This is why I am just a 4th year and he is a consultant!!

Yeah!!! I found a place to stay alr.. After 3 weeks of house hunting I finally found a place and I am going to move in this Saturday. It is going to be another 2 weeks without Internet so I think I better update this before I move over.

My 8 weeks of psych rotation is coming to an end. One more week to go. Just had my observed interview with my consultant today. Although this only carries 25 % of the whole psych's assessment, this is the assessment that freak me out the most. It is really daunting to do an interview in front of this consultant because he is so experienced and knowledgeable.
Actually he is a really nice consultant. For the past 7 weeks I really learnt a lot from him. He totally changed my view to the world of psychiatric. I was scared and had some degree of stigma toward these psych patients but after this rotation, I find that psych is really an interesting field. He spares time for us, give us tute even though he is not obliged to do so, spares time for us to do presentation to him every week and most importantly he made us feel the sense of belonging. He always emphasised that we are part of the team and not the little insignificant plankton that float around in the ward. He includes us in every ward round and family meeting. Quite grateful and fortunate to have him.
Today again he amazed me. I had my worst history taking ever today in front of him. I was so anxious and nervous before i went in the interview room because this is the 1st time he actually sits in with me for an interview. We usually do the interview by ourselves and after that just present the case to him. which means we can pull our way through even though we missed out some part of the important history but not this time.
I knew I would be having a hard time when he told me which patient i was going to interview. This patient is a really poor historian and he can never get to the point and answer the question. He will just go on and on and on and go off track. As predicted, after half an hour, all I got from him was a vague picture regarding his life and his presenting complaint.
My consultant stopped me after that. The 1st question he asked after the patient went out of the interview room was " how do u think about the interview?" Then a silent from me... Then he said he thought it was all right if only I were given more time. Then he started to tell me that my role there is to do an assessment of the patient and not to be a social worker. haha.. but all these while i was told to "ask open question, build rapport and show empathy"
After all the " grilling" and constructive feedback, I still looked puzzled. I understand all the things that he said but....how to do it when you don't want to make the patient feels that he is being interrogate and you want to build a good rapport with the patient? I just dunno how to do it and I think from the way I look he knows I need help .Then to my surprise, he offered. He said " let me show you how to do it!"
He brought the patient in again. This time he did the interview. The only word that I can describe the way he structured the questions is WOW.. He guided the patient so well that in 4 minutes the whole picture of why the patient was brought into hospital become so clear. Then he also managed to illicit the clear psychotic features on the patient. Just as I was getting so amazed by him, he looked at me and give me a 'winner's grin' ..Yeah.. that is why im still a 4th year and he is a consultant..impressive!!!
How I wish i had a recorder to record down the way he did the interview. It was so nicely done that he got all the information he wants without pissing off the patient with endless question. After he ended the question. He said. " see how i did it? I got all the information and how's my rapport with the patient? I didn't spoilt the rapport did I ?" haha.. then another winner grin from him, a bigger and broader one this time. " You will get there some how. I have confident in you and I would love to see you coming back to us in your 6th year psych rotation!" How encouraging these words are. It really helps to brighten up my day :)

Stop mourning and start moving

Just as I thought life is getting better in Perth and I am pretty much settling well in this foreign land, I received a bloody news from my housemate last wednesday.. THE LANDLORD WANTS BACK THE HOUSE!!!!!

The first thing crossed my mind was she must be joking.. I just couldn't believe this kind of thing will happen to me at this point of time. We are only given 60 DAYS to find a new place and move!! Where the hell am I going to find a house that is suitable in such a short period. What add salt to the wound is me and my housemate both are having exam soon. Sigh...

The saddest bit is to move out from this house that I currently stay. I really really love this place. It is so convenient and so comfortable to stay although I know it is a bit pricey. But after 4 months of living in this house, me and my housemate already settled in quite well. We still plan to stay here till we graduate.. Just want to live happily ever after in this place :P

Maybe to a lot of the others moving house is not a big deal and no matter how frustrating and sad this is the fact that I had to face. But for me, Im this kind of person that I really hate to move out from my comfort zone when I start to established one. 4 months since I came Perth I had slowly settled down and already feel safe and comfortable living in this place. Now out of a sudden I had to move out from here to god knows where in such a short period.

