not looking good for me here. I'd have to choose "rare symptoms of hangovers" as my specialist subject, whereas he could probably take "the life and achievements of Stephen Hawking" and get away with it. Unless I get asked 20 consecutive questions to which the answer is "pass", I'm done for.
Hawking 2-0 Me
Round Three-Big Break
Although this one seems a bit physical, if you remember correctly it's only the professionals who play the shots, while the contestants sit in their chairs and answer questions. It was looking like 3-0 until I realised that at the start of every episode the contestants have to choose a snooker ball from a bag to determine their partner. Hawking has a problem here-disqualified.
Hawking 2-1 Me
Round Four-Bullseye
Hawkers doesn't seem like much of a darts man to me, and I see no projectile-firing devices on his chair. So even though I can only hit the board about once an hour, I win by default.
Hawking 2-2 Me
Round Five- The Weakest Link
Despite being the smartest sod in the line-up, Hawking wouldn't fare to well here because he'd get voted off towards the end due to some tactics by the other surviving contestants. It was all going well for me here until I realised that I'd probably get thrown off first for forgetting how many days there are in a week, or what colour grass is.
Hawking 3-2 Me
Round Six- Stars in their Eyes
Steve probably can't knock out much of a tune, I have heard. Apparently he lacks pitch or something. I, on the other hand, can get through a Frank Sinatra without having anything thrown at me. I don't murder them, just assault them.
Hawking 3-3 Me
Well well, looks like good old Hawkers can conquer the world of theoretical physics, but can't put me away in a good old fashioned round of game show marathon.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Top 5 Famous Surgeons
Seeing as today was the first day of my new surgery rotation, I thought I'd look at a few famous butchers (sorry, surgeons), and judge them in a manner ill-fitting my status. I've listed them in a Top of the Pops-style chart, with the crappiest being number 5 and the least crap (notice my judgemental tone?) being number 1. Enjoy.
In at Number 5-
In at Number 5-
- Robert Liston (1794-1847).
One of the most revered surgeons of his day, Liston was renowned for his lightning-quick amputations. He was widely reported to be able to take off a limb in less than 30 seconds, which was necessary because the lazy 18th century chemists hadn't bothered to invent anaesthetics yet. That said, when they finally got off their fat alchemy-addicted arses and actually invented ether, Liston did the first operation under anaesthetic (the patient, not himself) in the UK.
Unfortunately nobody is perfect, and Liston had his faults. He once removed a patient's limb so fast he took his assistant's fingers with it, the poor git dying later from infection (because the lazy chemists hadn't invented antibiotics yet either). He also removed a man's testicles along with his faulty leg once too. Whoops.
Oh, and he was Scottish. Win some lose some.
New entry at Number 4-
- Dr Karl Kennedy
"He's not a surgeon!" I hear you scream. Well, you are wrong and I am right. He is a surgeon, a GP, an obstetrician, an A+E doctor and a psychiatrist all rolled into one, in short, he is the world's best doctor. He actually saved his own son's life by keeping his airway open by cutting his throat open and pushing in a straw. He also gets extra brownie points for seemingly being the only bloody doctor in Australia, whenever anyone gets admitted to his hospital they end up under his care.
Alright, I admit, he has his bad points. He seems to be knobbing some different random bird every 2 weeks, and his grovelling apologies to his wife/ex-wife/re-wife are just nauseating. Also, his interpretation of the confidentiality rule is fairly liberal. By that I mean he divulges information to whoever the fuck he wants, whenever the fuck he wants to.
And yes, he's Australian.
Toptasticly bouncing in at Number 3-
- Dr Samuel Mudd
A firm believer in the Hippocratic Oath, Dr. Mudd was certainly not going to divulge information about the identity, condition and whereabouts of the nice young man whose broken leg he had set and splinted recently. Unfortunately, the authorities seemed fairly keen to find John Wilkes Booth.
Mudd escaped the death penalty for conspiracy to murder by one vote, and instead got life imprisonment. He was confined to a dungeon after a failed escape attempt, but still helped to quell a substantial outbreak of yellow fever in the jail. He died of pneumonia (lazy chemists) shortly after being pardoned.
