The End

Last weekend I finished my last exam, packed up my stuff and left London.

Six years of medical school were over all too quickly. I remember arriving in October 2007 and promptly falling asleep in lectures so clearly as if it wasn't very long ago. But now there are no more lectures to sleep in. A lot has happened in the last six years but I don't feel like I have changed very much. Some people might argue that I have.

Anyway, as this season of life is coming to an end I have decided to end this blog.

Thank you all for reading. It has been fun.

So much work, so little time

As of today I have 8 weeks left until exams. I can't lie and say that I'm cool calm and totally prepared. I'm never cool calm and totally prepared for any exam. But there's something about this last year that exposes the holes in knowledge and understanding that I was able to get away with previously. All those lectures I slept through - I'm paying for them now. Never mind, I'll just have to work really hard for the next few weeks. Hopefully, it'll all be alright on the night.

Old habits die hard

This week I'm back in lectures doing what I do best..sleeping.
On Thursday I was so tired I went home to sleep. (I'm still sick so it's ok).


Some things may never change.

2013 will be a year of ...

Change

I'm in my final year of university. In August I'll be working as a doctor, being responsible for people's health and stuff. Your life will be my hands. Be afraid. Mwahahahahahahahaha! (Actually that's a total lie - I'll be at the bottom of the food chain, paper pushing for years to come). And because I am a glutton for major life change, in between now and then I'm also getting married.

I guess there will be no more sleeping in lectures, I'll have to grow up.

I 'used' to look at major life events like this with a certain amount of fear - to be honest I still do.
I'm trying to make a conscious effort to change that attitude. I'm trying to see this as something exciting on the horizon, something to look forward to but some old thinking habits die hard.

Blah blah blah

Everything in life seems so blah right now. Nothing's happening. Nothing is interesting. Nothing excites me anymore. I wake up, I do nothing I go back to sleep. I have little motivation. Not even for work. Not even to talk to people.

I wrote before about needing to be brave to step out and change things. I realise now that building a life takes effort not courage. One step isn't enough, I have to carry on walking.

I'm stuck in a rut and I'm far from the place I want to be, in terms of my relationships with people, my relationship with God, my work-life balance, my wardrobe ... this list could go on and on. However a new year affords the promise that the slate is wiped clean that you can be better than you were before. This will require commitment not complaining, something that changing a calendar doesn't give you.

Last year I promised to be more open, I really wasn't. I never really have been. But I've had enough of this rut now. This will be my last whiny-complainy-woe is me-my life is rubbish post.
My blog may end here. I hope it doesn't.

Taking things for granted

I suppose at this time of year I'm bound to become reflective. I think back on the year gone by, look forward to the year ahead and get planning. There are some things I assume are taken care of or are guaranteed - unfortunately, that isn't always the case.

For the last few weeks things haven't been quite right with me.  Early in December I developed a cough. Initially I thought it was no big deal, everyone is ill at this time of year. I thought I would cough and sneeze for a couple of days, sleep a lot and then be right as rain. Uni would be rubbish but then I'd bounce back and get back to hardcore revision for finals. However, a week later after downing a bottle of cough mixture, drinking my body weight in lemon and ginger tea and sleeping for 14 hours a night every night I wasn't any better.

A Londoner in the North - Day 1

So after a long break from writing I've travelled to 'the North' to do a 2 week stint in GP land and have found some fodder for this here blog. Now I'm a city kid, lived in London all my life and coming this far away from civilisation home is a somewhat daunting process. I've long had a wish to live outside of London in a land where there are green things growing from the ground outside but after today I'm not sure how I'd fare...

Reading for pleasure

I've realised recently that I really want to read a book.

Thanks to the drudgery that is medical school I spend too many hours reading boring PowerPoint slides and textbooks. It is now at the point where I almost despise the idea of doing any more reading than I absolutely have to. Almost.