Although I know by kicking such a big fuss about it wouldn't change anything and therefore I should just keep quiet and start looking for a place.I still find it is so unfair and I am still finding it hard to accept this fact.Having said that, I thought I deserved at least a few days to mourn over my 'lost', which I did.

And now.. I think is the time to stop mourning and start moving. Got to think of a way to get some compenstion from my inconsiderate landlord. Starting a new house need to pay for so much relocation fees. Have to pay for all the termination fees for the electric, phone and internet that we had just set up less than 3 months. Another thing is most of the house now is unfurnished which means that we have to spend a boom to get all the essential furnitures. What a pain in the neck.

Life is never a smooth sailing.. how true the saying..Just the same day when I received this worst news ever, my psych consultant was asking me how am I settling in coz he just knew that Im a transferred student. I still happily told him that everything is fine and I am settling well here. how irony. Well, let's just hope this is another blessing in disguise. Pray hard that I can find another place and settle down asap before my mid year exam... sigh...

Enjoying life in Psychiatric!!!

Im now doing my Psych in Fremantle..A holiday city with heaps of cafe, shops and of course people. But now Im meeting more than just ordinary people..Im meeting all sorts of 'interesting' people everyday ...

Finishing my 3rd week in Psych now. Have heaps of fun here. I am so luckly that I was assigned to a really good team with a helpful registrar and easy going consultant. Nice people in the ward and of course lots of interesting stories everyday that made my life more fun.

We always joke about how life is good in psych. Everyday all we do is jus talking.. Haha.. As usual talking is never a hard job for me, it will only be hard if i dont get to talk:P Saw some really intereing character who are floridly psychotic, we met with jesus, allah, buddha every now and then. Everything is just extraordinary, we even have a brown bread that will 'talk' to the patient in the ward. But of coz, despite the fact that some stories are amusing and interesting, they are all sad stories for the patients and their family. I met a 16 year old boy who just become psychotic suddenly and no one is able to make any sense of what he is talking about. Sad case indeed for a young boy like him.

Another thing that I enjoyed a lot is PBL. Don't feel that Im a psycho as well but this round the PBL is much more fun because we had a 'weird' facilitator. The 1st impression I had for him is he is exactly the real life version of Dr House. Eccentric Agentina man. Apparently he is a world known neuropyschiatrist who has a lab in a 'dungeon' in fremantle hospital. He obeys to no rules. He says all the PBL trigger are bull shits and we can just skip his session if we want to. But he is so good that he is able to drawn our attention to everything that he says. From him , we learnt about the wonder and depth in psych. Good experience I would say for everyone of us who are so new in this area.

Life is getting better because Im not that busy now as compare to when I was doing Gen Med. The only thing that trouble me is my stupid internet that had not been working for 2 weeks now. I wonder when can I get back a new modem. Sigh..hate the fact that I had to go to library everyday after hospital to check my email and stuffs. I feel so socially impaired now. OMG...

Inspiration..

Someone brightened up my day...Again..without fail..

Being a doctor, our duty is to save life. No doubt about it. But what is the difference between a good doctor and a normal doctor? Today I learnt the different. Good doctor can inspire you the way that normal doctor do not.

Moving up the food chain in hospital from med student to intern, to resident, to registrar then lastly to consultant, one will learn more and more each steps. And with this one will earn more and more respect as well. But sometimes I wonder are we respecting them because they are good doctor or just because they are skilled doctor?

I categorised the doctors that I encountered in this Gen Med rotation into 3 group.

1) Doctors that are skilled themselves but in term of passing down their knowledge they are just not the best people to do it. So you will ended up feeling quite lost after their session. Luckily they aren't lot of them.