Sounds like he was a nice bloke. Loses points for having a stupid name though. Oh yeah, and he was American.
Rocking and rolling to Number 2-
The more observant readers may have noticed that this is not a surgeon, but a sturgeon. I have my reasons for this unexpected new entry-
- Surgeons in general are basically hackers and there aren't that many famous ones.
- I am getting bored and tired.
- Sturgeon is a pretty cool word.
- I'm pissed off that I didn't save Karl Kennedy until last, and I can't be bothered to move his section down.
For those of you that care, the sturgeon is a bottom-feeder that uses a wedge-shaped snout to dredge up the water bed. On the down side, fish suck.
And finally, in at Number 1-
- Dr Frankenstein
If you didn't know that Frankenstein was the name of the doctor and not the monster, then your ignorance is insulting and makes me feel ill. Please resit your SATs at once.
Who can hold a candle to Frankenstein? Nobody. Who the hell else has managed to bring parts of corpses back from the dead? Have you? No? Then don't argue with my choice. Well, until we get proof that Prince Charles honestly did construct himself a new bride using only chunks of horse meat and a bolt of lightning, there is only one winner in my book. Plus, Frankenstein worked "freestyle", without so many of the hindrances of modern medicine, like having to wash your hand in between rectal examinations, and having to actually ask before we dig up your gran's body for research.
A true professional. Oh, and he died of pneumonia. Lazy, lazy chemists.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
An Open Letter to Professional Footballers
Dear Professional Footballers,
I enjoy watching and occasionally playing football, and admire your talent for the game. I find it to be a wholly interesting and enthralling sport, one which I am happy to be associated so closely with my country and culture. Well done for rising through the swathes of amateurs ranks and becoming professionals, an achievement only a few aspiring children will ever obtain.
However, I think I can be of assistance to you. I enclose a list of advisory points that you may find useful in gaining the recognition of the public and your peers to a greater extent. Feel free to use them as you see fit.
I enjoy watching and occasionally playing football, and admire your talent for the game. I find it to be a wholly interesting and enthralling sport, one which I am happy to be associated so closely with my country and culture. Well done for rising through the swathes of amateurs ranks and becoming professionals, an achievement only a few aspiring children will ever obtain.
However, I think I can be of assistance to you. I enclose a list of advisory points that you may find useful in gaining the recognition of the public and your peers to a greater extent. Feel free to use them as you see fit.
- Shut the fuck up. When the referee says it's a red card, it's a red card. When he says it's a penalty, it's a penalty. No amount of crowding around him and shouting abuse at him will make him change his mind you classless bunch of chavs. In fact, if I was in charge, I would book any player who spoke to me ever, unless he was telling me that I'd dropped my wallet, in which case I'd give him a final warning. Referees turn up every weekend, run twice as far as any of the players, get paid a pittance and don't even get on the team sheet, so give them some respect. In rugby, whose players could, by the way, beat the shit out of you, the 20 stone blokes cower in respect of the 5 foot 2 bald guy who runs the show. Learn from it.
- Don't be such a pussy. When you're dribbling along, you have a remarkable tendency to fall flat on your highly paid arsed as soon as the nearest defender farts in your general direction. I don't care if you think that it's your prerogative to go down if you're touched, it's a man's game so act like a man and stay on your feet. If Bobby Moore had brushed Cristiano Ronaldo and he'd fallen over, Bobby would have kicked him in the nuts as he lay faking an injuring on the ground and told him "now that's a foul, get up you fucking girl". Again, rugby players seem to do okay when they have 3 international forwards hanging off them, but you fall over when someone throws a coin at you. Get over yourselves, I'm embarrassed to watch it.
- Stop whining about money. Don't you dare ever ask for a pay rise, or blow all your money on the horses. If some moron wants to pay you a million pounds every time you take a piss then there's not much I can do about it, but don't go crying about it if you suddenly can't afford the repayments on the small country you bought, or the mafia want that money they lent you for that naughty little crack habit. Not my problem. 100 years ago players played for nothing, in between 16 hour shifts down the mine. And they loved it. And they still managed to stay on their feet, and treat the ref with respect too.
