Hey everyone.
So I just had a week off which was great. I went down the coast with some friends to Byron Bay and Gold Coast and had a blast. It was nice to forget about being a med student for a bit...although I need to find some friends that aren't also med students...It's kinda hard to leave the circle/fish bowl if you know what I mean. Also, last week I went into a recording studio and laid down some of my originals. I've started posting them on YouTube and am asking people to check them out and spread them around to friends if they like them!
Hope all is well in Canada and elsewhere. Enjoy the music :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSSXcqe9XyI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13y9XwlIAHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8HU9bZbgRw
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Thank you for the care package!!!
I just wanted to thank everyone for their thoughtfulness in sending the care package! It really made my week :) It's good to have things from home and be reminded that life moves forward as usual even though i'm on the other side of the world. Hopefully i'll have some more interesting posts to put up next week since I have the week off...oh yeah! maybe i'll record some videos or someat like dat.
love to everyone!
cheers,
Harrison
love to everyone!
cheers,
Harrison
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Hospital trip and a Random Thought
This weekend I am partaking in a trip up the coast with a medical society known as TROPHIQ. Essentially they are pro-rural medicine. If you'd like to know more about them just go to trophiq.org . Anyway, we will be heading up to Bundaberg where we will tour a couple of hospitals at which we get extra skills training in areas such as: cannulation, airway management, suturing, scrubbing in/out of the OR etc. Neat stuff :) Also we get a tour of the Royal Flying Doctor's air hanger and medical chopper. I've signed up for a turtle hatchery tour where you go to the ocean at night and hopefully watch the emergence of newborn baby sea turtles...of course, if it's anything like Planet Earth and they are being snatched up by birds, i may have to go and bust some gulls (get it...sounds like skulls...but gulls are sea birds).
To the RANDOM THOUGHT
This one arose while I was sitting on a public toilet to be quite honest.
It has come to my attention, that the art of expressing one's thoughts on the stall wall of a public toilet, is an international phenomenon. Now, I can't comment on the ladies toilets, but i assume it may be similar. What merits this as a "random thought" worthy discovery, is that not only does it seem to be engrained in our human nature to write what we think while defecating, but that many times there are those trying to express a profound philosophy in this venue. And I wonder....why do people feel that the wall of a toilet is the best place to express their thoughts on religion, society or even just the human predicament in general? Just today there was a scripture on the mathematical derivation that God = Evil based on the principle of time = money. An interesting argument...but an even more interesting place to argue it...also...how long was this guy taking a crap for? Now, aside from the fact that people write their thoughts on the bathroom wall, is the fact that they will actually carry out complete debates and/or conversations over time. And this is shown by the matching of handwriting. Sometimes you will see multiple entries from the same hand and wonder if this person could sleep the night before, or if they were too busy researching for their rebuttal to the defecation debate?
Lastly I wonder......if we were to take all of the bathroom stall walls in the world and bring them together...how many questions would we have answers for ????
cheers,
Harrison
To the RANDOM THOUGHT
This one arose while I was sitting on a public toilet to be quite honest.
It has come to my attention, that the art of expressing one's thoughts on the stall wall of a public toilet, is an international phenomenon. Now, I can't comment on the ladies toilets, but i assume it may be similar. What merits this as a "random thought" worthy discovery, is that not only does it seem to be engrained in our human nature to write what we think while defecating, but that many times there are those trying to express a profound philosophy in this venue. And I wonder....why do people feel that the wall of a toilet is the best place to express their thoughts on religion, society or even just the human predicament in general? Just today there was a scripture on the mathematical derivation that God = Evil based on the principle of time = money. An interesting argument...but an even more interesting place to argue it...also...how long was this guy taking a crap for? Now, aside from the fact that people write their thoughts on the bathroom wall, is the fact that they will actually carry out complete debates and/or conversations over time. And this is shown by the matching of handwriting. Sometimes you will see multiple entries from the same hand and wonder if this person could sleep the night before, or if they were too busy researching for their rebuttal to the defecation debate?
Lastly I wonder......if we were to take all of the bathroom stall walls in the world and bring them together...how many questions would we have answers for ????
cheers,
Harrison
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Alright alright alrightto
Back by popular demand, here I am. I guess i've been a little bit crappy at keeping up to date with my blogging...but i blame society. And particularly the Australian Medical Association for requiring a high standard for physician training. So let's see what I can recall about the highlights of the past while....
Overview: Classes have been going well..i still want to be a doctor, so that's about as good as it gets i think heh. Lot's of work to do but they are incredibly clinically focus here so i'm already practicing taking histories, doing a general inspection for physical examination and next week will be starting palpation, percussion and auscultation for the gastrointestinal system physical exam. So i'm looking forward to that. On the drier side of things we've been in an Infection and Defence module. Most of our lectures have been focusing on the various immunological responses of the body and anatomy has been focused on the primary and secondary lymphoid organs etc etc. The PBL case was on a 5 month old who presented with what turned out to be an immune deficiency disease called SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency). Cool stuff...only since the cases are hypothetical and not on an actual 5 month old child who could die :S .