Then I walked through a bookshop yesterday. An old familiar joy welled up inside me, a smile played about my lips as I gingerly thumbed a couple of books that looked interesting. I long for a story. For people, not nondescript text or information that I just have to memorise.

Ever since getting a shiny new kindle for my birthday last year I have done precious little more reading than I hoped I would. Unfortunately this is the wrong time of year to get into an all consuming reading habit, enjoyable as it would be :(

I think I'll have to settle for small amounts of reading for pleasure scattered in between hours of revision in the library. It might help to keep my spirits up over the next three months.

Broken Promises

A long long time ago I promised you regular posting. I promised you a whole series on my thoughts about passion. I promised to start writing seriously. I promised I would make my life more interesting, more meaningful. I promised I would do things on purpose.

I haven't done any of these things.

I have no excuses. I accept full responsibility for my rubbishness.

But I'm not going to complain (much). I'm getting up, dusting myself off, and moving on.

A Log and a Speck

So umm, I haven't posted anything on my blog for 7 1/2 months now.

To be honest what's brought me back to here is the fact that I've recently been nagging a friend of mine to post on his blog more often. You see, he started a blog at the beginning of this year saying that he would post every week until the end of 2011 and as soon as it lapsed for a few weeks I let him know it. If only he knew....

Anyway, I wouldn't say this guy isn't a particularly close friend of mine. However, through reading his blog, which sometimes becomes quite personal, I (feel like I) have gained an insight into some parts of his life that I doubt I would have known about from our sporadic conversations. I feel like a fly on the wall silently observing him - well, the parts he chooses to share online anyway. I feel privileged to know these things - like he has confided in me specially, which is rather ironic considering that a weblog is anything but confidential. I am also a little in awe and humbled by his display of openness, honesty and vulnerability. Bizarrely , I feel like I can't really speak to him about the personal matters that he puts on his blog. It feels like I'm cheating at friendship, or that I'm reading his mind.

My eagerness to correct his 'log' has prompted me to re-examine my 'speck' of cyberspace. Looking back on this, it looks like a failure - a confused, self-indulgent and unfinished diary.
But every grey cloud has a silver lining. I firmly believe that life is a journey and not a destination. There is something to be learned from everything that happens.
I like writing, so I think I will carry on.

InspireMe - Quotes

I love inspirational quotes.

You know the ones, those famous adages or sayings that say so much in just a few words. These are my favourites that used to live on my facebook profile. They also say a lot about my life philosophy.

Medicine is the only profession that labours incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence ~James Bryce, 1914

If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves

~Thomas Eddison

Smile awhile and while you smile another smiles and soon there's miles and miles of smiles and life's worthwhile because you smile ~ St. Cecilia

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever ~ Mahatma Gandhi

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb ~ Nelson Mandela

What are your favourite quotes? And why do you love them? Sharing is caring, leave yours in the comments below :)

To be a good surgeon... it's a good idea to play some sort of video game

A quick PubMed search reveals there are at least 53 publications relating to the topic of video games and surgical skill development.

In a very recent review article (Lynch et al, 2010) 12 research papers were discovered relating to different kinds of keyhole and robotic surgery on different parts of the body.  The findings from all of these papers were analysed and it was found that there was a link between gaming and increased performance in keyhole but not robotic surgery. The increased performance was only seen in basic tasks. For more complex tasks and in robotic surgery the most important factor was experience of the specific surgical technique. All of the studies involved very small numbers of people and short periods of game play (between 2 and 5 weeks) and more subtle differences may not have been seen, differences that were seen may have been exaggerated and the effect of long term gaming (years) or gaming in childhood cannot be examined.

It must be noted however that there is much more to being a good surgeon than being good with your hands. Surgery, like all medical specialisms, is a team sport. Communication skills within that team, both in theatre and in follow up is vitally important to patient outcome. So is good clinical knowledge and judgement.