- Keep your knuckles off the ground. I know your IQ isn't very high, I know your missed your GCSEs because "you couldn't be fukkin bovvered", I know you share half your genes with angry confused gorillas, but for some unknown reason, kids look up to you. So don't chin another player in front of a crowd including the local primary school, because they'll think it's okay. It isn't. For the amount of luck you've had in life, you can afford to not be a twat from time to time. Anyway, you fight like girls, any decent rugby team would murder you, and apologise to the ref afterwards.
- Stop crying you little bitch. I know it sucks to get knocked out of the World Cup, because we all get knocked out, not just you, whenever you finally play a team not bad enough to lose to your slow, passionless drivvel. We line the pubs in our thousands to watch it, every four years, and we never cry. We go back to our crappy jobs in garages and corner shops and offices. You get to kick a ball around again, for 100 times what we earn. So don't cry, little girl, it'll be okay. For anyone who cries when they lose a playoff/cup final/league, then there's no hope, you're just too much of a pansy, Bobby Moore wouldn't waste his time kicking you in the nuts. He'd just laugh, and wave his World Cup medal, taunting you.
Thank you for your time, I hope you can take some of this on board.
Regards,
The Rising Medic
p.s. The following footballers can disregard this letter-
- Gary Lineker
- Alan Shearer
- Bobby Moore (rest in peace you legend)
- Pele (good work on bum cancer)
- Gary Neville (illiterate)
Friday, March 23, 2007
God and Me, Chatting it Out
I'm not a religious guy at all, never have been. To me, religion at best seems ill-fitted for modern times and at worst comes across as one giant hilarious farce designed to delude honest people into giving up their own personal sense of morals for a pre-written list of platitudes and lies.
I could poke holes in religious arguments for ages, but I won't. But I'll give you a taster of my cynicism- here is how I think it might pan out if I get hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow and shimmy on up to the Pearly Gates. Beware, I may need to have had a few beers to get the most testing lines out, but hey, maybe me being drunk led to me being hit by that bus.
God: Shame on you my son! You have ignored my eternal message and strayed from the path of Christ! It is unending damnation for you!
Me: Hang on a minute. Let's be honest, you didn't make it that easy did you, blessing me with a logical mind and a curious personal nature? Come on, was I really going to believe a 2,000 year old book with a tenuous plot, or some rather sensible modern theories?
God: Good point, but it's in the faith you see, trust without proof.
Me: Right. That's the thing isn't it, it's not really very fair is it? Punishing us for not believing in something without proof? Thanks a bunch.
God: Ah, but I work in mysterious ways. I sent my only Son to heal your sins.
Me: Yeah, great job, healing my sins two millenia before I was born, in a country 3,ooo miles away with no accurate method of recording events apart from world of mouth. Wasn't the best idea was it? If you'd had another son inWeston-super-Mare in the 1980's then I might have gotten the message. And as for mysterious ways, Bristol Rovers beat us in the cup this year. What the fuck was that about?
God: Sorry, I thought I should give them a bit of hope after such a shitty league season. Don't worry, they'll be losing in the final to Doncaster.
Me: While we're at it, what's up with the multiple religions? Do you just automatically send all the Muslims and Jews to hell then? What about all the undiscovered peoples of the Amazon?
God: They all worship the same God. It's the thought that counts, like socks for Christmas .
Me: Well good job telling us. We're been knocking seven shades of shit out of each other about whose God is better for a bit of a while now.
God: Well, I created a perfect world, it is you who has tarnished it. If I interfered I would be infringing on your free will.
Me: Give me a break. You created a perfect world, but we tarnished it? Did we create cancer and bacteria and earthquakes and plane crashes and Dale Winton? And for your information the world isn't perfect, we're far too close to France for my personal comfort.
God: Yeah, bit of a design flaw there, France had to go somewhere.