2) Doctors that can teach but make you feel damn stressed because after their teaching you will feel that you know nothing. This produce 2 outcome, either you buck up and study or you just give up.

3) Doctors that are good in teaching and good in prompting you to think. You will walk out their tutorial with great satisfaction. You will feel that you know your stuffs but there are plenty of room for improvement and so you are motivated to do more studies.

I am very lucky to have the 3rd category doctor as my clinical tutor. Being a gastroenterologist obviously he knows his stuffs just like any other consultants do. What made him so special to me is that he can pass on his knowledge to us without making us feel that we don't know our stuffs. He has his way to lead us to think and apply our knowledge. In such, we won't feel that we know nothing but we just don't know enough. Then he will teach and reinforce our knowledge.Because of this I always felt I learnt a lot after his tutorial.

With him around the whole learning experience become so rewarding. Learning in a stress-free environment indeed is better than learning in a daunting condition. He never put up the 'consultant' air and allowed the tutorial to go in a friendly way. I don't feel scare to speak up my mind, don't feel shy to say I don't know something, don't feel embarrass even if i did something wrong in front of the whole group. A really conducive condition to learn. I learnt to speak up more, speak up what's in my mind even though I may not be 100% sure. I found it useful to let him know what's in my mind because sometime what I think is correct actually is not. Sometime something that I had been doing and thinking all these while was wrong but I never know it until I spoke to him and he corrected me.

He has this charisma that can made people around him feel safe and secure and hence relaxed. I think the way he carry himself made him shines on others as well. And yeah, I think this is what a good doctor should be. Good doctor must be skilled, not only can cure people from sickness but can also made some differences in others' life. Treat the physical and emotional. Influence others, bring hope to others, and brightened up others life. Good doctors are being respect and looked upon not only because they are experienced or they are superior but because they can inspire others and made positive changes in others' life. That's what made a good doctor. I learnt that from him and I hope I can carry this with me throughout my career and life.

Allied Health '08

It was a great night with tonnes of fun going on...:)


We were all gathered at Stephanie's house for a pre-party drink before we headed off to Metro City.Sitting outside the house and have a glass of white wine is fantastic...

Wai Sun and Jason. A Pharmacy guy from Kuching. I reckon he looks a bit like Poh Peng. Didn't have a chance to ask him about this though. He is really a nice guy to go clubbing with as he will be there to taking care of all the girls before he got himself drunk!!

This is Metro City - Northbrigde. Happening night... Allied health is supposed to be an annual party night for all the health related profession. Anyway by looking at how crowded the place was, I think there were more than just people from health profession but no matter who we are , we were just there to have fun!!!

So surprise to see Rupinder, one of my respiratory intern in my current hospital.

With Russell, one of my Gen Med PBL mate and his hot girlfriend, Macy. Haha, he said he got to hold on to her the whole night as she was just too drunk.

This was taken at about 4am in the morning. We were all so hungry after dancing for the whole night so we decided to go supper. The food was yummy and as Elaine said this is the best way to end a prefect night !!

pew..It's over :)

Yeah..
Finally the long weekend that I had been waiting for has arrived. 4 days of holiday... Just nice for me to finish up my case report, my log book and the piles of lecture notes that were left pending because of my preparation for observed case presentation (OSCE).

Had my OSCE today as well. So glad that it is all over now. I got a patient with cystic fibrosis and OMG i really dont have a clear idea of what CF is. All I know is this is a congenital disorder and it cause a lot of pulmonary symptoms. Haha, I dont even know what kind of finding I should get in CF patient. So in the end I just went in and ask what ever question I can think of and pick up as much sign as i can.

Made some mistake here and there and missed out drug and allergy component in my history taking which is a super BIG thingy for my patient. Luckily my examiner was a lenient one and a grade of 5/7 is just way too good for me..Got some really constructive feedback from him and he was just so kind in giving encouragement.

