February!

There wasn’t any impetus to write in all that time, probably because I busied myself with proper living rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time stuck behind the computer, which is often the norm when I am back here in Brisbane. This probably explains why I am updating this space again after having settled back into the humdrum, 4 weeks in.

The 7 week long holiday was just… splendid. Perhaps with the realisation that intern year looms, one starts to try and make everyday count, a case of visualising the end to appreciate the present.

So what did I/we do?

We had Penang

We hosted friends

and fell in love with their bubs

We made a christmas tree… of sorts

I duelled a baking nemesis

Made a new friend, caught up with old ones and learnt of an engagement.

And amidst all of that, rebooted and turned another year with people I love

What does 2012 hold?

I’m not sure. Everything is sort of in flux at the moment, but we’ll work towards set staggered goals to get us to the end. Will we emerge victorious? The future’s an uncertainty isn’t it? We can only control what we can within our limits, leave everything else to fate/God/circumstance and cope with adversity with lots of humour.

If all else fails, we’ll always have the promise of Iceland and the endless of joy of discovery.

MADE IN ICELAND from Klara Harden on Vimeo.

A brilliant end product would be nice, but I doubt that results are the actual impetus for most collaborations, or if it was the initial drive, the process would probably end up having a more lasting impact and effect.

I remember that head of white and paper thin skin, daughter by her side, holding her hand, hands so thin they looked like reeds with a fine mesh of veins cloaking them, she had a loud audible wheeze, barely masked by the low vibration of her nebulizer, producing magic clouds that would help open her airways. The daughter offering quiet comfort to the woman with a failing heart.

She asked for roast chicken. Her daughter looked at her and told her she couldn’t have any. It was too dangerous and that she was to have her puree because that was what the doctors ordered.

Morning ward rounds, we arrive at Gertrude’s bed. Dr Hamilton asks, “How are you today, Gertrude?” She smiles, her eyes gentle and warm, she smiles and tells him she is feeling fine. She tells him this as she is gasping for air, using all her accessory muscles to breath, as she lies on her side, wedged between two pillows as that is the only position she feels comfortable in. Dr Hamilton holds her hand. “Of course you are fine, because that’s just you isn’t it Gertrude? You never complain.”

Gertrude died that very night, she died before she could have roast chicken.

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

I remember hugging my father at the airport before I embarked on this roller coaster of a journey. Tears streaming down my face (and maybe snot as well, not a good look), he whispered in my ear “The years will fly by my love.” “Yea right, buddy.” I thought. I think a more accurate thing to say would have been “The years would have flown by in retrospect, my love.” I won’t deny how I thought the days would never end in first and second year, second year especially, where we were like frightened geese being fattened, being force fed stacks and stacks of pathology and clinical knowledge on top of all we had to digest in year one, sometimes against will. My 30 odd year old brain begged for mercy. Second year… my heart still races and palms get sweaty thinking about it. It was also the year where I had my first major meltdown after the final OSCE exam. I cried from the time I exited the exam, drove, got home, where the crying continued as I did the dishes. It was comic, in retrospect.

Now with graduation being a year away, and impending recruitment drives I can actually participate in, not just help organise, I find myself thinking a lot more about what specialty I might like to train in.

With the new residency programme in place, medical graduates now have the option of selecting what they would like to do for the rest of their lives from the time they graduate, subject of course to the elusive selection process- first choice, not guaranteed- endless days as an eventual MO waiting to enter a specialty training, most guaranteed.

It is a scary thought.

I embarked on this journey so sure I wanted to be an obstetrician, fuelled further by the excellent first year elective experience I had where I spent 2 weeks out of 4 in the O&G dept of New Delhi’s largest referral hospital. I was so certain.

Now? I am not so sure.

As graduate medical students, we have to throw another factor into the mix, age. My peers and I all have previous degrees and a couple of years of work experience under our belts. The reality is a lot more stark for the females, I mean let’s face it we are all roughly at the age where we start to worry about practical things like starting a family, settling down and the viability of our eggs. Advice from well meaning, senior doctors always advise us to consider lifestyle when we choose a speciality. There’s a common saying here in Australia; Women handle tears and (pap)smears, ie: most women end up in General Practice. A very senior, no doubt sexist doctor, who during a recruitment drive early in the year ruffled many female feathers when he made the comment, “Women, you should all just consider the family medicine track, you have the option of becoming a hospital resident physician, where your greatest contribution would have been that you’ve been there a long time”.

I started employing the process of elimination, trying to figure out what I enjoyed less of and hence started crossing things out as I went along. Then wise words from yet another senior doctor, “Don’t start eliminating what you think you don’t like. Your experience as an intern will be very different from your experience as a medical student.”

How like that?

Sweeping under carpet for now.

Back to short term immediate goals, like the exams in 3 weeks.

Tree of Life

Beginners

Win Win

Norwegian Wood

Don’t you often replay moments, remembering oh-so-clearly how they made you feel at a certain point along the way, these moments, a massive collection of bottled fragments categorised neatly in the depths of our subconscious, awaiting our conscious mind to pull them from shelves for a quick dust off, so that we can once again cast our eyes upon the contents of our archive, fragile, transient.