Me: And don't you think you could make following you a bit more enticing? We only currently have a choice between chanting stuffy old hymns with the oldies, or being young and socially typecast as strange deluded altruistic weirdos that like to spend Friday evenings choosing their favourite Bible sections and being gutwrenching nice.
God: I'll admit, I do have a bit of a cult following. Maybe I do need to make it a bit more street.
Me: Street? Act your age God.
God: Sorry, too much MTV. Pimp My Ride is whack. Sorry.
Me: Listen, I'm actually not that bad of a bloke. Either we can keep arguing like this or you can send me back down there and you can have another 50 years to think up a decent argument. Deal?
God: Fair enough.
Me: Oh, and give me one of those dramatic resuscitation scenes like on Holby City. That would be great.
God: Don't push your luck.
I could poke holes in religious arguments for ages, but I won't. But I'll give you a taster of my cynicism- here is how I think it might pan out if I get hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow and shimmy on up to the Pearly Gates. Beware, I may need to have had a few beers to get the most testing lines out, but hey, maybe me being drunk led to me being hit by that bus.
God: Shame on you my son! You have ignored my eternal message and strayed from the path of Christ! It is unending damnation for you!
Me: Hang on a minute. Let's be honest, you didn't make it that easy did you, blessing me with a logical mind and a curious personal nature? Come on, was I really going to believe a 2,000 year old book with a tenuous plot, or some rather sensible modern theories?
God: Good point, but it's in the faith you see, trust without proof.
Me: Right. That's the thing isn't it, it's not really very fair is it? Punishing us for not believing in something without proof? Thanks a bunch.
God: Ah, but I work in mysterious ways. I sent my only Son to heal your sins.
Me: Yeah, great job, healing my sins two millenia before I was born, in a country 3,ooo miles away with no accurate method of recording events apart from world of mouth. Wasn't the best idea was it? If you'd had another son inWeston-super-Mare in the 1980's then I might have gotten the message. And as for mysterious ways, Bristol Rovers beat us in the cup this year. What the fuck was that about?
God: Sorry, I thought I should give them a bit of hope after such a shitty league season. Don't worry, they'll be losing in the final to Doncaster.
Me: While we're at it, what's up with the multiple religions? Do you just automatically send all the Muslims and Jews to hell then? What about all the undiscovered peoples of the Amazon?
God: They all worship the same God. It's the thought that counts, like socks for Christmas .
Me: Well good job telling us. We're been knocking seven shades of shit out of each other about whose God is better for a bit of a while now.
God: Well, I created a perfect world, it is you who has tarnished it. If I interfered I would be infringing on your free will.
Me: Give me a break. You created a perfect world, but we tarnished it? Did we create cancer and bacteria and earthquakes and plane crashes and Dale Winton? And for your information the world isn't perfect, we're far too close to France for my personal comfort.
God: Yeah, bit of a design flaw there, France had to go somewhere.
Me: And don't you think you could make following you a bit more enticing? We only currently have a choice between chanting stuffy old hymns with the oldies, or being young and socially typecast as strange deluded altruistic weirdos that like to spend Friday evenings choosing their favourite Bible sections and being gutwrenching nice.
God: I'll admit, I do have a bit of a cult following. Maybe I do need to make it a bit more street.
Me: Street? Act your age God.
God: Sorry, too much MTV. Pimp My Ride is whack. Sorry.
Me: Listen, I'm actually not that bad of a bloke. Either we can keep arguing like this or you can send me back down there and you can have another 50 years to think up a decent argument. Deal?
God: Fair enough.
Me: Oh, and give me one of those dramatic resuscitation scenes like on Holby City. That would be great.
God: Don't push your luck.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
My Ethics of Animal Testing, Basically
Firstly, let me start off by commenting on The Sun's portrayal of the tax rise on cigarettes and tax cut on nicotine patches as a bad thing..............grow up you fuckwits.
That's that done then.It's that kind of ignorant attitude that stops the genuinely conscientious people who want to quit from doing so. I thought you had to have a vague amount of common sense to work for a national newspaper. My mistake.