Last week I had my first "street rescue" experience. My housemate Jill (who is a 2nd year med) and I were on our way back from the pub one night and decided to stop at Hungry Jacks (Burger King). On our way out we noticed a group of people around what seemed to be someone on the ground. We went over and asked if anyone that was there was already a medical professional (nurse, paramedic, doc..whatever) and nobody was. So we stepped in and told them we were med students. The girl was unconscious and completely non-responsive. Jill grabbed the phone and started talking to the ambo's while I took the girls vitals. She had a steady pulse and steady but shallow breathing. A sternal rub produced no response...meaning she was really out of it. We tried to get her history from her mother and examined her to make sure she didn't have any trauma from hitting her head after passing out and so on, she was fine. Her mother was chinese and didn't speak english very well...but continued to try and give the girl water, which I had to stop her from doing and explained that she could choke and die..i don't know if she really understood me the first time, b/c she tried to do it again..twice. Anyway, jill stayed on with the ambo's and I continued to monitor her breathing to make sure we didn't have to start CPR. Just before the paramedics got there she started to come to and could respond to verbal commands (nodding..trying to squeeze a finger etc). After we told the ambo's what they needed to know we thanked them and went and enjoyed our burgers. Not sure what ended up being the problem. We found out that she had OCD, but i can't think of why she would've passed out from that...especially for so long. Jill and I both got the feeling that she had gained consciousness earlier than she had let on...but who knows.
Oh...new segment: Things that I saw on my way to school today....
1) A caucasian samurai business man...don't know what that looks like? Think of a tall white guy, wearing a Men in Black uniform (w/ sunglasses) and a braided black pony-tail down to his waist.
2) A used lace thong in the parking lot...not sure how it got there..but sure i don't want to know.
Cheers
Overview: Classes have been going well..i still want to be a doctor, so that's about as good as it gets i think heh. Lot's of work to do but they are incredibly clinically focus here so i'm already practicing taking histories, doing a general inspection for physical examination and next week will be starting palpation, percussion and auscultation for the gastrointestinal system physical exam. So i'm looking forward to that. On the drier side of things we've been in an Infection and Defence module. Most of our lectures have been focusing on the various immunological responses of the body and anatomy has been focused on the primary and secondary lymphoid organs etc etc. The PBL case was on a 5 month old who presented with what turned out to be an immune deficiency disease called SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency). Cool stuff...only since the cases are hypothetical and not on an actual 5 month old child who could die :S .
Last week I had my first "street rescue" experience. My housemate Jill (who is a 2nd year med) and I were on our way back from the pub one night and decided to stop at Hungry Jacks (Burger King). On our way out we noticed a group of people around what seemed to be someone on the ground. We went over and asked if anyone that was there was already a medical professional (nurse, paramedic, doc..whatever) and nobody was. So we stepped in and told them we were med students. The girl was unconscious and completely non-responsive. Jill grabbed the phone and started talking to the ambo's while I took the girls vitals. She had a steady pulse and steady but shallow breathing. A sternal rub produced no response...meaning she was really out of it. We tried to get her history from her mother and examined her to make sure she didn't have any trauma from hitting her head after passing out and so on, she was fine. Her mother was chinese and didn't speak english very well...but continued to try and give the girl water, which I had to stop her from doing and explained that she could choke and die..i don't know if she really understood me the first time, b/c she tried to do it again..twice. Anyway, jill stayed on with the ambo's and I continued to monitor her breathing to make sure we didn't have to start CPR. Just before the paramedics got there she started to come to and could respond to verbal commands (nodding..trying to squeeze a finger etc). After we told the ambo's what they needed to know we thanked them and went and enjoyed our burgers. Not sure what ended up being the problem. We found out that she had OCD, but i can't think of why she would've passed out from that...especially for so long. Jill and I both got the feeling that she had gained consciousness earlier than she had let on...but who knows.
Oh...new segment: Things that I saw on my way to school today....
1) A caucasian samurai business man...don't know what that looks like? Think of a tall white guy, wearing a Men in Black uniform (w/ sunglasses) and a braided black pony-tail down to his waist.
2) A used lace thong in the parking lot...not sure how it got there..but sure i don't want to know.
Cheers
Friday, January 28, 2011
Update
Hey everybody. So it thought i'd write a quick update. I had my orientation at the hospital yesterday. I'm doing my clinical work at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. It's freaking huge lol, i think it currently sits at 950 beds and has just about every department that you can think of. It's a great place to do the first couple of years and then I think i'll try to get in somewhere a bit smaller for third and fourth so that I can have a bit more responsibility and opportunity to get my hands dirty (pardon the figure of speech). They've finally caught up with what they missed because of the floods and I think that my schedule should open up a bit this week. They say that the amount of information and workload will dramatically increase, but the actual lecture schedule will decrease. So i'm looking forward to that in a few ways :) . Anywho, hopefully everyone at home is doing well. Remember, you can always write me or post on my blog if you have any questions about what's going on in my life, or any news about what's going on in yours!
talk to you soon,
Harrison
talk to you soon,
Harrison
Friday, January 21, 2011
Post First few days
Hey everyone. So i've had some pressure to post about my first few days of med school...fair enough. I can tell already that i'm going to need these reminders, as i'm already getting distracted by a relatively large 'to do' list...or more so "to learn".
