PrepGenie: 50% off GAMSAT preview course. 25% off all other courses.

I was involved in reviewing GAMSAT practice questions with PrepGenie at the start of this year. PrepGenie wants to give all readers of my blog 50% off the GAMSAT preview course and 25% off all other courses.

To take advantage of this offer, use the discount coupon "BOBBYLI". To purchase multiple courses with the discount, purchase each item and check them out separately.

The GAMSAT Practice Test Papers available from PrepGenie can be found here: http://prepgenie.com/gamsat/gamsat-test-papers/

General thoughts on MD1

MD1 has not been "easy", but I don't think many bioscience subjects in biomed were easy to learn either. Like those subjects, there is quite a lot that you just have to "know".

Compared to undergrad, I don't think it would be much more workload per week than say four "human bioscience" type subjects after first year level. Maybe undergrad was easier, but not by that much. I had a Biomedicine background, and majored in pharmacology, so I learned a significant proportion of content from the first few blocks (foundation, cardiovascular, respiratory) already in undergrad. However, the ways in which MD1 might be harder are:

• In undergrad I didn't have a full load of biosciences. Most of my other subjects were a walk in the park compared to those second and third year bioscience subjects.
• In the MD there was only a week after the end of class to revise 36 weeks of material before our first exam, but in undergrad there was always at least 9 days, and we only learned a semester (12 weeks for undergrad) at a time. It therefore is almost impossible to cram in the MD if you did so in undergrad.
• If you didn't do many human bioscience subjects in undergrad, there would be more new content to learn. That said, I only filled in one elective or free subject (out of 2 electives and 2 free subjects for biomed) with a bioscience subject, so I certainly did not seek to maximize the bioscience content of my biomed degree unlike what some others may have done.
• In the MD you also have to do clinical skills, which are different to written exams. You will need practice partners if you want to practice them. In first year, there is not much time to practice within class.
• The short answer exam is a bit stupid. Maybe I should have spent more time practicing my writing speed instead of practicing USMLE style questions to remember concepts correctly. Also, my handwriting is not that good at the best of times, so it's especially a struggle to write fast. Typing is different though. That said, writing may be easier for "mechanisms" still if you don't need them to be neat.
• The CSLs require "self-directed learning" involving searching up the learning issues before the next class. I personally don't feel it's very efficient compared to someone actually teaching us, although I do see the merit in presenting symptoms and diseases in the context of clinical cases to facilitate memory. I didn't revise any of the CSLs before the exam though. You don't miss out on much if you revise the lecture notes and skip CSL revision (maybe one question here and there), but you will miss out on a lot of the exam if you revise CSLs and skip lecture revision.

Apart from that, as far as first year exams are concerned, if you want to buy just one textbook, get a pathology one (Robbins and Contran Pathologic Basis of Disease). If you want to do the USMLE though, then there's stuff which isn't covered for many areas in first year MD (many med schools have two preclinical years instead of one). They would integrate some of it into the clinical years. How much? I will find out in the coming years. I'm not planning to sit the USMLE at the moment, but I do have the Step 1 revision book from Kaplan.

As far as grades are concerned, my average for first year is about 77.5. I hope to be able to get the "degree with distinction" which requires a weighted average of 80 (weighting first year 30%, 2nd year 30%, 3rd year 30%, scholarly selective 10%). The deficit isn't that great so I should be able to make it up, but I'll have to improve my clinical skills.

Finally, if you really want to choose a major with the most overlap with medicine (although it's not something I'd advise), it seems like anatomy had the highest proportion of all single disciplines in the midsemester tests. Needless to say, maximizing the amount of bioscience subjects would generally increase the overlap compared to other types of subjects. As far as my major subjects are concerned, the "drug discovery" and "drugs in biomedical experiments" subjects didn't help much with first year, although the biomedical experiments subject may become helpful if I do my scholarly selective in basic science. "Drug treatment of disease" was quite helpful; a lot more so than "drugs affecting the nervous system" I thought.

[update] OSCE marks released

Probably a week ago now, the OSCE results were released. I couldn't post here though since I was in China.

This time, I got two scores just about on the average (within 0.5 sd), one score about 1 sd below, and one score just on the pass mark at about 2 sd below the average (knee exam). Even though they said they'd only give feedback for failed stations, they gave me feedback for that station. I wish we could have feedback for all stations though.

Apparently for the content marks of that station I got 22/24, but my overall mark was 27/40. I guess that means my "non-content" marks were only 5/16... I am surprised they are worth so much, although it is said that most communication is non-verbal. I wonder if I lost most marks for "non-content" things on other stations too.

Anyway, it seems like I did better than the last OSCE (when one was >1 sd below and one station was below the pass mark; >2 sd below). I haven't done a statistical test though. I hope by the next OSCE time my skills can become at least at the average. There should be more opportunities to practice next year since we are in the hospitals.

[update] Back from China

I have finally returned home now after being in China and Hong Kong for almost 3 weeks. The trip had highlights, although also lots of boring portions. When I was around 10 years old I used to really like traveling. However, now that I've been to several different places, there's less and less substantially different things to see each time. After a while, a lot of it just becomes "another rock, another lake, another building, another road"...

Anyway, this was the first time I went to China and Hong Kong. I won't go into all the details of the trip, but here's a few "take-away" points I got:

• The cities are quite developed now. That said, there's still a significant amount of squat-toilets there (in mainland China that is. I didn't notice any squat toilets in HK).
• I particularly like the count-down timers on the vehicle and pedestrian traffic lights in Chinese cities (esp Shanghai), which I also noticed in some places in Malaysia and Singapore when I was there. I haven't noticed any of them in Australia.
• The train system in Guangzhou and Shenzhen reminds me of Singapore's MRT. I'm quite sure they run better than the Melbourne trains, and in Shenzhen a single trip fare on a train or bus is only 2 RMB!
• Facebook and Blogger are blocked in China. I also notice that my blog view count has reached 0 for several days for probably the first time in the history of my blog since I made it (maybe because I told everyone I'd be away beforehand). Anyway, I'm back now. (*EDIT* Hmm now I think maybe my website was blog site was blocked because my google account got locked. They thought it was suspicious activity when I tried to log on in China and HK, but I didn't bother to unlock my account since I didn't have a mobile number there... Can anyone confirm any difficulties getting to my blog site within the past two weeks?)
• Even though the prices of electronic goods may be cheaper in store in Hong Kong (Mong Kok) than Australia, for the particular models of phone I was looking at the prices for, the shop prices in Hong Kong are still more than on the internet in the cheapest Australian websites (although that might be a bit more than on the internet in HK websites delivered to HK addresses).
• Hong Kong has an excellent Airport Express train service where you can check in luggage (in Kowloon) before boarding a train to the airport. Melbourne doesn't even have a train to the airport!

Now that I'm back, I'll be available to tutor for the GAMSAT and VCE again

[update] MD1 results released

Today MD1 results were finally released. If you are wondering, I got 80 (H1) in FBS and 61 (P) in PCP. I guess that means I'll be going onto next year.