References
Lynch, J., Aughwane, P. & Hammond, T. M. (2010) Video games and surgical ability: a literature review. Journal of Surgical Education, 67 (3), 184-189. 

Milo Wars 2

Apologies for the lateness of this post. I have been snowed under with coursework recently.

The last post sparked outrage in the blogosphere heated debate amongst people that read and follow my blog. For many people this was an emotive issue, mispronouncing the name of a hot drink they have known and loved from childhood. At first among the people I had asked there seemed to be a north/south divide - the divide being the equator. Those in the north (from Ghana and Nigeria and the UK) seemed to favour 'Millow' pronounciation, and those from the south (from Zambia, Zimbawe, South Africa and New Zealand) favouring My-lo.

The poll results say it all, after all the shouting intensely emotional discussion the consensus is split cleanly down the middle, 11 votes for Millow and 11 for My-lo. (I have ignored the accusations of cheating here)

However, as other countries joined in the debate for the My-lo cause namely Jamaica and Sri Lanka, it seemed to turn into a West Africa (Millow) vs the rest of the world (Mylo) debate. (I personally think that we can handle those odds). I would like to thank my Sri Lankan friend Jehan, who did the YouTube research that gave me the videos below.

 

So I guess we will all have to make up our minds on this one.

(Hint hint - it's Millow)

Milo: The Great Pronunciation Debate

You say to-mah-to, I say to-may-to, right? Apparently you can have either way right? It doesn't matter right? Wrong! Well, it's wrong when it comes to this  famous energy food drink.

I've noticed recently that my Southern African friends pronounce it as 'My-lo' like it's a name, whereas my friends above the equator and particularly in West Africa pronounce it as 'Millow' (like it rhymes with willow).

My opinion - you can't drink a person. I was raised on 'Millow'. Am I right? Comment below or use the poll to the right.

Pimsleur Twi Review

As you know over the last few months I have been attempting to learn Twi, an Akan language of Ghana, where I am originally from. To do this I bought a Twi-English dictionary and the Pimsleur Twi Audio CD set. Here are my thoughts on it.

The Pimsleur Twi Audio course is a 10 lesson audio course with a short accompanying reading booklet. Each audio lesson is about 20-25 minutes long and the course is designed for you to complete one lesson a day, everyday if possible. Reading lessons are much shorter (2 – 5 minutes) and are separate from the main audio part. The reading lessons took place roughly every other day. The material covered included basic that you would encounter as a tourist in Ghana e.g.: introducing yourself, asking for directions, and buying food and drink etc.

I have to say that this is the first ever teach-yourself-a-language course that I have ever managed to complete. Usually I get bored or find the language too difficult to learn and give up.  The Pimsleur course was actually engaging and enjoyable. It also went at a pace that was easy to follow. It may have helped that I was already a bit familiar with the language. However there were days that I did have to repeat because I struggled with the lesson the first time round.

Let’s play the Plagiarism Game: the cite is right!

My university have an incredibly boring plagiarism lecture every year for which attendance is compulsory. A register is taken. During the lecture we have to complete exercises where we look for evidence of plagiarism in (supposedly) real submitted pieces of work. At the end of the torture we have a quiz (oh joy!) that you have to pass. It is two hours of your life you are never going to get back.

So during this last torture session I had an idea for fresh new delivery of the material.

Introducing (drum roll please)…‘The Plagiarism Game: the cite is right!’

You play the character Student [insert your name here] as you struggle through the perilous terrain of coursework-land battling the evil plagiarising creatures therein. The twin demons of ‘copy and paste’ shall fall before your sword of citation and your quiver of quotation marks. Beware the deceptive mist of’ just-rearranging-the-words’ though that will confuse your avatar and deplete your timeline more quickly. Traverse or avoid the murky swamp of ‘misinterpreting-common-knowledge'. And finally battle the most difficult enemy of all the shadow avatar of self-plagiarism’. It knows all your tricks, all your moves. How will you fare? With your arsenal of appropriately sourced references nothing should stop you from attaining your goal of a publication in a prestigious scientific or medical journal however you must get through the game first.

