Flagging?

In line with my admiration for Susie Law School's ethos I'm telling myself

I love studying!

I love exams!

Knowing stuff is cool!

I do have pink tags and highlighters and all manner of funky stationary. I do have several spots in the library I can sit in and work away (snow not helping this new found motivation sorry to be such a killjoy but i'm an adult now responsibilities sadly)...

Medical school takes everything away. And when its taken everything it asks for a bit more. Even when one feels everything has been given med school will find something one didn't even realise they had and take it.

Colour Clash

ooh pink and orange really clash! i'll have to change that on the blogs I am following... maybe.

and in the dissertation I worked my socks off on made sense of 40 journal articles and goodness knows how many texbook sections.. working and reworking, drafting and cutting and fine tuning and rewording and polishing and I received a pass grade. I suppose I did say coursework was not my strong point. I was (and in a way still am) actually proud of the finished article though. Mistakenly so?

Oh how I hate medicine.

I'm revising!

Awww... Crash Course you have saved me once again (after spending hours trying to make sense of topics in more respectable texts... ) well, hey at least its not wikipedia!

Not like one could just pick up a medical dictionary to get the answers.. so much more beneath the surface !

I am now always bemused as I think to daytime TV and their health slots. Once I found myself in front of Richard & Judy (back when they were on in the mornings) giving advice on fertility treatments and a lady who had shunned IVF in favour of GIFT "well tell me if this doesn't make perfect sense..." who then used her GCSE biology knowledge to explain the differences and why her method was superior.
Well I suppose I have spent hours making sense of this stuff, can't really expect people to understand it in one sitting.. but then if you are going to go on TV as an advocate of this ... I can't help but feel a little embarrassed for her...

Arrogant Brunette

I knew I was right! I come home and check the journals and I am indeed right.

I was asked a question in a graded viva. I answered. He smiled gently... silly girl what does she know and corrected me. I was totally flummoxed and I must say a little cross. I have put my life into this research.. I know my stuff... I crammed and crammed and crammed... so to be completely destroyed by a man trying to pass himself off as affable and pleasant while sticking a knife in me ...
I was unable to mirror his smile.. I need to learn this. I must play their game smile sweetly and appeal to their better nature. Really considering how subjective viva marking is.. and how much effort I have devoted to this I can not afford to offend anyone, no matter how badly treated I feel..

Instead they probably think of me as the arrogant brunette with lots of mascara and an inability to laugh. I don't mean to display arrogance... but I am *so* well read on these topics... I'm ready I'm on fire. I did imagine me as CJ Cregg from the West Wing pulling no punches and taking no prisoners.. but unfortunately they pulled rank.
Practice perhaps at this kind of thing?!

hypocrisy...

Health is important and it should be promoted by health professionals... but disqualifying someone for political leadership because of lifestyle choices seems an infringement too far on civil liberties for me...

Why is it smoking people always get irate about? OK, sure smoking is bad.. but if you've been fully informed and want to do it anyway, its your choice and not anybody else's place to judge you. Seriously does every doctor get their five pieces of fruit & veg? Exercise?! Not carry an extra 10lbs around the abdomen?! hmmm.... Just declaring non-smoker status suddenly grants them entry to the ultrafit?!
How about this, instead of enforcing a non-smoker policy, the next prime minister can't be overweight. At all. Less socially acceptable enforcing a 'no fatties' club? Obesity is going to be more of a problem for us in the next 20 years than smoking.... so put that in your pipe and smoke it!


NB: For the record I don't smoke at the moment but often contemplate starting. therefore I feel a fellowship with my smoking comrades.

CV building

Do you, fellow bloggers, ever worry about someone stealing an idea, expanding it, making it ultimately better, distancing it just enough to be different to yours, publishing it & getting the credit?

I wouldn't be so competitive.. but FY1 forms! Start CV building! Extra-Curriculars! Does ruin the atmosphere of free debate & discussion though... Arguably one gets a higher readership from blogging than 'official' publications aimed at ourselves...
A few medical journalists will be out there yes, but CV builders in the majority?
Perhaps I might trot down to the library to leaf through a few...

Coursework Vs. Exams

Decision: I am an exam girl over coursework.... although I have stretched myself to the maximum doing the last bit of coursework (hence my absence) & really do hope the grade reflects the graft!
Research, publishing.... while I was doing this seemingly evil task I just kept thinking how an earth do people survive masters & phDs? I toyed with the idea of doing a phD .... indeed some of my counsel has been I can't get into this speciality or that without one, so stressful though! The carefully crafted nuances (I should post more to practise this!) unlike the scrawl of exam scripts...

Next up: A presentation! I think this is going to be more enjoyable than essays though as I'll get to play around with colours and use pictures. Need to teach myself the finer points of power point and see if I can't insert a few nonoffensive jokes into the subject matter....