G is for GAMSAT

One of my friends has released a GAMSAT preparation guide for free download called G is for GAMSAT.

Here is his message from Facebook:

"Are you interested in post-graduate medicine, dentistry or optometry, and need to the sit the GAMSAT, but not sure how to prepare? Due to popular demand, I have written a small guidebook to hopefully answer all of your questions. Download my FREE PDF book 'G is for GAMSAT' for an overview of GAMSAT preparation, including hints for all sections and sample essays. Please feel free to share this on your wall and with your friends. Like this page to keep updated :)

Download PDF here: http://bit.ly/GisforGAMSAT

Thank you - Gayan K (Year 1 Melbourne MD Student)" 

Source: link on facebook.

GPA... GAMSAT... Interview...: 2 years on.

Like I alluded to a few days ago, it's now two years since I started up the blog. And a lot has happened in the past year! I have started and completed the first year of my Medicine course. I have met new people in the course, while there have been many familiar faces staying on from Biomedicine like myself.

For some reason my blog pageviews graph is a bit weird. Where it says 2010 it should be 2011 and 2009 should be 2010. Nevertheless, I'm surprised with the upward trend on blog views. Back at the start of last year, I was getting just above 100 views per month. Now I usually get more than that in a day! I was right last year when I thought that blog views would drop off after November (GEMSAS offer month), but the upward trend meant that by April (3006) this year the pageviews were higher than November last year (2763), and has stayed above that level ever since.

I've also noticed a change in the referrals. Up until the beginning of this year, most of the referral traffic was coming from Paging Dr. Nowadays, most of it is coming from Google. So I guess I'm climbing up the search rankings in terms of GAMSAT or medicine the more I blog and the more people click on the link.

Anyway, it's been a good year learning all the stuff. Next year I will be at St Vincent's Hospital for my clinical school. I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog, and I hope you enjoy reading it into the future.

[update] OSCE complete! MD1 complete! (hopefully). Available for GAMSAT + VCE tuition now.

Today I completed my OSCE! I thought they went OK, although for one of the stations I had to stop to think a bit for some of the questions.

This time I remembered to wash my hands for both my clinical exams though, so that's good. And I didn't run out of time for the history stations either, unlike last time, and I think I answered the questions at the end of the history station better.

It's good having the previous experience behind me too, so I'm more used to the OSCE format now. Hopefully it can be as comfortable as written exams (which I'm quite used to now) in the future.

So all exams for MD1 are completed for me now. I don't think I'll need to sit any supplementary exams. So if that is the case (hopefully so I don't have to travel back from overseas), then I will be on a break from the MD until February next year.

Oh and just a reminder since my exams are all over now: I will be available to tutor for the GAMSAT or VCE for most days in the holidays now. Except for between 5-22 December when I'll be away from Melbourne.

[update] 2 years on. FBS exams done. OSCE next week. GAMSAT Tutoring available after Tuesday.

I've noticed it's now been two years since I made my first blog post on this blog. I have learned a lot in the past year. I'll make a longer reflective post after my OSCE on Tuesday.

Last week we had our FBS exams. The first one had no MCQ and was all short/long response. I had to write non-stop for the whole exam and had no time to recheck. That seemed to be a common and recurring theme among others I've talked to. I didn't really like it.

The second exam was all MCQ/EMQ (extended matching questions), and the questions were quite "clinical" in their nature. I liked this one a lot better, but I know I got a few wrong there too.

Anyway, my OSCE is on Tuesday. There will be two history stations and two examination stations, assessing anything they taught us in PCP1 this year. After that, I will be able to tutor for the GAMSAT on most days in the summer holiday, but I will be away from Melbourne on 5-22 December.

[update] MD1 MST#4 results out. Written exams next week

I just got my MST#4 results, including the prac test for the semester.

Overall I got 39/47 for the theory portion (83%; class mean and median were 32.04 and 32). They took out some stats questions which weren't taught this semester but were taught last semester, which I wish they didn't have. Ah well.

I wish we could know the right answers, but ah well.

Anatomy 8/8

yay...

MIIM 8/10

I guess I probably got that developing country vaccine question wrong. Maybe also the returned traveller one too? Hmm... not sure

Pathology/histology 5/7

I don't remember the questions for this section that I thought I might have gotten wrong anymore.

Pharmacology: 3/5

Oops! I shouldn't have chosen Calcium supplementation as the primary treatment of osteoporosis. I'm not sure about the other one though...

Physiology 8/8

It seems like I got all the physiology right this semester (but not last semester).

Other 7/9

I don't remember which ones I got wrong here. I wish they still had the stats questions. Ah well.


I got 37/50 for the prac portion (74%; class mean and median not displayed at the moment).

Anatomy 8/9

I don't remember what I got wrong here...

Biochemistry 5/5

I was unsure about one of the answers (to do with someone's diet), but it seems like I got it right. Some of the other questions were almost giveaways. So it seems like I got all the biochem questions right in all midsems this year.

MIIM 10/12

I don't remember what happened here.

Neuroscience 3/7

Oops... I know I got the MRI T2 question wrong. I don't recall the others.

Pathology 6/11

Not that good either, although I guess I did technically "pass" all pathology subsections in all midsems. It seems to be many people's weakest subject...

Other prac 5/6

What does "other" mean? Ah whatever... I don't know.


Anyway, the exam is next week, so I will resume studying.

[update] MD1 last midsem complete

Today I completed the last midsemester test for first year MD. This test consisted of half "lecture" questions and half "practical based" MCQ questions.

Like the other tests, I felt reasonably comfortable with the majority of the questions, but there were still quite a number which I was unsure of.

Anyway, the next big assessment will be the exams. The first end of year exam is in a bit less than two weeks time, assessing 36 weeks worth of content. The hectic preparation effort will probably begin tomorrow...

Good luck everyone who has exams still!

2013 entry: GEMSAS simulations complete, med offers start to be released.

The GEMSAS simulations have completed today after 27 simulations. Some universities have already released offers or are releasing them now, including Wollongong, Monash, Notre Dame (Fremantle) and Melbourne. Some others are yet to release offers. The unsuccessful first round emails have been sent by GEMSAS, although there is probability of receiving later round offers as people decline offers.

All the best if you're still waiting for an offer. Commiserations if you received the letter from GEMSAS, although there is some chance of getting a later round offer.

2013 entry: UniMelb DDS offers released. GEMSAS medicine offers soon...

It seems like the first round of University of Melbourne DDS offers were released today for local students. Congratulations to everyone who has received one!

Both CSP and FFP places were released. If you received no offer or received a FFP offer this round, there is some chance that you will get upgraded as people decline their dentistry offer for a place at  dentistry at another university (eg Sydney Dentistry or UWA dentistry) or for a medicine offer.

The GEMSAS offers for medicine are scheduled for release tomorrow, and will come out after the GEMSAS simulations are complete. It seems like they're up to simulation 16 at the moment...

2013 entry: First GEMSAS simulation. Last week for Unimelb Undergrad semester 2, 2012.

