Phileosophie

In 1 Corinthians 1:17 Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, and one of the things he said was that he was sent to preach the gospel, but " not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." Later in the same chapter (1 Corinthians 1:27) he says "but God chose the foolish.. God chose the weak .. God chose the lowly things .. the despised things .. the things that are not, to nullify the things that are .. so that no one may boast ..." Pride is a sin that infiltrates that human heart. It is hard to shake and creeps in, even with the smallest of achievements. I don't think God is asking us to be spineless people with low self esteem, but I think He realises that it is difficult for us not to be prideful. So perhaps suffering and misfortune, can sometimes be faced with gratitude, because when we are feeling overwhelmed by the circumstances of our life, it is easier to look to Him, and to rely on His strength, to face life on His ter...

************************************************ Note: Special thanks to BestPractice for the information in this post. This post has been written by a medical student . This website is a collection of my reflections on life and on medicine. The target audience is technically myself, and perhaps my family. This website includes information on things I am interested in and am learning about. The information here has not been verified and should not be construed as medical advice in any way. If you are sick you should contact a local doctor for advice and management. ************************************************ Cough - it's such an simple thing, and yet, it's always so important to get the simple things right.  The wife of a good friend of mine was recently diagnosed with scleroderma following a long period of dry cough. It had been mistaken for asthma for a long time and I do not know the details about the case but it has made me determined to unders...

I think it would be nice to be the world's best paediatric cardiologist. There are two problems - first, I am not interested in paediatrics as a whole. Second, I still want to do adult cardiology. I think I will go down the adult cardiology route and attempt to also specialise in paediatric cardiology later on.

I have learnt so much in the past 3 weeks. The most recent week has been a dream come true - working with DrF, observing him, getting to know him a little and learning from him. This AM his Fellow was busy so I was the only person with him while he saw patients in the clinic! This apparently has never happened before because he is always accompanied. It would not seem spectacular to anyone else but to me it was a huge privilege, to be the only person to help with the foot rest and sphygmo. Yea, so you may laugh at me, but we all have different dreams. We also had an ECG tutorial this afternoon with DrZ and I feel like I have learnt a lot in this aspect as well. I was able to answer most questions today as compared to previous weeks when I did not understand what the other students were talking about. I also received a lead about an academic topic that I have been interested in for a while but have been quite stumped with so I will pursue this further. I love being here in New York....

Today has been just incredible. Not mind-blowing or stuff like that but you know, to be able to wake up every morning and be excited about work - to want to work so much with the people you have to work with, to have the privilege of observing DrF and learn bits about what makes him the best cardiologist in the world (unofficial title but as far as I know, no other cardiologist has his qualifications, experience and awards) - all this is just remarkable and somehow all this has happened to me. I rarely stop and think about how all this has happened because I don't want to figure it out and mess up the train of fortunate events but my life has really been incredible, and if you look at where it all started - this could have happened to anyone. But it happened to me. My housemate left for Germany this afternoon and I really loved staying with her - she was welcoming when I arrived, friendly, and a really lovely person (also very pretty and I have to say good looking housemates ...

I started on the ward today. I dont think they call it a ward here because 'everyone has individual rooms'. We call it a ward in Sydney anyway.. just one with individual rooms. So the first real day was nice. Students are generally friendly and most seem to be visiting students. There is only one home-student on my ward. Perhaps they are all off on winter vacation or something. There are also two lady doctors from India who are here on an observership - which isn't too different from what I'm doing to be honest. I was under the impression that I would be allowed to do stuff but some doctors seem to have a MSH student-only policy. I'm not sure if this is correct because as far as I know, that's the difference between an observership and an elective - one gets to do hands on. The doctors in general are welcoming and friendlier than doctors in Sydney. Doctors in Sydney are nice but Australians usually appear disinterested and fairly unimpressed with most things. ...

I finally got some $$ from the bank, which is releasing my money in trickles. I can finally afford toiletries - yay. Might even be able to pick up comfortable shoes at some point. The weather was just brilliant today. After a slightly rocky start at hospital (in the midst of exam prep I had forgotten to fill out some forms) I had the rest of the day off and decided to take a walk through Central Park. While at the park, a cute little Indian toddler took a liking to me and started following me around so I struck up a conversation with her mother. Central Park in autumn (taken from http://alwayslookingoutthewindow.blogspot.com)  Anyway, I ended up at Wholefoods at the basement of Time Warner Centre where I finally found dark soy sauce. I'd almost given up hope since Gourmet Garage and Associated only carry light soy... while at the Asian food aisle, an older gentleman struck up a conversation, asking about some varieties rice he wanted to try. I subsequently found out he ha...