Let’s be honest though, this would only really appeal to people who would be into games though. Oops! I forgot what field I’m in.

There may already be an app for that.

To be a good surgeon...you must play 'Call Of Duty'?

Apparently doctors that end up being surgeons are more likely to be male and play video games. Particularly with keyhole surgery, playing video games can apparently help to build the brain's ability to integrate and understand a 2D image on a screen and how it relates to a 3D response with the hands and fingertips. That's not even mentioning the manual dexterity it helps with.

I'm not sure if there are studies to confirm this idea, but in my opinion, it might also help with getting used to seeing blood, guts and gore on screen.

Being more of a Nitendo Wii girl myself, does that mean I should abandon any dreams I may or may not have of becoming the world's greatest brain/heart/any-kind-of surgeon just because I'm not addicted to 'Call Of Duty' or other console games? The fact is I'm just not very into gaming as a past time although from time to time (mainly when I supposed to be revising) I do become engrossed in the sims.

Is that just me? Or is that a female predicament? I haven't done any rigorous investigation into the topic but from anecdotal evidence it seems that more men than women play video games? I know for a fact that the games industry has a 96% male workforce. Maybe they are just not designing games I want to play? Or maybe the games that I would play won't sell? Or maybe I'm just not interested in gaming as a pastime?

There are many questions. And many possible answers. (Sounds like something for some bright medical student to go and research)

Just as a closing thought, there's often another person in the operating room who has to hold the camera during keyhole procedures. That person is often a more junior doctor or at times a medical student. Now you may think that holding a camera is an easy compared to the difficult job of doing a whole surgery inside a tiny space. However I can personally say that it is in fact quite tiring doing it for hours on end without moving or changing position much. My question is: does doing an activity like yoga, which strengthens core muscles, help with doing this task? Or does the ability to enter a zen-like trance at will help make the hours fly by? Who does more yoga men or women? Could this mean that women are more suited to assistant type roles?

Very controversial I know.

Either way, I think it raises lots more questions.

Brave

I sometimes wonder why I write this. Or why I write anything.

I like to think that I have something meaningful to say. Something worth listening to. Something worth reading. But the thing is I don’t tell people about my writing or indeed that I write at all. Very few people know about this blog or my stories or poems. And to be completely honest, I am loath to tell them. I’m not very good at self-promotion. I’d rather be discovered by chance. A happy accident.

I envy people who are brave. Brave enough to show the world what they are made of. What they think, feel and believe.  To expose themselves to the potential ridicule of others and take the risk anyway.

Right now, I’m not even brave enough to put words to a blank page.

I wonder where did my courage go?

I have a story!

I have a story in the pipelines! *Squeal of excitement!* (Me, not you….although you can squeal too if you are excited for me) It’s a short story. My self-imposed deadline for it is 30^th September 2010.  Please hold me accountable. Thank you.

Escape to the Country

It’s (still!) the summer holidays and I am surrounded by – drowning in - daytime television. Has anyone watched this show before? I think it’s about a couple or a family that want to move from the city to the countryside so they go a look at properties (correct me if I’m wrong).  As a born and bred city girl, I have always thought that there’s just nothing to do there.

I will freely admit that I was wrong.

Fields. Trees. Greenery. Fresh air. It all suddenly hits me like a freight train when I leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind. The contrast is more dramatic on a train journey but I suppose on some level this is what the old motorway holidays were like. Exciting, romantic, and thrilling. *cough cough* My lungs aren’t used to this level of cleanliness. There are houses surrounded by empty space. Everything is just so spaced out. It’s amazing. The city is a bubble. Sometimes it’s hard to think there’s anything else outside of it. Sometimes it’s a bit claustrophobic. I can see why people escape. I might try it sometime.