According to a tweet from the Twitter account of Mavis Duncanson (@MavisDuncanson), Head of Population and Public Health and Head of Student Matters at School of Medicine, Sydney (University of Notre Dame Australia), the simulations of the GEMSAS have just begun.

I wonder how many simulations they'll go through this time for 2013 entry. For 2012 entry, there were 19 simulations. Hopefully with experience they'll take less time this time around.

Good luck if you're waiting for an offer!

This week is also the last week of class for UniMelb undergraduate students. Good luck everyone for the upcoming exams!

[update] High School visit

Today I visited my old high school. Before this, I visited a few times during first and second year Biomedicine. I don't think I've been there since then, and I don't know many students there anymore.

There were some teachers which have left since they taught me, but some were still there, and I talked to them today. Some of them had quite a few things to say, especially since our school merged with two other schools, and there was a lot of change happening after I left.

Most of the teachers I talked to asked what I was doing now. I'm not someone who hides that I'm doing medicine, and I told them that I finished Biomedicine last year and I'm doing Medicine now. I met some of my past science, math teachers and coordinators, including the physics teachers who helped teach me some of the physics I would later need for the GAMSAT.

A few teachers commented that they still talked about me, even though I haven't been studying at the school for almost four years now. It's somewhat nice to be recognized in some sense, but on the other hand, it is somewhat sad that for some subjects I did, there haven't been students getting 40+ study scores (out of 50; 40 is top 9%) for some of the past years, which caused me to stand out further in the minds of some teachers.

That contrasts with some other schools which have been able to almost consistently get quite a few almost each year. However, my high school was one with students from a lower SES on average, so it wouldn't be expected to do that well. That said, this is a problem with the education system in Australia. In some other countries, the achievement gap isn't as great between low and high socioeconomic status students. The government seems to be doing something about it though, and I can only hope that what they're doing works properly.

One of the teachers also mentioned that more people were leaving the school to go to selective schools. This isn't really a surprise, given that new selective schools have gone up in our side of Melbourne (Sir John Monash Science School and Nossal). However, I can't help to think that some of the reason that people leave is because the Accelerated Program people do not get to finish a year early anymore like I did, which I've discussed earlier this year in this blog.

I certainly would have considered leaving the school for a selective school more seriously given the current situation if I was in the accelerated program now, being unable to finish a year early. Talking to teachers, there also doesn't appear to be any indication of those accelerated people staying another year translating into much better students at Year 12 level, so I still don't agree with what they've done to the program there. Even if those accelerated students were measurably better (which doesn't seem to be the case), it doesn't seem right to me to keep them back another year if they could enter university anyway without staying another year in high school.

[update] GAMSAT and VCE tutoring

I've decided that I should offer my services in tutoring people for the GAMSAT and VCE Chemistry, Physics, Math Methods, and Specialist Mathematics. I've been tutoring on and off for various subjects at VCE, high school, and primary school level since 2009, and I currently do some voluntary tutoring every week.

As you would know from reading my blog, I received a GAMSAT overall score of 83 (100th percentile), including a Section III score of 100 (maximum):

GAMSAT 2011 Percentile Curve:  http://gamsatau.acer.edu.au/results/normInfo.php?yr=2011

See the GAMSAT Science 100 + VCE tutor tab at the top of the page for more information. I have exams coming up next month so I may not be able to tutor much (especially closer to the exam date) until they finish (27 November). After that, I will be away from Melbourne from December 5-22, 2012. Apart from that, I should be available on the summer holidays.

[update] Back after midsem break (semester 2 MD1)

Today I'm back to uni after the one week midsemester break for semester 2. This will be the last block of studying for first year before the exams at the end of the year.

Like I said before, there won't be much time to study for the end of year exams, because there is less than a week from the last day of class to the first end of year exam. Right now I'm thinking that I should start to go through all the lecture notes from the start straight after our last MST, but even then there would not be much time to go through 36 teaching weeks of information...

Meanwhile, undergraduates at Melbourne have also returned from their midsem break and GEMSAS medicine offers are expected to be released at the end of this month...

End of UniMelb medicine interviews, 2013 entry.

Today was the last day for UniMelb medicine and physiotherapy interviews for prospective local students for 2013 entry. Some other universities, such as ANU, have also finished interviewing locals for their medicine admission processes, while other universities will be finishing their interviewing processes soon.

Anyway, since UniMelb have finished their interviews, that means that MD1 students will be back to uni next week (which is the same as undergraduate students at the university). I have been reading some of my pathology textbook, although I also decided to refresh my mind about history taking and examinations. Although PCP1 is only worth 12.5 credit points compared to FBS 81.25 credit points, I still shouldn't neglect it...

[update] End of year exam timetable released. No swotvac week!

Today our end of exam timetables were released. The last MST will be held in 9 November, which was not unexpected. However, it seems like we will have our end of year exams for FBS on 22 and 23 November. They did not give us a swotvac/cram week to prepare for them! It's going to be tough to study for all the lectures for the whole year with less than a week between our last class and our end of year exam...

[update] Semester 2 midsemester break (MD1 2012). Unimelb interview week. GAMSAT UK today.

I've finished class for today. Now there is a one week break before the rest of first year medicine at Melbourne. I'll be using the break to catch up on rest, revising lectures and hopefully reading more of the pathology textbook.

Meanwhile, the interviews for 2013 entry for Melbourne medicine onshore applicants are also coming up next week. Good luck if you're a prospective Melbourne medical student with an interview!

The GAMSAT UK is also today. Good luck for anyone taking it!

[update] MD1 MST #3 marks released

Today we got our MST #3 marks back for MD1. This was surprising, because they often took longer to give our marks.

Overall I got 50 out of 60 (about 83%), which I'm reasonably fine with, although there were some areas of weakness (the class mean was 45.16 and median was 46)

Anatomy 8/10

That seems to be about average for my subsections. It's somewhat relieving given that I felt like I knew hardly anything well during the anatomy prac the day just before the test.

Neuroscience 11/15

Neuroscience seems like one of my weaker areas. I wonder what options would have been right.

Physiology 5/5

This time it seems like I got all the physiology ones right, unlike the other tests I did in the past. It seems like they gave everyone that one mark for the Growth Hormone question without any right option.

Pathology 4/6

Again, pathology is one of my weaker sections. Unfortunately, I haven't been reading my pathology book that much during the semester; just keeping up with the lecture notes. I read a bit on the weekend though. I'll try to read the book more often.

Biochemistry 7/7

So I still have my perfect record for biochemistry so far. There were some questions where I was a bit unsure but it seems like I chose the correct option.

Pharmacology 6/6

This was one where I was quite confident, because of my major. I did expect that we'd cover more about drugs affecting the nervous system given that I did a whole subject on it in biomed, but it seems like they probably left us to learn more during our clinical years.

Psychological Sciences 4/6

This seems to be another of my areas of weakness in comparison, although this sample size is not very big, so it's hard to tell.

Other 5/5

Now I'm a bit confused as to which questions were "other". I think there was one ethics question, but I don't recall the other four. Ah well... it seems like my "other" knowledge was good for this test.

