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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