Because of the floods we didn't get started until Thursday and therefore all of the orientation information was condensed into a few hours here and there. More than anything we just jumped right into it, and starting monday they say they're pushing us off of the deep end! So that sounds like fun lol. On thursday we had our first PBL session. For those of you that don't know, PBL stands for problem based learning. So we are allocated groups of about 8 people for the year and twice a week we get together to work through a case. Each case is based on a theme that they are trying to get into our thick heads. This week our PBL scenario was a young man who was in a car crash. So we go through one "trigger" at a time so that we only get a bit of information step by step. This way we have to hypothesise and think about what's going on and what to potentially expect, then we get more info and have to re-evaluate our hypotheses. So for example, the first trigger would be "you see the car crash, man is struggling to get out, agitated, blood spurting from leg, seat belt on, no airbag". And from that you talk about what you would do and be thinking between that time and when you get to him...(dangerous environment, conscious, likely arterial bleed, head or chest trauma etc etc). Then the next trigger may give you a bit more info, such as: "paramedics get their and find resp. rate of 35, BP 70/? etc etc"......and so on and so forth. The idea i believe is to emulate the actual way that you would have to hypothesise in practice, since you'll rarely, if ever, get all of the information you need to know all at once.
So in addition to this we are starting into lectures on all of the biomed. sciences (a lot of review for me, but hey! I'll take it lol), doing histology, microbiology, anatomy and physiology practicals, clinical coaching in hospitals (next week that starts) and then some reading on the side...just because one gets bored with so much free time.
But yeah, so that's what's going on here..i'm doing my best to not always be studying...i've found that i'll work/study from 8am-7pm and then i'm done for the day...and i think i'll try to take sunday mornings off to sleep in. Life is balance! :D
Missing everyone at home, but glad to be busy again.
cheers,
Harrison
Because of the floods we didn't get started until Thursday and therefore all of the orientation information was condensed into a few hours here and there. More than anything we just jumped right into it, and starting monday they say they're pushing us off of the deep end! So that sounds like fun lol. On thursday we had our first PBL session. For those of you that don't know, PBL stands for problem based learning. So we are allocated groups of about 8 people for the year and twice a week we get together to work through a case. Each case is based on a theme that they are trying to get into our thick heads. This week our PBL scenario was a young man who was in a car crash. So we go through one "trigger" at a time so that we only get a bit of information step by step. This way we have to hypothesise and think about what's going on and what to potentially expect, then we get more info and have to re-evaluate our hypotheses. So for example, the first trigger would be "you see the car crash, man is struggling to get out, agitated, blood spurting from leg, seat belt on, no airbag". And from that you talk about what you would do and be thinking between that time and when you get to him...(dangerous environment, conscious, likely arterial bleed, head or chest trauma etc etc). Then the next trigger may give you a bit more info, such as: "paramedics get their and find resp. rate of 35, BP 70/? etc etc"......and so on and so forth. The idea i believe is to emulate the actual way that you would have to hypothesise in practice, since you'll rarely, if ever, get all of the information you need to know all at once.
So in addition to this we are starting into lectures on all of the biomed. sciences (a lot of review for me, but hey! I'll take it lol), doing histology, microbiology, anatomy and physiology practicals, clinical coaching in hospitals (next week that starts) and then some reading on the side...just because one gets bored with so much free time.
But yeah, so that's what's going on here..i'm doing my best to not always be studying...i've found that i'll work/study from 8am-7pm and then i'm done for the day...and i think i'll try to take sunday mornings off to sleep in. Life is balance! :D
Missing everyone at home, but glad to be busy again.
cheers,
Harrison
Monday, January 17, 2011
Nothing really to say
Hey. The title of this one pretty much sums it up. Not much has been going on around here other than the flood cleanup in the city. Looks like campus will be open a bit earlier than forecasted, so we should be in class by Thursday instead of next Monday, so that's good :). It's starting to get hot now...and humid. I am truly looking forward to the winter, i think it will be right up my alley!
I've been missing everyone a bit more than usual lately. Probably because I don't have enough distractions occupying my time...feel a bit brain dead. Honestly...I'm at the point where I don't even know if I could come up with a random thought, let alone an intellectual one...!
The term banana hammock was likely coined by a man with delusions of grandeur.
....well i got 50% of what i'm looking for.
ttyl, i'll try to post something a bit more interesting :)
I've been missing everyone a bit more than usual lately. Probably because I don't have enough distractions occupying my time...feel a bit brain dead. Honestly...I'm at the point where I don't even know if I could come up with a random thought, let alone an intellectual one...!
The term banana hammock was likely coined by a man with delusions of grandeur.
....well i got 50% of what i'm looking for.
ttyl, i'll try to post something a bit more interesting :)
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