Okay, rant out of the way. Moving on, my summer elective application was accepted today, in spite of several glaring holes I left in my proposed schedule, including the fact that I only applied to do four weeks of work in India and not the "compulsory" eight. I suppose that the School of Medicine is sympathising with us and our tough third year course, and recognises that we deserve a summer of relaxing, and not one involving work in another hole in a third world country. Either that, or they couldn't be arsed to check my form thoroughly enough.
Also, today I got a brief view of what I'd be doing for the majority of my fourth year. I'll be spending quite a bit of time in sole charge of a rather expensive, rather complicated confocal microscope. Basically, it shines a futuristic type laser at slides and churns out pretty colourful pictures that tell you where all the different chemicals you injected your mouse brain with are. Yes, that's right, mouse brain. For want of a more humane method, my project involves mice. I won't say we kill them for science, but they're alive when we start and when we finish, they're, well, not. We send them off peacefully (I think, is being injected with formaldehyde and heparin painful? Shit, it doesn't sound that nice actually), but that's a bit of a cop out.
On a sensible note, and to stop my house being fire-bombed by mad tree-hugging hippie warriors, I'm not a big fan of animal testing at all. I'd much rather it could be done using another method, but it can't. However, given the choice between a load of mice dying and eventually curing Alzheimer's, or being lovely to mice while our grandparents and parents die in droves (and it is not a nice disease), I know which side of the fence I fall. Again, I'd rather we didn't have to do the maths and calculate which form of life is more worthy, but nobody said life would be fair and sometimes we don't have a choice.
Moving on, if the research turns out to be any good, which with me and my infantile knowledge of neurology as a main driving force is a remote possibility, I may have to chance to do something nifty like bugger off abroad and present it to people who actually understand. Or, it might get published in a journal, which would increase my chances of getting a non-shit job by quite a bit. Plus, my name on a scientific paper which would be totally incomprehensible to the general public might at least make me seem to be fairly brainy. Here's hoping.
That's that done then.It's that kind of ignorant attitude that stops the genuinely conscientious people who want to quit from doing so. I thought you had to have a vague amount of common sense to work for a national newspaper. My mistake.
Okay, rant out of the way. Moving on, my summer elective application was accepted today, in spite of several glaring holes I left in my proposed schedule, including the fact that I only applied to do four weeks of work in India and not the "compulsory" eight. I suppose that the School of Medicine is sympathising with us and our tough third year course, and recognises that we deserve a summer of relaxing, and not one involving work in another hole in a third world country. Either that, or they couldn't be arsed to check my form thoroughly enough.
Also, today I got a brief view of what I'd be doing for the majority of my fourth year. I'll be spending quite a bit of time in sole charge of a rather expensive, rather complicated confocal microscope. Basically, it shines a futuristic type laser at slides and churns out pretty colourful pictures that tell you where all the different chemicals you injected your mouse brain with are. Yes, that's right, mouse brain. For want of a more humane method, my project involves mice. I won't say we kill them for science, but they're alive when we start and when we finish, they're, well, not. We send them off peacefully (I think, is being injected with formaldehyde and heparin painful? Shit, it doesn't sound that nice actually), but that's a bit of a cop out.
On a sensible note, and to stop my house being fire-bombed by mad tree-hugging hippie warriors, I'm not a big fan of animal testing at all. I'd much rather it could be done using another method, but it can't. However, given the choice between a load of mice dying and eventually curing Alzheimer's, or being lovely to mice while our grandparents and parents die in droves (and it is not a nice disease), I know which side of the fence I fall. Again, I'd rather we didn't have to do the maths and calculate which form of life is more worthy, but nobody said life would be fair and sometimes we don't have a choice.
Moving on, if the research turns out to be any good, which with me and my infantile knowledge of neurology as a main driving force is a remote possibility, I may have to chance to do something nifty like bugger off abroad and present it to people who actually understand. Or, it might get published in a journal, which would increase my chances of getting a non-shit job by quite a bit. Plus, my name on a scientific paper which would be totally incomprehensible to the general public might at least make me seem to be fairly brainy. Here's hoping.
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