Oh no, blog saya telah diabaikan for more than 2 months now! Apologies for the late updates - everytime I feel like updating my blog, I feel guilty like I should be doing something more productive like revising. I'm in GP Land at the moment, so it's a bit tiring, having to leave sometimes as early as 7.25 am to start at 8.20 (anyone will testify to how crappy public transport is in Preston), and finishing as late as 6-ish (thus getting home at 7-ish). Some afternoons we have revision kat spital until 7.30, then weekends we have revision sesama gadis2 Malaysian Preston. Oh well, bak kata pepatah, berakit-rakit ke hulu, berenang-renang ke tepian. Bersakit-sakit dahulu, bercuti di Mediterranean kemudian.

Anyway, a short update (I'll try to make it short and sweet).

About three weeks ago, I presented my Project Option research poster at the National Medical Student Research Conference in Manchester. According to my (inaccurate) observation, there were a few hundred participants and those who submitted their research/audit abstracts for a poster/oral presentation included people from Manchester (obviously), Edinburgh, UCL, East Anglia, Newcastle, Glasgow, Southampton, Brighton & Sussex (they have a medical school?) and Nottingham. I was the only Malaysian presenting (mainly because everyone else forgot to send an abstract), but I had a whole team of supporters with me! Sarah even treated me with an almond croissant and lemon muffin from Caffe Nero for breakfast (sempat minum tea je sebelum bertolak dari Preston). There were a lot of very interesting presentations and I'm very glad we went. And lagi gumbira dan bangga when each category of oral and poster presentations ada a winner from Preston. The judging and prizes were done by representatives from a few Royal Colleges that were there (did I mention ada doktor yang menang Nobel Prize last year yang bagi opening speech?)

The venue.

My Skechers are no longer presentable, so mesti tukar kasut.

The supporters.

The photographer.

And the judge.

As for my own poster, I wasn't expecting to win any prizes, but I did want the judge to at least get a fair representation of my research. It was a bit unfair, however, for two reasons - Paediatrics fell under the Community Medicine category for the conference, so a general practitioner judged our posters, not a paediatrician; and two, we were really running behind on time and the next session was supposed to start so the judge was in a real rush to assess my poster (I was the last in the morning session). He even said that, "I'm a GP, so I'm only interested in this bit", referring to the neurological outcome of the patients at follow up. The other students who did paediatrics felt the same way about a GP judging paediatrics. But it was a good experience anyway.

Oh yes, sementara saya rajin bercerita ni, I want to talk about final year so far. Personally for me, it's a scary ride. Imagine, we have these last two months to revise all that we've learnt in the past four years to pass our exams before we are let loose in society. I seriously feel the training that I have received is inadequate for me to practise medicine - I might just kill someone (eek!). Salutations to the Liverpudlians who have already passed their finals in the summer (they have finals at the end of fourth year - so glad I didn't go there!). But apart from that, life is ok. I was doing neurosurgery before this, with the nicest ever neurosurgeon, and I got to help press some touchscreen buttons during surgery to help guide the surgeons. One of the ST doctors kept asking me if I wanted to do a lumbar puncture (i.e. stick a huge needle in somebody's back to get some spinal fluid out), but I declined - I didn't want to paralyse anyone! But it's great, two medical students (myself and another girl) getting the attention of at least 7 consultants, a few registrars and a few ST doctors, all of which (except for 2) were males. And now it's general practice, which is cool when you see patients and get to come up with diagnoses and management plans for them and the GP agrees with you. Then it's gastroenterology stuff for a month. Then it's finals (eek!!!). Then it's a month each of chest medicine (breathing problems) and renal medicine (kidneys/buah pinggang), which I think is a shame that it's after the exams rather than before. And then balik Malaysia for electives!!! And and and, provided I complete all my forms, done the portfolio review and the exit interview, I can stay in Malaysia until graduation. Hurrah! After that, I haven't any plans yet, don't want to start work too soon, need a break after such a long journey, before I continue on the path towards becoming a specialist (kalau saya belum give up dengan dunia perubatan di Malaysia before that).

I don't know why I have all those brackets with (lay) explanation of things.