I'm back, baby!

The holiday was lovely and as refreshing as any kind of crazy holiday can be, and now I am back and feeling totally unprepared for starting medical school! Oh well. I suppose I can try to relax with the thought that no matter how I am feeling, there will ALWAYS be somebody less prepared than me!

Holiday!

As of tomorrow morning I am going away on a holiday to catch my breath and relax for a week and a bit before the adventure of studying medicine begins.
I hope you all have a lovely week and make sure that you stick to your New Year's Resolutions. I, for one, can promise that I will not be shaving my head.

I haven't been on a holiday since the start of 2005, so there is no need to say that I am VERY excited!

Change of Address

I just changed the address of the blog to reflect the change of name that occurred a few weeks ago. Now that I am in the no-man's land between being a student and being unemployed, I need creative procrastination techniques and it is too hot to clean.

I hope this hasn't put anybody off who was reading the blog, and I hope they can find it again. It is unfortunate that the old address doesn't link here directly.

I am going away on holidays for a week and a bit on Tuesday, and we are having a friend house-sit. This means that I really have to clean the bathroom and the fridge or she might take one look at either of these things and walk back out the door! Thankfully cleaning the shower, the fridge and the fishtank are all quite cool activities, so I might get on it now while the weather is hot and I feel like doing something.

Also, for fun:

Your Career Personality: Organized, Responsible, and Future-Oriented

Your Ideal Careers: Biomedical engineer Business executive College professor District attorney Hedge fund manager Investment banker Judge Military leader Political strategist Surgeon

The Quick and Dirty Career Test

Are you telling me that I should just skip medical school and become a military leader? How does somebody become a military leader, anyway? What would you have to list on your resume? "Good at skirmish. Likes chess. No fear of blood on hands. Completed Certificate II in Troop Rallying."

Can't say I have even seen an ad for a "Military Leader" in any kind of employment listing. I guess it's a closed market.

I also love the fact that "Surgeon" is listed on the same list as "Military Leader". I think I am completely unlikely to pursue a career in either.

Displacement

Yesterday I found myself absolutely terrified about what to do with my fish. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening with them, everything was as per normal. But I was terrified and obsessing.

It was also my last day of work. I am now officially unemployed, and a full-time student again. But I wasn't worried about that. I was fretting about my fish. Displacement, anybody?

I had a lovely last day at work, and hope to be seeing all of the wonderful people I have been working with sometime soon. I promised to come and visit them and ask all kinds of silly questions as a medical student and junior doctor. People wrote the nicest things on my going-away card, and all the doctors told me that I will make a great doctor. It was a lovely thing to say, and I'll accept the complement. (Part of me wonders if anybody ever gets told, "Um, well done getting into medical school, but all of the staff here at the hospital think you should reconsider and go and study accounting." I think not.)

Right now I am thoroughly enjoying being excited and enthusiastic about something again. I am on the edge of the big, deep, scary pool about to jump in, and I know that it will be very tough swimming to the other end, but from out of the water it all looks so exciting and new and I can't wait.

I woke up at 7am this morning (which is mad considering it is Saturday and I went out and celebrated last night) and played the piano and read "Hot Lights, Cold Steel" by Michael Collins from cover to cover. It was a fantastic read and reaffirmed my reasons for never wanting to enter surgery. I think any young gunner with stars in his or her eyes should sit down and read it and find out just how glamorous and well-paid life as a surgical trainee really is.

It was fantastic to lie down on the couch and spend the morning reading a book. I haven't been able to do that for years. Something always distracted me or I wasn't able to concentrate well enough to maintain interest. I must be happy.

A scary thought

Today I while at work I had a scary thought. I was talking to one of the nurses, and he told me that they "keep the good interns and registrars in the loop and the bad ones out of it" when it comes to many aspects of their treatment of the patients.

While this must make life difficult for the junior doctors who have been perceived and branded as "bad" and may not always be ideal for patient care, my thoughts after hearing it were a little more self-centred, and I wondered:

How do I avoid being one of the "bad" doctors and become one of the "good" ones?

Having been on-hand when it makes a hell of a difference, and being a person with high standards of work for myself, I really want to know whether there is an actual attitude, demeanour or set of skills that can make somebody "good" as opposed to "bad"?