Now is my time to relax myself. Going to Allied health party at Metro later. Haha the 1st time in my life i go clubbing!! Hopefully it will be a great and fun experience. Friday need to set up all my furniture which i just bought from IKEA. Sigh, got to do all these myself..LOL, now im missing my daddy :P Saturday is going to be a great day too. Going to swan valley with IMU seniors. Cant wait for the day to come..

Finishing my Gen Med rotation in 2 weeks time. Though at 1st I kept complaining about the whole system which is so not organised but now I am kind of like this way of learning. Now I don't feel like leaving my current hospital and my current team. This time I am really adapting to my life here..No complaint and not psycho-ing myself anymore...I am getting happier each day :)

Adapting and adjusting..

Finally got back my internet after 2 weeks. Finished 4 weeks of Gen Med rotation., 4 more to go. Things did get better now. Start to adjust myself to a system where there is no timetable, no one cares whether you appear in the ward or not. No one will tell you what you need to know and everyone is telling you "hey, u should go back and don stay in hospital anymore, y be so hardworking? Go back and do your own study!!"

At 1st really feel damn lost and aimless. I thought being in clinical years means we need to stay in hospital and do practical stuffs rather then stay at home or library study. Wandering in the ward like no man soul everyday for the 1st and 2nd week. Finally at the 3rd week i think i should do something to change my life. Then I pick up a skill called thick skin. Haha. Now what I will do is go ward by ward and intro myself as a 4th yr student and asked for any ptn with good history and good sign that is worth seeing. Sometime if I ws lucky enough i will find some kind intern or registrar to discuss the case with me but most of the time im all on my own. Although still dunno whether this is de best way to learn but at least I felt i am doing something.

Kinda miss days in IMU now. Everything is structured. And most importantly I always got a bunch of friends to hang out and to study with. Eventho things did happened in between but at the end of the days we will still call ourselves a 'family'. No matter how when things happened I know I will never be alone.

At here, basically I am jus an intruder that come from a planet call IMU. God knows how and why I can jump in straight into 4th year without taking their entry exam and interviews.Every new encounter with new ppl these are the frequent question that they will ask: 1.what the heck is IMU? 2. Isn't it a university that accept student that NUS don't want and those rejected by UM? 3. How you all can cramp everything in 2 and 1/2 yr. What did u all learn? How is it possible? 4. How is the standard over there?

I got to admit I did met with some ppl they eventho they ask the same set of question and I wont feel offended but most of the time yea..I did felt awkward. How am I supposed to explain to them how the whole matching works, how we study thing so damn fast? Hmmm..so the best way I can think of is to show them instead of spending time explaining the unexplainable thing.

Had a few clinical tutorial recently and truely speaking I feel that IMU's teaching is sufficient enough. Although there are some area like Pharmaco and Infectious Disease the student here are way better than us, othere than that we are all quite on par. So I really don't see the problem for me to being here with them eventhough I didnt go through their selection procedure.

Sometime really in a dilemma. I felt really weird when ppl ask me y am i always in hospital so early and come in hospital everyday. Maybe to them I just too hard core and kiasu but i thought this is what i supposed to do? Sometime when doctor ask a question and no one knows the answer and i answered it, ppl will look at me as if i am an alien. Worst is when I said a correct answer and all the others were like what the hell she is talking? Hate that kind of feeling. It made me felt so out of place and as if I said something wrong.

Spending most pf my time in hospital and my home sweet home. Thank god I moved out to a place that I really like it. Luckily I got this little comfort zone to lie back when I feel so tired. I would say I am pretty much adapt to the life here. Sometime did feel I should mix with more of my batchmates and maybe hang out with them but I really hate to do thing that I feel so out of the place. Hence I spent most of my time alone. Eat alone, go hosp and sch alone, study alone, jog alone, stroll alone, watch drama alone..but I am not really lonely..Weird right..Feel so not like my usual self.

Am i really adapted to this new life or am I just psycho-ing myself? I am confused sometime...

oh ya, to jackie and jane june. U guys going off soon right.All the best ya. Good Luck. Bring out the best of IMU to UK. And to all the seremban-ian, happy sch reopen and all the best as well. Miss you guys lot...