2013 entry GEMSAS interviews start

Today is the start of the midsemester break for the University of Melbourne undergraduate students. Over the next few weeks, the universities in GEMSAS other than UQ will interview prospective local medical students.

For UniMelb, interviews will start on 24 September, in just over a week's time. That is the same time that I have my midsemester break for Medicine, which is one week less than for undergraduate students at UniMelb. Last year they used the CSL rooms on level 7 and in the basement. However, at the moment the basement is undergoing renovations, so I guess they'd need to have slightly different arrangement. They expected the basement renovations to finish earlier, but now they expect it to be unavailable for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, my table tennis bat is stranded in the locker there...

Good luck if you have an interview coming up!

[update] MD1 MST #3 done!

Today I completed the third midsemester test for MD1, for neuroscience, endocrine and metabolism blocks!

I found the test was OK, and it should be a comfortable pass. Maybe H1, but that depends on how many of those I wasn't sure of that I got right. However, there was one question I discussed with some others regarding Growth Hormone, and we were quite sure that there was no correct option given.

I felt better than after the MST #2; probably not as well as after MST #1. However, I guess we have to wait for the results. As usual, I'd still prefer the GAMSAT section 3...

Anyway. Tonight there is the Med Ball for Unimelb too, so I'll go and get ready for that.

USyd 2013 entry: some CSP medicine offers released

This evening, it seems like some CSP offers were released for USyd medicine for 2013 entry. However, no BMP offers seem to have been noted on the Paging Dr Forum as yet, and no unsuccessful letters have been sent to local applicants either.

Congratulations if you received a CSP offer. Good luck if you are still waiting.

Meanwhile, I've got an 8 am lecture tomorrow... and a test in just under 3 days. Still more lectures to revise...

[update] MD1 MST #3 next week

Next week on Friday, we have our third midsemester test for the first year of MD. The topics covered will be neuroscience, metabolism and endocrine. Like the first test of the year, this one is also worth 5% of FBS.

They didn't give us much time to revise for this test. They are going to test most of the semester so far up to the day before the test. So it will be a challenge to get through all those past lectures and revise the lectures throughout the week before the test.

I did a subject called Drugs Affecting the Nervous System back in undergrad. I thought it would be more helpful for the neuroscience block, but we didn't get many lectures about drugs affecting the nervous system at all. I guess they are trying to integrate more things into clinical years when they were designing the course, in order to have a structure with just one preclinical year (also aided by having prerequisites), so we will probably learn more about them then.

2013 entry GEMSAS interview offer simulations done! To be released soon...

GEMSAS has done its last simulation for interview offers and UQ medicine offers for locals for 2013 entry, and all the medical schools are happy with the results of it. They have started to release their interview offers now, although some schools will take a few days to arrange all the interviews. The University of Melbourne MDHS has indicated that they will send out the interview offers tomorrow morning.

Good luck for if you're waiting for an interview offer or UQ offer! Not long to go now... hang in there.

GEMSAS interview offers for 2013 entry delayed until 30 August 2012

The GEMSAS interview offers and UQ medicine place offers for 2013 for local students were initially planned to be released today. However, there has been a slight delay, and according to the GEMSAS website, they are now expected to be released tomorrow; 30 August 2012.

Good luck if you are waiting for an offer!

Approximately one week until GEMSAS interview offers + UQ medicine offers for locals

According to the key dates under the GEMSAS website, the GEMSAS interview offers this year will be released on 29 August 2012. That means that there is a week left if they release as predicted. Good luck if you are a local student waiting for an interview offer, or a place in UQ medicine.

[update] Glucose tolerance test

Today we had to fast in the morning, then we did a glucose tolerance test to see our blood glucose levels rise and fall after a meal. Some of us ate Mars bars, some took glucose, and some of us exercised after taking glucose.

We didn't have any randomization though, which I thought was not that good for the experimental design.

I also got to use the finger prick blood glucose measuring machines. I guess this makes us empathize with diabetics who have to do that all the time. It doesn't hurt that much once or twice, but I wouldn't want to do it all the time. It's hard to type when your fingertips have band aids on them too.

Anyway. I was a bit excited today because I got to be in a proper lab for the first time in a while. We didn't get to do any pipetting though.

University of Melbourne Open Day: Sunday 19 August 2012

On the coming Sunday, 19 August, the University of Melbourne is having its open day. Anyone considering going to the University of Melbourne to study is greatly encouraged to attend to find out more about what it is like to study at UniMelb.

The Melbourne Medical School will be opening the Anatomy and Pathology Museum to the public for the day. There will also be demonstrations of surface anatomy body painting by students of the Medical School, and the opportunity to ask questions to current medical students and staff.

For more information, see the Open Day website.

Melbourne University Student Appeal 2012

Like last year, I am involved with the Student Appeal this year for the University of Melbourne. The funds raised in the appeal go towards rent assistance for students who are finding it hard to pay the rent. Donations of $5 or more are matched by the University.

If you want more information or are interested in donating towards the fund, see the official website or the facebook page for the Student Appeal. Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible as usual. Any contributions would be greatly appreciated by the students under financial stress receiving the aid.

USyd interview offers for 2013 entry released today

Today the interview offers for USyd for local students for medicine and dentistry 2013 entry were released. From the Paging Dr Forum, it seems like the GAMSAT cutoff for non-rural locals for medicine interviews was 67; the same as for 2012 entry.

Good luck for your interview if you got one!

One year since USyd unsuccessful notification

I've noticed that tomorrow will be one year since I received the rejection notice from USyd. One year is quite a long time. (Meanwhile, it seems like USyd has changed the timetable of admissions for 2013 entry, so that locals don't actually have interview offers yet now)

I remember the disappointment when I did not receive the USyd medicine offer even though my GAMSAT score was very high, being worried that my interview ability might not be good enough for Melbourne, and being worried that UQ might not have a place for me after giving out offers in the first round.

Fortunately, after significant interview practice (aided by the questions being the same as the year beforehand), I was able to get a medicine CSP at Melbourne, and even if I couldn't, it seems like UQ would have had a position for me if I was passed onto them due to taking into account second round offers and people rejecting first round offers (for example for USyd offers).

During the past year, I have successfully finished Biomedicine, and now I'm doing medicine. I seem to be keeping up OK with the sciences in medicine at least for Semester 1 (although I'm a bit behind at the moment), but my clinical skills were quite borderline for Semester 1. So that is a hurdle that I need to overcome with practice.

That said, medicine is not what I'm most worried about right now... but I shall not elaborate further.

Assumptions, Assumptions, Assumptions...

Recently, I was sitting down somewhere in a library and there was a lady speaking on her mobile phone. It seems like she was having difficulty speaking with the person on the other end in English, and so she was looking around for someone to help her to translate for her (into Mandarin Chinese) I guess to help her understand.

