New phone

I dropped and killed my Samsung Galaxy II. I was so looking forward to getting the Nexus, but it's $735. I recently took my insurance off my phone plan to save money. Doh. So I asked today (on my fatigue break I drove to the major town) what was the cheapest smart phone, and I can't believe the Samsung Galaxy Mini (pictured above) was only $135! Wowzas!

Happy outcome.

Also while I was up there I dropped into the organic cafe which has a mini grocery dept as well and picked up some organic fruit and veges and a few other bits and pieces. I tried not to spend too much. I thought I would eat everything and then if I needed more I could probably drop in and grab more stuff after taking patients to the hospital near by. I'm trying not to waste so much.

I couldn't do my quiz again last night but I'm not expecting to be able to any more. I have been asked to take my computer into to be checked that it isn't faulty. As it is a brand new iMac and works perfectly for everything except the proctor, and I have spoken to and run diagnostics with the proctor company several times, I don't think I will be spending my money on this before the end of this term anyway. I kinda need my computer for, like, classes and writing my presentation and study and....

Too early 2

This morning began when I got rudely awoken by a phone call from New York - ok so I should have been up already but my alarm didn't work (I sleep through alarms when I'm that tired which is always worrying when I'm at home on-call). We have downloaded the latest version of Securexam and my fingers are crossed that I'll be able to do my quiz today.

It's research day today (wow - that came around really quick), so I'm just deciding whether to stay up or go back to bed for two hours before journal club.....me thinks beddy-bed-bed time.

Yesterday I had my new express 1-hour mentor meeting. It's too brief, but what can one do. My mentor thinks it's better to continue meeting weekly for the hour rather than fortnightly for two hours. My supposedly compensatory 1-hour academic advisor's meeting (via Skype until they can recruit some Australian academic advisors) really only lasts for 10 minutes, so I'm feeling a little ripped-off. I didn't feel well-prepared enough for my mentor meeting and I'm sort of kicking myself. I felt like a tool. I'll make sure next week I am the expert of hemiparesis.

In good news - I got a phone call last night from a student who is in his clinical rotations and he is absolutely loving it. He has managed to secure the best, most competitive core rotations at the best hospitals. It turns out he used to work for a pharmaceutical company and therefore....it's who you know sometimes. But what I'm so grateful for is he, and he classmates, are paving the way for the rest of us and doing so with a positive attitude. Big thank you to them. He also put my mind at ease a bit and said to keep over 75% in modules and I will be well -prepared for the clinicals. Whew. He also reminded me what a little gem Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine is, and I read a little in bed last night.

Access

Internet access is obviously very important when studying a medical degree by distance. I am trying to figure out how I can access my mandatory lectures online when my work computer wont let me download Java, which is essential. And my iPad doesn't allow Java either, which I think is the worst idea Apple ever had.

My mobile phone allows a "hotspot" but I have to figure out how much data and speed I'll need to use Elluminate, and then I'll friggin have to dust off the old laptop which annoys me as my desktop and ipad are brand new.

Sigh.

Well at least my old laptop still works.

Free Google books medical textbook list

If you haven't heard of Google books yet, it can be a little gem.  Not all books are available on there, and the ones that are are usually missing pages due to copyright restrictions and you usually can't print the pages, therefore you might have to supplement with borrowing from the library and/or photocopying the pages you need, before upgrading to a $1 secondhand >10 years old version, and then finally being able to afford the lastest edition (or at least one less than 5-10 years old).  It can be a real pain if your med school references specific pages in specific editions which is what my med school does, but you can still work around it if you're really tight on cash.

Here are a few links to books that are on my core textbooks list at my med school.

Lippincott's Biochemistry
Davidson's Principles and Practice of Medicine
Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease
First Aid for the USMLE Step 1
Guyton and Hall Medical Physiology
Martin Neuroanatomy

There's quite a few more textbooks in my well-established library now, but that's just some examples of the ones I have in hard copy which are available in part online for free.

If I was Google books and book publishers I would make everything available and just charge per page or per view in a sort of iTunes format. They'd make money for sure!

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Study is going well but I'm sort of getting bored of it. Can't wait til it's over and I can start a new topic.

Doctor in Training

This is me watching my Doctors in Training lecture at my desk. I <3 my new mac.

No matter what I do though, the pictures from my phone (Samsung Galaxy II) always upload sideways! I also don't know how to rotate it once it's in Blogger. Tilt head for now....

Update on proctor

So.... I rang my internet provider again, just to see if anything had changed, and they told me I had gone over my limit and was being shaped.  I thought this was strange because I had just changed my plan as I analysed my usage over the last few months and I was under 5GB per month.  He couldn't tell me what I was downloading due to privacy (but I was like - it's my internet!) but he told me the day I used the most.  I looked through my history without any luck.  And then I looked at my credit card bill - I paid for and subsequently downloaded the Usmleworld QBank that day which cost me 1GB!  Well, I dunno if it was all Usmleworld but it was on that same day.  Geez.

So I changed my plan up again to 10GB and at the fastest speed but still no luck with the Securexam software.  Then I got out my LAN cable (ethernet) and I tried and tried, I turned on and off my internet router, and I restarted my mac, then I shutdown and then started up my mac again, and then finally I could get enough speed to get into the friggin quiz.  Geez.

I read in the local paper that the National Broadband Network (NBN) is starting to be rolled-out in the next town to me.  Maybe by the end of my degree my internet speed will be fast enough to use software from the US.

Ugh.  Sigh.  Whatever. As long as I can do my final end of term exam without stress.

Now to do my presentation while on-call.  Can't wait for this term to be over.

