Whoa!

Wow, you take the time to blink, and all of a sudden two months have passed! I'm still not entirely sure how that happened, but it has been an action-packed couple of months. The major things that have happened are:

1. I started a new job, conducting clinical trials, which is kind of interesting (when I'm not spending hours trawling through patient files) and actually gives me some useful practice at things like taking blood and dealing with patients.

2. MBF and I established that we're actually together, and it is great! Makes me wonder sometimes how we could have been friends for so many years and not figured out earlier how excellent this would be. Although, I think the decision for us to actually get together was somewhat catalysed by MBF's jealousy about some other guy asking me out...

AND 3. I started med school. Yep, after all of the studying for GAMSAT, stressing out about the interview, and waiting around for an offer, I've finally actually started studying to be a doctor. The first week of uni was full of lots of wanky talks about how the med school I'm at is the best, and the reason we (the students) are there is because we are the best, blah, blah, blah. Yes, seriously, we were told this. There was also lots of use of the word "colleague". If you are aiming to get into med, prepare to hear this word A LOT.

I'm loving it, even if it is crazy-busy. I really enjoy the PBL way of learning - working through the hypotheses for a case is interesting, and I definitely find it most intriguing when we're having trouble figuring out a diagnosis (although that doesn't happen very often, considering it's usually given away in the lectue titles, which we all see when printing out our notes for the week). I'm lucky in that I have a really great PBL group, too - we all get along really well, despite there being massive differences in backgrounds, views and approaches.

We've had a couple of chances to interview patients so far, and these have all been great learning experiences. Today was the first time I'd taken the history of a terminally ill patient, and I found it quite upsetting afterwards. The thing that most bothered me was that he had only been diagnosed a few weeks ago, and he appeared to be in denial about the real seriousness of what was happening. I know this is something I'll have to get used to, but at the same time I'm glad I'm not used to it yet, and that I am feeling something. I'd like to put off becoming an automaton as long as possible...