Going away again. Sorry. Byes.

Hi peeps.

For the benefit for any regular readers out there, I wanted to let you know that I'm putting the blog on private for a while. Maybe an extended while.

The reason is that I'm going to be applying for doctor jobs soon enoguh and there is a certain societal expectation of the public persona of doctors, even though I've tried to keep this blog fairly anonymous. Given everything, I really can't afford to have any extra obstacles in my way.

I've taken a few other measures on the internet to try and build a professional persona. I'm almost digustedin myself for doing it, but I believe it's necessary. I'm getting married in a few weeks and I've decided to change my name (which will be before graduation from medical school) which allows me the luxury and opportunity to start afresh.

Anyway, I'll leave this here for a few days and then I'll go private for a bit.

Good luck to everyone!

So you want to be a surgeon

I have a problem. I want to be a surgeon.

It's problem because you have to be mentally a little bit, hmmm, mental to want to sacrifice all else for a career that is tough (very tough). It's also a problem for me becasue I've got a 2-year old daughter that I love being a mummy for. It's also a problem because surgical training programs are incredibly competitive to gain entry too and I'm, let's just say, not overly competitive in where I'm choosing to study medicine.

Where there's a will, there's a way, hey?

My Five Steps to achieving my/your goal is:

1. Visualise yourself achieving your goal
2. Find out what you need to do to achieve your goal, then repeat Step 1.
3. Find people that have already achieved your goal and do what they did, then repeat Step 1.
4. Find out if the people from Step 3 are available to be your mentor, either formally, informally, online stalker-type thing, or not.
5. Actually do the things in Step 2.

I've looked at the RACS website as to my Step 2 above and Oh. My. God. just getting INTO the surgical training program makes medical school look like a walk in the park. I can't believe I've been crying about how hard medical school is. It's true! The GAMSAT was the easiest exam of my medical career. Great.

Anyhoo, challenges only make us stronger, right?

....Right?

Getting closer to graduating!

The following is what I still need to do to graduate from medical school (it's getting closer!):

1. Complete surgical rotation (2.5 more weeks!)
2. Complete O+G rotation (8 weeks over xmas)
2. O+G exam
3. OSCE
4. Final Clinical Exam (MCQ)

I've also got a few log books etc to hand in. Pretty basic, but just time-consuming and annoying but hey it could be worse.

So how exciting!

I was able to arrange the surgery placement I needed, here at the same hospital, and got it sorted out very quickly and got asked what dates did I want, so here I am doing back-to-back with my 8 weeks IM (that I completed woo-hoo).

I moved rooms in student accommodation but it's in the same building. Last week, though, they had me in the doctors/med students house. Until that point I wasn't entirely sure why I was being housed with the nursing students, but I assumed it was something logisitcal. Now, although I still don't know why, I'm so glad I'm with the nursing students because the doctors house is horrible! I met with the lovely housing coordinator and she said "I'll make sure to have you in the nurses house over xmas" as it's summer and there's no aircon in the doctors house! Yuk!

Although I might be camping anyway....

I have just purchased a campervan :D This makes me very happy!

My lil fam and I did a campervan trip in New Zealand this time last year and loved it so much. I really wanted to get one of my own. Plus our extended families are spread all around Australia and I just love road trips. Especially while I'm a paramedic with lots of RDOs and annual leave and my fiance is a stay-at-home dad and our daughter is not at school yet. Such a greta opportunity to get away in the van when we can.

We've done a bit of camping before and lvoed it but it;s not as easy as just parking your van somewhere.

Anyway, I'm totally psyched and am thinking about a career in radiology so I can work from my laptop :D Not sure that is even a thing but the Plan B would be medical writing. Unfortunately, I don't reall ylike doing that so we will see!

So, my fam might come up and stay with me inthe campervan as it will be summer and there are really nice places to camp around where I'm doing my rotation. I am even excited about riding my bicycle to the hospital each day! I don't even ride a bicycle!

Apart from the eager anticipation of graduating, and the excitmnt over the future #vanlife, I am completely exhausted! I'm at work or placement 28 days of the month and it really not good for one's health at all. I would never, ever push on like this for an extended period of time. It's just not worth it.

So now to get an early night in my student dorm room before the ridiculously early start surgeons have (6:30am to get ward rounds done before theatre) and have a sleep uninterrupted by my little munchkin (although I miss her sososososo much).

What a journey!