Podcasts

So, where are we at? I got to review for my quiz quite comprehensively yesterday but I almost went into a cardiac arrhythmia when I realised how I stupidly messed up two questions.  Geez.  Insert palm of hand to forehead move here. Oh well. I won't miss them on the final exam.  At least I still got 80%.

These quizzes account for 30% of the total unit mark, and a quick predictive calculation of what I'm expecting for the other 70% puts me on target for another ~85% module.  That is ok, but I was hoping to get up closer to that 90%+ mark.  Frustrating.

I have a few days off and I'm going visiting - I have a 3-4 hours drive ahead of me today so I'm quickly downloading some medical podcasts onto my iPod. OUM used to have podcasts of their lectures but I can't seem to locate them - there is something right down deep in the back of my memory that makes me think they sent an email saying they were ceasing that. Hmmm...

Normally, I have no need for podcasts on my iPod as my place of work is, oh, about 500m from my house.  I don't travel much.  And I wouldn't subject my co-workers to an audio book about the USMLE in the ambulance.  I have so far gone through TWO of those thingies that put your iPod through your car's radio - but the sound quality is terrible.  I could get an iPod jack for my car, but that's an expense I'm trying to avoid seeing as I really could do with a couple of new tyres sometime soon.

Ah that's about it.  Stress at about a Code Orange today as I'm going away for the weekend and I doubt I'll get any study done before my Sunday morning lecture.

PS  I also have to take my old laptop with me as my friggin iPad doesn't do Java and therefore doesn't do my lecture. Sheesh.  Maybe I should have got myself another laptop instead of my desktop.  But I do love my desktop.

Ah, back to a quick clean of the house before I head off.

Mentoring

As part of my course, I have to see a mentor for two hours every week during my pre-clinical modules.  Today was my first mentor meeting for this term.

I am so lucky to have the mentor that I do. She is a top emergency consultant and works at the local major regional hospital.  So, basically, she is doing the job that I want one day. (Emergency medicine is still my first preference, with paediatrics and general practice as my other top preferences). She is very optimistic about my prospects of finding a job once I graduate, despite me being an IMG (International Medical Graduate) and the surging medical student tsunami in Australia.  Geez I hope she is right.

So today we had a double session and we went through the first two cases - hypo- and hyper- thyroidism.   It went well.  It even went better over a pot of jasmine green tea and eggs florentine.

That was my morning.  Now I'm home and my afternoon will be going through the second case study.  I believe I can finish it today as I don't have work to interrupt me.  I like to get the case study read and out of the way before moving on, although after each Learning Issue there is the associated readings, but I prefer to do those all at the end.  I liked my method last week of reading the case study (and looking up any unfamiliar terms along the way), watching the associated Kaplan videos, and then doing the readings.  The readings were easier to digest with a quick overview first from the case and the videos.

Yesterday, FYI, I had my first online lecture for the term.  It went for three hours and covered the first case study.  I was so glad I had done the pre-readings as you need to have done them before class to be able to answer the questions the lecturer asks.  There are about 10 students in my class so we all get asked questions in turn. I felt pretty confident about most things, but once again I feel inferior to the nurse practitioners and osteopaths - they are already seeing primary presentation of hypothyroidism, for example, and ordering and interpreting tests.

My mentor told me every time I have a patient from now on, after I've finished all my paperwork and other duties for work, I should sit down and go through all the possible differential diagnoses for that patient, write them all down, and then write down how I would work that patient up as a doctor and what tests I should order.  I will definitely do that from now on.

To be honest, I didn't realise until this week that thyroid problems could cause arrhythmias.  I will look at that more closely now, although my mentor did say it's not exactly the most common cause (of bradycardia and AF).

Ok off to get cracking on this hyperthyroidism case study.  My dog is already crying at my because I'm at the computer and ignoring him.

PS  My iMac is going really well.  I think it is one purchase I can definitely say has made my life better.  Loving the iPad too.

Mac time

Well, I did it.  I finally bought myself an iMac.

I've had my Lenovo mini-laptop for about two and a half years now, so I think I got my $500s worth.

I was looking and umming and ahhhing over an iMac before my trip, looking at refurbished models, secondhand ones, the student discount, the finance options, etc etc.  In the end I was trying to write this friggin annoying assignment yesterday and thought "I've had it".  Coincidentally it was the same day Steve Jobs had also had it.  RIP Jobs.

So I generally pride myself on not getting too swept up in the hype.  I've managed to resist an iPhone all this time, and an iPad.  I finally succumbed to an iPod a while ago when my cheapie MP3 just wasn't making the grade.

I have also found my recent computer habits are quite confined to the desk therefore a desktop makes sense, that and also I spend a LOT of time at my desk at home thanks to that little medical degree and masters degree I'm trying to work my way through.

My smart phone is doing very well for internet browsing the odd thing here and there.  The ebooks I have on it serves me well for a bit of study squeezed in where I can at work or the traffic lights.  Perhaps the only gap I could find is those times I want to sit on the couch and do a bit of uni work, or at work when the work computer is occupied..... And then they invented the iPad.

The iPad was initially only interesting to me because it is yet another in a long line of technologies which seem to have been developed straight from Star Trek's vision of the future  And they called it a "pad" which is what the Star Trek one is called ("PADD").  So that's cool.

But now with my whole going back to the desk top thing I though there was room in my life for an iPad, so, well I was already in the Apple store anyway, so that's how my credit card got a nice workout today.

And what about my Kindle?  I still think it;s superior for reading comfort and probably suits us older people who don't like reading from backlit screens.  But I haven't really used it.  I have friends that use their's all the time.  Hmmm.  Not sure what I will do with it now I have the iPad.  I can't imagine carrying both around.  Stay tuned for more on this.

So that's about it.  I have the weekend to do these assignments and I really can't wait to get back into med school.