I am now in the MSH library - soaking due to miserable NYC weather. This place feels really familiar but I can't place my finger on the reason for this feeling. I suppose having lived in so many countries, things are starting to confluent and overlap. I heard DrF's voice today in the next room when I was talking to his assistant. In 10 years I would like to be DrF. Or at least close to being like him. By that I mean I would like to be at the top of my game. Almost every doctor is going to make a difference in life but I think the higher you climb, the greater the impact you have. I want my life to count. Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.  Proverbs 19:21 (NIV)

MY EXAMS ARE OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (thanks for asking)... SO.. as promised, the posts should hopefully get more interesting from here on. First up, is a new reality TV show in Australia called 'Young Doctors'. It revolves around what a few junior doctors get up to at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. I watched an episode because I couldn't think of how my life (or one similar to mine) would be remotely interesting to watch. I was right.. it wasn't. Not any of the doctors' faults of course.. it's just, watching it on tv is like having my day recorded and then summarised in the most appalling fashion and then watching it over dinner. It was a snooze fest... and completely unrealistic. Consultant: "So Dr. X what do you think this patient has?" Junior Doctor: "I think he has appendicitis." I think the point here was for the audience to go "wow, this doctor really knows what she's doing." but firstly, that's not how ...

Just two short days away from my exams! One of the things I've had to prepare is some background information on laboratory investigations we observed during the year. I chose the really common ones, in part because it would potentially be easier to talk about but largely because I felt it would be more useful to my career in the long run! I mean, if I'm going to have to work on this (I dont like technical work much!) then it might as well be useful. SO, one of the techniques I chose to read about was flow cytometry . It is the method used by labs to process Full Blood Counts which is possibly the most common investigation ordered at a hospital. I hadn't had much luck finding good information about this investigation till today when I came across this website (click!). Those of you interested in technology and physics and all that can also click on the screenshot I've included below (goes to the same site).

Sorry about that really boring previous post on neuroanatomy. haha. Today isn't heaps better but I promise that once these exams are over I will endeavor to entertain a bit more (or maybe I'll be so busy having fun that you won't hear about any of it). Anyway, at least today I'm being outward-looking. Literally. My neighbours were fixing the fence between our properties today. It reminded me of ' Mending Wall ' which is a poem by Robert Frost. Good fences make good neighbours. I would have gone to help but I don't usually leave the house before exams. Even if I'm totally done studying.. like now. I just sit home, stew, veg and pretend that the knowledge in my head is deepening like fine wine.. or christmas cake. Also, given how much time I have, I've begun to think about silly things.. like how much caffeine there is presently in my blood stream. Surely there is a way to measure this? Sort of like how the cops have breathalyzers to measure alc...

When the going gets tough, don't back off! It's 1159PM here and I'm still not really feelin it with neuroanatomy. All the Hollywood gossip I'm reading on the side isn't helping either. :-( Anyway, I've read through some new notes I received from a friend and I've been going through questions. Ideally I should be able to localise lesions in the central nervous system when I am given particular symptoms and having read through this topic about 3 times now I'm slowly starting to recognise certain signs, like 'bitemporal hemianopia' which is due to compression of the optic chiasm... so I've gone and looked at the anatomy of this region again.. and I've also gone back and looked at some notes I made in first/second year. It's amazing the stuff you find when you go back to basics. All these notes I made, which I probably didn't understand at the time, they make much more sense now and are such a great study resource for finals. Anyway...

Anatomy has always been one of those areas in medicine that I've been wary off. It's remarkably important, being one of the core topics in medicine, but can be quite overwhelming given the number of tiny nerves, holes and muscles you have to remember. To make things worse, you also have to remember what each entity is connected to and how each part works. I have to admit I've managed to get away with a very rudimentry level of anatomical knowledge for a long time. For this exam I put anatomy off till the last minute (ie. now) as I tend to do because it's such a massive (and to be honest, low yield) topic. I mean, if you've got to sacrifice something than this would be the subject to go. But I've been working at it for the past 2 days now, trying to patch up the gaps in my knowledge and trying to teach myself in as entertaining a way as possible. I'm getting there slowly... it's an uphill climb across a treacherous terrain and I'm currently going ...

Sometimes I get bored studying and end up illustrating on MS Paint. These are the ones I made for my current exam. Myelofibrosis . Hematopoiesis is shifted away from the one marrow to areas such as the spleen, liver and lymph nodes. However, not all hematopoietic cells leave the marrow. About 10% remain but are abnormal. Megakaryocytes secrete fibroblast stimulating factor, resulting in the progression of diseases such as Polycythemia Rubra Vera to myelofibrosis. Red blood cells that remain in the bone marrow are now trapped by all the fibrous strands and are unable to get out of the marrow. Having squeezed through the fibrous strands, they end up damaged in a form called 'tear-drop cells' and these can be seen circulating in the peripheral blood. Caput medusae . My sister had this book on Greek mythology when we were kids. 'Caput medusae' has always reminded me of the namesake of this sign (associated with liver disease). The spleen is where red blood c...

I wanted to share this picture with you because I think it is gorgeous. It is a diagram of the brain and the first one I've come across that also incorporates the Circle of Willis (blood supply) in a fairly 3 dimensional way. I find it so much easier to understand something when I see it but unfortunately there aren't many good teaching diagrams around. I suppose not everyone will appreciate the beauty of this diagram. But perhaps that's because you do not understand it because if you did, you would realise what an elegant structure it is, what a miracle of design and physiology the human body is, and in fact, what a work of art our whole world is. Eduardo Saverin (an American-Brazilian investor) once posted a map of wind patterns and tornado movements on facebook. He called the tornado a 'beauty' and quite a few readers laughed at the caption thinking he was a little strange. But the thing is, as much as tornados can have a devastating impact on the human world (wh...