After looking around, the lady on the phone saw someone with an East Asian appearance, who was sitting next to me at the time. She then asked the person sitting next to me, in Chinese, what the person over the phone was saying; or words to that effect. However, the person sitting next to me in fact was not Chinese (in fact Korean), and did not understand what this lady on the phone was telling, so she had quite a blank expression. To be honest, I felt that it was quite an amusing situation, but I refrained from laughing.

After a few seconds, the lady on the phone realized the person sitting next to me probably didn't understand, and she saw someone else with an East Asian appearance, who could satisfactorily translate for her. She skipped me for some reason. Maybe because my skin is a bit darker than most Chinese, or maybe because I didn't respond initially when she was talking to the person next to me. I guess my Chinese language skills aren't that good anyway.

Anyway, anecdote aside, this prompted me to write the blog post about assumptions now. I think this type of situation demonstrates both the advantages and the disadvantages of assumptions.

It is true that assumptions are often not 100% accurate. Some say "don't assume", or "if you assume, you make an ass out of me and you". For instance, not all people with an East Asian appearance are Chinese. They may, for example, be Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai or other races. Furthermore, not all Chinese know how to speak Mandarin (or any Chinese dialect) well, and some of other races can speak Mandarin reasonably fluently (like our former Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd). Related to Medicine, it is said that you should not assume that the patient is heterosexual and that their partner would be of the opposite sex. It is clear that if you want to be accurate in your deductions, you can not just assume away.

On the other hand, assumptions may sometimes be a practical way of increasing the probabilities of getting something correct. Going back to the example of the lady on the phone, even though the first person she tried to get to translate for her could not do so, the next person could. Even though the "test" is not perfect, it is more likely that someone who has an East Asian appearance would be able to speak Mandarin than someone who doesn't. So in that way, in the lady's situation, it is more productive to ask people with that appearance rather than just asking any random person in the library whether they could translate for her.

When doing calculations for pharmacokinetics, physics or other sciences, assumptions are often made to try to simplify things down (trying not to simplify too much as to significantly change the final answer) in order to make the calculations more manageable and quick. Finally, it is useful in medicine in terms of screening. Screening tests are best targeted to groups who are at a high risk of having or susceptibility to a certain condition, in order to reduce costs and reduce false positives. In some sense, you are "assuming" that the patient in front of you is more likely to have a certain condition than the average population when ordering the screening test for them, for good reason, but simply based on the probabilities in the population.

So assumptions can be quite an important tool, but care must be taken not to misuse it. Assuming certain things can make things easier for yourself with variable certainty. However, if you need to be more sure, you still have to follow things up further.

[update] Midsemester 2 + population health assignment + CSL marks released

Today the marks for the second "midsemester test" (actually at the end of the semester) were released. I did better than I thought that I might, but I did do a bit worse than last time, at least in part due to the proportion of the test being pharmacology (my major) being less. However, it was still at H1 standard, so I'm reasonably happy with how it went. I do wish we knew what we got wrong though.

Anyway, for further breakdown:

MST 2 (non-prac section) total: 42 out of 50 (class mean 34.98, median 36)

Anatomy: 11/14
This is worse than last time when I got 10/10 for anatomy. I guess I didn't read the textbook as much for these two blocks.

Pathology/Histology: 8/10
That is not too bad I guess, although it could be improved. My Pathology score for the prac/image based section was not that great though!

Biochemistry: 5/5
I think the biochem questions were reasonably easy.

Microbiology/Immunology: 9/10
I guess I got that parasite question wrong. Apart from that, it seems like MIIM is one of my better topics.

Physiology: 6/8
I thought it would be higher. I wonder what I got wrong.

Pharmacology: 3/3
There really wasn't much pharmacology in that test!


Then for the prac section: 41 out of 50 (class mean 34.11, median 35)

Anatomy: 14/14
I wasn't that sure with a few of the picture questions, but I guess my knowledge was correct. I wish we could actually touch the specimens rather than look at pictures though haha.

MIIM: 13/15
Not too bad, but I wish I knew what I got wrong.

Physiology/Pharmacology: 3/4
I wish I knew what I got wrong here too.

Pathology/Histology: 11/17
Now this is where I lost most of my marks for the prac section! 6 marks out of the 9 I lost in the prac section. It was still an overall "pass" for this subsection though. I actually opened my copy of Robbins and read about 1.5 chapters in the holidays though, so perhaps I should continue doing that to rectify this.


CSL tutorial: 15 out of 20 (class average 16.54, median 17)
It seems like I'm a bit below the average for this (about 5-10%).

Collaborative Learning: 7/10
Knowledge and reasoning: 8/10


Population health assignment: 81/100 (average 79.25, median 80)
It seems like I got just a bit above the average here. Anyway, I'm happy that this is our only assignment this year for FBS, and that I have gotten my other "assignment" (for the student conference) out of the way now too.


Anyway, overall, it seems like my FBS is going OK but I should be practicing more for PCP. I had my first PCP session for the semester today, but I don't know when the remedial tutorials will be held yet.

[update] Conference essay has been submitted

I've now finished and uploaded my conference essay to the PRAZE submission for review. I know it's more than one month early, but I thought it would be good to get out of the way. Also, this one's just pass/fail too, so I didn't want to spend too much time on it. I managed to write 1998 words, so I think that should be fine for a 2000 word submission. They didn't seem to specify if 2000 was a maximum, an exact number required (unlikely), or whether it should be 2000 ± 5% or 10%.

Anyway. There's today and tomorrow before semester 2 starts for real for MD people at Melbourne. The first block back will be the neuroscience block. The most undergrads at Melbourne (eg biomed, science, arts) have two more weeks of holiday.

UniMelb undergraduate results out by today (Semester 1, 2012)

Today is the day that Semester 1, 2012 results for UniMelb are supposed to be released by for undergraduate students. For anyone reading who is studying at university, I hope you have done well in your results in the semester which has just gone by.

For those applying to medicine in most unis, now that the semester 1 results are released, the next major event (other than semester 2 itself) is the interview offer date, and then the interview date. If applying to UQ as a first preference, then the next event will hopefully be an offer. It seems like for locals applying to GEMSAS, the interview offers or UQ place offers should be released on 29 August, and for USyd it will be 6 August.

[update] Student Conference week over. Semester 2 proper next week.

Today was the last day of the four day MD student conference. Some parts of the conference were interesting, although some were less so. I liked the food for lunch though. However, it seems like I have gained 1-2 kg over the week.

I'll have to write up a 2000 word essay about ideas on the conference which I think will influence my actions in the future, due in just over a month.

The real semester starts next week.

[update] MD1 Midyear OSCE results released.

This morning, the midyear OSCE results were released for first year.

For the Abdominal pain history station, I got 29/40 (72.5%). The pass mark was 26/40. For the cardiovascular clinical exam station, I got 27/40 (67.5%). The pass mark was 29/40, so I didn't pass that station. Ah well. It seems like I've been invited to get more practice.

Anyway. As I have been saying before, I haven't been practicing that much in this subject, because the main subject is the science subject this year. I wonder if these marks get entered directly into our end of year result, or are scaled first. If they aren't scaled first, then it would seem possible for people to "fail" all their stations but still "pass" overall (ie get at least 50%). The handbook doesn't seem to specify the requirement of passing each station at the end of year to pass overall. https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/view/2012/MEDS90002

The midyear test result for FBS still isn't out yet though.

