Classes, assignments and clinical sessions...

Time really flies and passes us by without us realizing. I can still remember the moment I received my offer from UNSW and the glee and excitement that came with it. And now, I'm already done with my 2nd week of official classes...

So, like most people would blog about, I'll just post an entry on how classes went...

Lectures
With 240 1st years in the lecture theatre, you know how easy distractions can be. The noisy chatter of the row behind you, the cute guy sitting at the other end, the gorgeous gal whom you envy, the lecturer who asks you and your fellow classmates to just shut up, etc. The list goes on... The 1st few lectures we had mainly concentrated on the history of medicine, the different disciplines, public health and so on. Yeah, it's those stuff you wish you can sleep through but know you can't. Still, one need not worry with the I-Lectures you can listen to online. But lectures are getting better and cooler as time passes. Hats off to Hazel Mitchell! Your microbiology lectures rock! :) And I'm pretty sure the other 239 students in lecture would agree with me... But one wonders how one's going to deal with all the recommended reading texts... :p

Scenario Group Sessions
12 students sitting around the 8 tables in the scenario group room with one cool facilitator is pretty fun. Everyone's so vocal and we've got several debates which Lily, our facilitator, would laugh for she's just plain amused at our antics! Too bad you can't escape assignments though. I've got 3 queueing up for my attention; one's an oral presentation, the other's an individual assignment where I'll have to interview A/Prof Nick Hawkins (your lecture rocks too, Nick!) and research on a particular statement/topic of his which catches my attention, plus the group project of discussing a health issue using the integrated health model i.e. individual proactive, public proactive, individual reactive and public reactive aspects (wonder how my group of 6 will piece together the 2500 words)...

Tutorials
Just 12 of us again in tutorials. So far we've only covered database searches. But it's so cool to know we know how to use stuff like Medline and Sirius where most students will only learn it in the 3rd year! And to think Suzanne (our tutor) went to the extent of showing us a clip from ER on how the doctor failed to run a search on Medline, causing one of his patients to suffer renal failure... Good job, Suzanne, for keeping our interests alive and keeping us awake with the free gummy and sour candies! ^_^

Science Practicals
This has got to be one of the coolest classes (except besides clinical session, perhaps)... So far, we've been to the anatomy and microscopy labs. It was simply smashing to examine the cadavers though it's ironic that we should feel hungry (that's the effect of inhaling too much formaline) while looking at dead bodies... Hehe, makes us sound like cannibals... And besides the conventional microscopy, we learnt virtual microscopy as well where we just used the computers to examine slides and there's the super cool hassle-free zoom-in and zoom-out buttons plus the scanning areas... Thanks, Ng, Kumar, and others for these wonderful opportunities...

Clinical Sessions
Had my 1st clinical session on Thursday in Fairfield Hospital (the furthest UNSW clinical teaching site) which is 2.5 hours away by buses and trains... Had several thought-provoking discussions, visited the busy emergency unit where we're told the various procedures and of course the wards with the sick patients (it does make us feel guilty that we should enjoy the precarious pleasure of the clinical experience excitement at the expense of someone else's illness and misfortunes)... There's also the X-ray department and oh, who can forget the cardiac surgeon who was so eager to show us the stress test and heart ultrasounds? Thank goodness I could answer his questions after he explained to us the different interpretations of the heart ultrasound. And thanks, Ray, for letting us naive 1st year med students examine your heart structure through its ultrasound and hopefully the scar left in your left ventricle by your previous heart attack will heal after the surgery... And to Dr Jeremy, our clinical tutor, thanks for showing us around. It was cool to be just in a group of 7 touring around a close-knit friendly hospital community with a whole section devoted to UNSW students alone with the tutorial rooms...

Oh well, I've been blogging quite a bit on my 1st 2 weeks... Anyone wants to share his/her experience?