Is it really fair to label somebody "good" or "bad"? They are all at work, and trying, although in every profession some people try harder than others.

Should I stop thinking about this and just try my hardest and know that it is the best that I could have done? I have been told that the enemy of good is better. I've seen things turn from a reasonable outcome to a very bad one because a doctor with high standards just kept trying. Sometimes things just go pear-shaped and it is just one of those things that happen, even with the best doctor imaginable.

The only answer I could think of is that I should simply try to do the best that I can, to remain a resonable human being, and to take each day as it comes. And make sure I don't get confused with the names of all of the drugs. They scare me, too.

Raining

It's raining, it's pouring, I am on my last week of full-time work and my medical school still hasn't got it's act together with enrolments. Great.

After spending five years in full-time employment, it is going to be tough getting used to the way things work at a university. I'm the kind of person who likes putting her paperwork in on time, getting things organised (e.g. my vaccinations, blood tests and first aid certificate were all completed weeks ago) and having things ready early. I need to learn to relax, as I can see that the university I'm going to is going to drive me crazy if I can't let it go.

I'm not sleeping well. I keep having visions of being on holiday in another state, and having to get on my mobile phone and ring around the university to try to get this organised. It took me five phonecalls yesterday to get onto an actual person without being cut off or put through to an answering machine. All of this was supposed to be taken care of last year.

If I were administrating a large group of people and there was a major delay on administrative matters leading up to a firm deadline, I would at least attempt to notify them and keep them in the loop, at the very least with a large e-mail. It would stop the mass of panicked calls I am sure they are getting right now. A little pre-emptive action can save a lot of work and anxiety.

On a brigher note, it's raining, it's pouring and the cats just stood and looked out at the pouring rain through their newly-unlocked cat door this morning, sulking for a good half-an-hour before moving to more comfortable and warm sleeping spots inside. They are so cute when they sulk.

2007

This is it. This is the year that I get to start calling myself a Medical Student. In three week's time, I'll walk into a lecture theatre filled with my fellow students and begin the adventure of becoming a full-time student again.

To say that I'm excited would be an understatement.

In a month's time things are going to be going full-speed ahead. But for now I am tying off the old threads of my current life and getting prepared for a lot of things to change completely.

It is quite tough emotionally leaving one career in which you have become established and experienced in order to begin another from the lowest possible level. I'll really miss the regularity and (relative) predictability of work, and I'll especially miss the money and my workmates. My goodbye party is next week, and I don't think I'm quite ready for it. There will be tears. But I think I'm going to get so much enjoyment out of studying medicine that it will make up for all of it.

I have worked in large hospitals for years, and I am just so thrilled to be able to focus on the why and how of health and disease and people, rather than being expected to only know the minimum necessary to do my job. I want to know these things and now I'm getting the chance!

I can't wait to wander around a hospital for the first time as a med student. I have done it before as a student for my current job, and I was so unsure of myself that I didn't really enjoy it. I'm grown up and experienced this time and am very excited.

I can't wait to learn to pop in a cannula. Yes, I know it sounds mundane. I've been trying to get into a cannulation training course at work for a little while now but never quite managed to convince management that it was necessary enough. (They would have thought it was odd if I had tried to convince them any more than I did.) I'm looking forward to doing it and getting good at it. (One day I may have to place one in a baby, and THERE AND THEN is where all of the practise and training will come in handy.)

I can't wait to actually spend time in various specialty areas as a medical student rather than somebody who breezes in and breezes out, just doing the requested service in the area. Areas that I'm particularly excited about spending time in include psychiatry (yes, I've heard the stories, but I've always been interested in it and am curious to see what it is like), oncology, gastroenterology, and surgery. I'll probably change my mind during the course and afterwards, but I like being excited about things and having something to look forward to.

This year is going to be so exciting. And exhausting. But I'm a bit of an Energiser Bunny when I need to be (I keep "goingandgoingandgoingandgoing") so I'm not too worried. I'm also old enough to know when to say stop. Thank God I didn't study medicine any earlier in life.

Bring it on, baby, bring it on!!