28 days later

So, it has been 28 days here in Brisbane, of which I have been a newly minted medical student for 13 working days. I have Peter Broderick’s -Not At Home playing on youtube (because I am student again, I am poor, free music, Ahoy!) and finally have some breathing space to write for fun, coherently.

It has been a whirlwind of experiences thus far, the simplest analogy that comes to mind is that I feel like I’ve been dragged though a corn field by a corn harvester machine whilst being pelted by corn every which way I turn, with the scarecrow laughing in the distance.

First two weeks of school saw the housemates and I sitting round our cheap plastic dining table in the evenings, eating tim tams (double coated) in silence while feeling sorry for ourselves. This week seems to be going a little better though, so I am sure this feeling like this big new world of medicine is just completely beyond our little brains at this point will eventually morph into a general sense of horror, which should keep us going for the next 4 years, I think… if all else fails… there is always pancake.

In any case, I am not sure how I should structure this post, because they are really just random unrelated thoughts so I’ll do them point form. Here goes, for the few of you bored enough to read on.

Indemnity: Week two saw a host of various insurance companies offering indemnity coverage to medical professionals hawking their freebies and pamphlets outside our lecture hall, the message was clear, “You will get sued at some point during your medical career, we protect you from the day you are a medical student.” Seems handy if I am going to accidentally give Aunite XXX a rectal exam in place of her regular pap smear. I am now under the coverage of three companies. I’m Singaporean, I’m kiasu, it’s free, even though I can smell a marketing ploy a mile away, but what the hell, they were giving out free m&ms in specimen containers, doctors really are cheap bastards.

Packed lunch: The university refractory serves awful food. We have resorted to waking up at 6am everyday to shower, make our beds, prepare breakfast, pack lunch in time to catch the bus at 7.33. I have eaten too many soggy sandwiches and pasta meals. Let’s see how long this lasts.

Alcohol: The university medical society’s activities seem to feature copious amounts of beer drinking. Sports day is coming up in 2 weeks. Sports day is the day when we will run a relay from the medical school admin building to the local med students’ favourite watering hole back to the teaching campus. A 2 hour walk on a good day, but doing it en mass (across 4 years) in surgical scrubs and having downed many cans of beer prior to the walk/run/stagger will take a wee bit longer, I think. The final destination at the teaching campus will have games like bouncing castle, dunk-a-lecturer and tug-o-war. Wow wee.

Promiscuity: There has been a ‘Snog Chart’ (an intricate flowchart to map out the pashing activities among all years) generated annually, this will be published in the medical society’s annual newsletter. Enough said.

So that’s it really, now time to do some actual studying

I leave you with Hippocrates standing off centre in front of our main building.

February 5, 2009. Med School.