[update] Medical test results

For any UniMelb people, this doesn't have anything to do with our test two weeks ago. Sorry to disappoint.

Recently I went for a fasting blood test. I thought it was good to do, since I haven't checked my cholesterol and fasting glucose and all that before, and I thought it was good to see if I needed any diet or lifestyle modification.

Today I received my results. Cholesterol, glucose, liver function, kidney function and FBE tests were all normal. However, my Vitamin D was slightly below the reference interval. It's not too surprising since it's winter in Melbourne, but it seems like maybe I should have more sunlight exposure during winter or drink more milk.

Another thing I noticed was that the contact person for some of the tests that I had was someone who lectured and held a tute at UniMelb about liver function tests! That was a pleasant surprise. But after all, UniMelb does have a policy that all lecturers for Medicine are either clinicians or researchers.

Anyway, it's good to know that I don't need to make too many changes to my current diet.

[update] Half the midyear holiday is over already. End of exam period for UniMelb Undergrad.

Tomorrow marks the half-way point of my winter recess for Medicine. Unlike undergraduate courses at Melbourne, we only get two weeks of holidays between semesters. Ah well. If it was too long, maybe I'd get too bored. Last year it didn't feel that the holidays were long because of the time preparing for the USyd interviews, but before that I probably felt that the uni holidays were a bit long.

Today is the last day of the exam period for UniMelb. If you have recently sat an exam, I hope you have done well. For UniMelb, the undergraduate results for the semester are scheduled to be released by Friday 6 July in two weeks time, although many will come out before that date. Results generally come out on the Study Plan on the day before they are out on the Results Service page, and the results going onto the Study Plan coincides with the subject coming off the enrolled subject list on the portal homepage.

[update] MD1 midyear break! 방학이다!

It's now the midyear break for MD1! There will be two weeks for us to rest. I am not planning to do that much study, but I think I might still do a bit of reading of the pathology textbook since it's been an area of weakness.

After two weeks, there is a Student Conference that UniMelb MD students have to attend for 4 days. There are some compulsory aspects, but on each day there is a section to select between 3 different symposiums. I think I'll be enrolling in some of the more research type symposiums. I noticed one symposium on the Thursday about Mental Health though which involves learning Yoga, African Drumming and Creating Teddies though which I'm considering joining for the experience haha.

It seems like the conference is also a way for us to learn more of the social science/ethics/law/professional practice side of the course. I was surprised initially that the course didn't seem to have it throughout the year, but it seems like they're putting a lot of it into the conference week.

As I said before, the conference is assessed as pass/fail. According to the handbook, I'll have to do a 1000 word report on one of the keynote presentations. Hopefully it should be OK...

[update] Midyear exam and OSCE done.

Yesterday and today, I completed my midyear OSCE and written exam. It was a struggle to prepare without having a swotvac/cram week. That said, the exams were not worth a large proportion of our final mark, so the timing isn't too unforgivable on the university's part.

For the OSCE yesterday, it was my first ever OSCE. I did a lot of things properly, but there were some things which I forgot to do. For instance, I forgot to wash my hands until almost the end of my clinical examination (oops) and didn't remember to make the actor lie down before palpating the carotids (to avoid the tensing up of the sternocleidomastoid muscle).

For history taking, I was reasonably comfortable talking to the actor about her abdominal pain, but forgot to ask about smoking and alcohol history, and I didn't list the symptoms of common bile duct obstruction apart from jaundice and pain properly (pale stools, dark urine, itch).

Ah well. As long as I don't make the same mistakes again, it's OK. After all, this was my first OSCE, and it wasn't worth too much.

With the written exam for FBS, it was quite difficult. I was reasonably confident with more than half of the questions, but there was a significant number of questions which I was unsure about or almost clueless about.

That said, others in the course that I have spoken to have also found the test to be difficult. Maybe the end of year exams won't be hard in comparison then, given that the class average for the subject was above 70% last year. I guess that way is good. I think it's better to have harder tests before the final so that we don't get false confidence before the final exams.

Anyway. That concludes all my exams this semester. There's two more days left for med this semester, which will include some revision lectures scheduled after the midyear exam. Such a strange thing to do.

For those reading still with exams to do, study well and I wish you all the best for them.

[update] Unimelb MD1 midyear exam and OSCE week + Unimelb undergrad second week of exams.

On the coming week on Tuesday and Wednesday, I have my OSCE and midyear exam. They are not worth a high proportion of their respective subjects of PCP1 and FBS, since they are year long subjects.

However, this will be the first time I will be assessed in an OSCE. This will be something new to me, unlike the many multiple choice tests which I have completed throughout my life. I'm wondering how well I'll do, and how hard they're going to mark for that. The main subject this year in terms of credit points is the FBS subject though, so I haven't been putting as much effort into PCP in comparison.

For FBS, there has been some level of bafflement among students because they put some revision lectures for the semester after the test instead of before it. Now that is a strange thing to do. Ah well. It's not something which can be changed this year, so we'll just have to deal with it.

The coming week is also the second week of exams for undergraduate students at UniMelb, and is part of the exam period of some other unis too. If you have an exam this week, I wish you well in your preparation and exam.

Unimelb: Last day of undergraduate classes for semester 1, 2012

Today is the last day of class for the semester at the University of Melbourne for most undergraduate courses. Medicine runs on a different timetable though, so it isn't the last day for me for the semester. (I already mentioned too that for first year medicine at Melbourne, the main subjects are year long, and the midyear exams are not worth much)

I'd just like to say good luck to all those with exams coming up in the next few weeks. Prepare well and remember to go through questions in a strategic manner to maximize marks.

GAMSAT 2012 results are out now

The GAMSAT 2012 results were released this afternoon/evening. I don't have any results this year, although naturally I knew some people who did the GAMSAT this year.

For those reading the blog, I hope you have received a score which is competitive for the university that you wish to apply to for Medicine, Dentistry, Optometry or Pharmacy. If not, then if you are still determined to do these courses, then I wish you all the best for your preparation for GAMSAT UK 2012 or GAMSAT 2013.

[update] UniMelb clinical placement allocations out.

Today the clinical placement allocations were out for the Metro 1 and Metro 2 clinical zones. I was lucky to be allocated to the Metro 1 clinical zone (closest to the city and to my home), and today I was lucky again to receive my first preference of St Vincent's Clinical School.

It seems like this year in Metro 1, Austin was the least preferred with respect to the places available. Last year there were stories of people who put RMH third on their preference list of Metro 1 (St Vincent's, RMH and Austin) getting RMH, but this year that was true with Austin.

There are a two main reasons that I put St Vincent's first. It is the closest to my home, and the most convenient for me. I also liked the idea of having more tutorials, since I prefer things to be taught to me rather than having to look up things for myself. On the other hand, it has a reputation of being stricter than the other clinical schools, but I felt that those two reasons made it worth it. I'll see next year whether it was a good decision or not.

[update] MD1 Midsemester test 1 results released.

Today the results for the first midsemester test was released. I am reasonably happy with how it went, although as always, if you don't get 100% you can always do better.

My overall mark was 53/60, or 88%. The class mean posted was 42.17 and median was 42 (70%).

That's within the range that I was expecting I guess, since there was about 75% of the exam that I was reasonably sure of and most of the other 25% I had narrowed the answers down to two options.

They don't give the answers anywhere though, because they want to reuse questions between years.

Anyway, now for the breakdown of my marks:

Anatomy: 10/10

The anatomy questions they asked were generally straightforward. Furthermore, I was reading my anatomy textbook in the leadup to the test, but that's the only textbook which I've kept up with so far.

Biochemistry: 3/3

Well, this isn't a big sample size, but it seems like my biochem is probably OK. I'm somewhat surprised with not many biochem lectures so far, but we'll probably get a lot more in metabolism block.

Microbiology and Immunology: 11/12

So it seems like I'm OK with that too. I wonder which question I got wrong though.

Pathology: 6/9

This was my weakest section, and I made 3/7 of my mistakes here. I didn't do that well in the online practice tests on this section. I think I might have gotten less than half of the pathology questions right on the online tests. I bought the Pathologic Basis of Disease book recently, but I haven't opened it yet. Perhaps I should read it one day.

Pharmacology: 10/12

I was a bit surprised about this. I thought that I got them all right! In fact, this section score is lower than my overall average. Now I really want to know what I got wrong. That said, I skipped over most of the pharmacology lectures when I was revising. I can't really regret it though. The time was probably better spent learning things that I didn't know as well, anyway. I do plan to revise all the pharmacology lectures again before the end of year exam though.

Physiology: 7/8

I wonder what I got wrong here too. Nevertheless, physiology seems to be a reasonable standard for me.

Population health: 6/6

Sort of expected though, because I find the EBM theory relatively easy to grasp without a heap of memory load like biosciences. The social determinants question(s) didn't seem to trick me up this time either, although you did have to know that a particular study (Whitehall) assessed the correlation of disease/mortality with job control (not with smoking). I felt that that was a weird technicality to expect us to know, but it seems like I got it right anyway.

[update] MD year 1 midyear exam times released

Over the past week or so, the midyear exam times have been released for Melbourne's first year MD students. Since the structure of the MD first year uses year long subjects rather than semester long subjects for FBS and PCP1, the midyear exams are not worth very much, but are still worth something.

There is a two hour test/exam for FBS, worth 10% of FBS (FBS is worth 81.25% of this year's credit points; or 86.67% of this year disregarding the pass/fail student conference). Half of it will be assessing pracs and half will be assessing the lecture content of the blocks since the last test in FBS. There will be 15 minutes of reading time beforehand.

There is an OSCE for PCP1, worth 20% of PCP1 (PCP1 is worth 12.5% of first year; or 13.33% of this year disregarding the pass/fail student conference). There will be two stations: one history taking session, and one clinical examination session. Both stations are 7 minutes in length and have 1 minute of reading time.

For the OSCE, I was allocated to the morning 8.00 am group. This means that I'll have to get up earlier than usual. We do have some 8.00 am starts for medicine though, so I am somewhat used to it. I'll have to get used to it sooner or later before starting internship of course.

[update] Train problems...

In Melbourne, the train system is notorious for running in a non-optimal manner. During the last few years, it has not been uncommon for trains to run late or for cancellations to occur. They have recently improved on those statistics, but that has largely been due to fiddling around with the timetabling to extend the trips on some lines by about four minutes. They are upgrading the infrastructure now on weekends, but the rollout will take some time.

Today, I didn't have very good luck with the trains. I left home at what I felt was a reasonably early time, with a few minutes of buffer. However, I was unlucky to run into more traffic than usual, and I also ran into more red lights than usual on my way to the train station carpark.

When I reached the carpark, I knew that it was about time for the train to come. I usually catch the 8.04 train from my train station or earlier, and it was almost 8.04 so I ran as soon as I got out of the car. Then I saw the train arriving at the station as I was running, and I ran even faster even though it was improbable that I would reach it in time (well, sometimes the train stays at the station for a while). Unfortunately, I miss the train literally by less than 10 seconds. When I validated my myki card, I see on the myki card reader that the time was exactly 8.04, so the 8.04 train was running on time for once.

Now usually when I can't catch the 8.04 train, then I have to wait for the 8.13 train from my station. Even worse, the 8.13 train is not an express train (skipping stations), unlike the 8.04 train. Today, to make matters worse, the 8.13 train was canceled so I had to wait until the 8.25 train which was not express either. Now that really sucked. Needless to say, instead of arriving to uni on time, I got there almost half an hour late for a prac. I wonder if it would have been quicker to drive all the way to the city.

The timetabling is pretty silly, especially because it's around peak time. Then with just one cancellation... argh...

[update] First test done for medicine.

Today I completed the first test for the MD. It was a multiple choice test with 60 questions in total. I think that I went reasonably well, although there were 1/4 of the questions that I wasn't that sure of the answer to. Nevertheless, it should be a comfortable pass. I'm not that sure if it will be an H1 though; I guess it depends on how many of those I was unsure of that I got right. We'll see.

It was only worth 5% so that isn't very much. Majoring in pharmacology helped, as 10 questions were directly assessing it, and a few more questions were from other subjects but were also covered in the pharmacology major. There were other things that I had learned from my biomed core subjects which helped reduce the workload for the MD.

In any case, it's good to get the first test out of the way. And it's also good that I seem to be learning the material well without struggling that much.

사랑비 (Love Rain; Korean Drama)

I have recently been watching the Korean Drama called 사랑비 (Love Rain). One of the main characters is acted by Im Yoona (임윤아) who is one of the members of Girls' Generation (소녀시대). She also happens to be my favorite member.

The story starts in the 1970s where two people meet each other at uni, but unfortunately one of them has to go to the army and another one gets TB. At that time, South Korea would have been a developing country (unlike today), and so the girl (김윤희/Kim Yoonhee) who had TB went to America with her grandma to try to get treatment. It seems like they lost contact unfortunately (although she eventually recovered) and they don't see each other for many years. Meanwhile, they have their own families, but their respective children somehow bump into each other and the plot continues.

As a coincidence, we were learning a bit about TB this week as part of Respiratory block. Yoonhee would have been quite unlucky to get TB, because symptoms appear in about 10% of all people infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis over their lifetime. 10% is still quite a considerable percentage, but that means that 90% of people infected can live without any symptoms from TB.

[update] First dissection session, first test for MD

The past Thursday, I had my first ever dissection session for human anatomy. It was nice to have the privilege of being able to dissect cadavers, where people have agreed to donate their bodies to allow medical students to understand anatomy well. I handled it OK psychologically, as did others in my group that I could see.

That said, everyone in the Melbourne MD program had to have done anatomy before anyway as a prerequisite, and so almost everyone would have had experience with prosections anyway (and so they should feel pretty comfortable with dead human specimens by now); with dissecting being the next step.

Next week, there is the first test for the Foundations in Biomedical Science subject. It's worth 5% of the year long subject, so it's not that much. But I should still prepare for it. Right now, I am most confident in pharmacology (my major subject in biomedicine) and biostatistics (which I think is very logical, and doesn't require as much time to remember everything unlike most other subjects).

Friday 13th: Lucky and unlucky numbers

Today is a "Friday the 13th". In some western cultures, this is an unlucky day.

The concept of lucky and unlucky days, and lucky and unlucky numbers, is quite funny. It's something that is often based on superstition. In western culture, it seems like the unlucky number is 13, but in East Asian culture, the number is 4.

There's even a whole Wikipedia article about what they call "tetraphobia"; fear of the number 4. Basically, the word for number 4 (四) sounds very similar (or identical) to the word for death (死) in many dialects of Chinese and various other languages like Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese which have incorporated those Chinese words into their vocabulary (like English has incorporated many French and Latin words into its vocabulary). So the number 4 can be associated with death.

When doing things for other people in these cultures, it's good to know about the unlucky numbers so that you don't inadvertently offend them. However, thinking logically, it is quite implausible for the number 4 itself to be intrinsically unlucky just because of its pronunciation.

I remember bringing 4 water bottles into last year's GAMSAT. It seemed like the right number to last me throughout the whole day; not too little to be dehydrated but not too much to need to go to the toilet too often during the exam. At home, when I thought of bringing 4 water bottles, had a passing thought of ironically bringing an "unlucky" number of water bottles into an exam which could decide whether or not I would enter medicine. But it seems like I got through it well still. That said, my pen saying "Monash University Arts" on it did run out while I was planning my essay (probably more related to the amount of ink there was there originally than bringing in 4 water bottles), but I had some spare pens anyway.

But during the Melbourne interview, I was a bit nervous when we had to choose which interviewing station to start off with. Even though I knew it was just a superstition, I made a conscious decision not to start off at station number 4, even though I had the option to. Now that I look back on it though, it seems like a strange thing to have done. I did like the interviewer I had first up though, who I also had for my last station due to Melbourne's interview format, so it seems to have worked out well. It's unlikely to have been anything to do with the number 4 though. Incidentally, the person who did start off with station 4 did make it into the course.

And now in Medicine, for this semester my CSL and PCP (Principles of Clinical Practice) group numbers all contain a 4 in them. When I received my allocation, I was quite amused with the allocation of two "unlucky" numbers. But then again, it is just superstition, so it's nothing to be worried about.

Science and Medicine

The hard sciences of chemistry, physics and especially human biology have traditionally been a large part of medical courses. It had been known that sufficient understanding of human biology was required to be able to treat patients in a satisfactory manner. However, due to criticisms that medical courses in the past focused too much on the science and not enough on the softer aspects such as communication, ethics and population health, there has been a trend towards adding more of these aspects of medicine into medical courses at the expense of science.

Some doctors now comment that certain medical courses do not teach enough science, putting too much emphasis on the other components. I wouldn't be too surprised if that was true in some universities. I hoped that Melbourne got the balance right though.

So far though, a quarter of the way into first year, I don't feel that they have overemphasized the aspects other than sciences in our course. In our subject of Foundations in Biomedical Science (we don't have separate ethics subjects or population or personal development subjects; the other two subjects for first year are Principles of Clinical Practice 1 and Student Conference 1), the vast majority of our lectures are about biomedical science as the name suggests.

There are a few lectures of population health. One type of "population health" lecture is about evidence based medicine (EBM), encompassing a limited amount of biostatistics and some things about appraising studies, which would be quite important in medicine in terms of keeping up to date with current best practice. We don't actually learn that much about how to calculate the statistics too, unlike in first year biomed. I think EBM definitely has a place in the course.

The other type of population health lecture is about social determinants of health, including global health. We also haven't had many of these lectures so far either, so I don't feel that it has been overemphasized in the course at Melbourne.

Surprisingly, we have only had one ethics lecture so far, which was more of an introduction, in foundation week. Maybe they couldn't cram everything into the one preclinical year, so they decided to mainly give us the foundations in science to learn, and delayed the teaching of other things until later in the course. But in any case, I am pleasantly surprised that Melbourne hasn't seemed to have overemphasized the non-bioscience aspects of the course from what I have experienced so far. Then again, Melbourne does seem to have a reputation of being somewhat "old-school" in that regard, and that does seem to be the case to me.

[update] Midsemester break, sem 1 2012

Right now, we have the midsemester break of semester 1, 2012. This means that about a quarter of first year has been completed.

This break is an opportunity to catch up on rest, and also to revise any material from class.

The first test for first year medicine at Melbourne will be in the second week after the break, worth 5% of Foundations of Biomedical Science, covering the foundation, cardiovascular, and respiratory blocks.

Spot the Drosophila

While I was out shopping today, I was reminded of something that I do when I go to the fruit section of a supermarket or store. Whenever I'm in the fruit section, I always look out for Drosophila. For those of you who might not know, Drosophila melanogaster is a model organism for genetics experiments. They use these insects for genetics experiments for reasons including that they have short generation times, make lots of offspring, don't cost much to maintain and allegedly have not much capacity for thought (so little or no ethics approval is needed for experiments). Due to evolution and organisms on earth descending from a common ancestor, many genes in humans and other animals are also found in Drosophila, but not all.

There's many species of Drosophila and the random fruit flies in the store are unlikely to be the same species as the one used in experiments. However, sometimes I find one which has that bright red eye which looks like it can be, but I'm not an expert so I don't know for sure. Anyway, here's a photo of a Drosophila that I took last year from a fruit and vegetable store. This one's probably not D. melanogaster though.

Oh and these binomial names reminds me of my first prac submission for first year biology. I didn't underline any of my species names (in typing you're supposed to italicize and in writing you should underline). So I got deducted a few marks. Now if I go to a walking track and the person who made the signs forgot to italicize (like when I went to Queensland at the start of this year), I really notice it.

[update] First anatomy prac session for medicine

Today I had my first anatomy prac for medicine. It's been about one and a half years since my last anatomy prac in biomed, since I didn't major in anatomy. I was looking forward to it again; feeling the tough arteries spring back and poking at lungs.

When I heard that it was going to be "self directed" (or words to that meaning), I thought: "not again". But it was OK if you listened to demonstrators whenever they said something. Sometimes the demonstrators would teach beyond what questions were asked, and you could even feel as if it was a normal tutorial without thinking it was self directed.

The interesting part about today was seeing an anatomical variation on a specimen. I noticed that the arch of aorta of one of the specimens ran to the right of the trachea instead of to the left. It was good to see for myself, because in anatomy we usually just learn the case in the "majority" of people.

We don't seem to have many anatomy pracs in Melbourne, or lectures for that matter. Then again, we were all required to do a subject of anatomy before entering medicine at Melbourne as a prerequisite, so we all had to do about 44 hours of anatomy before entering to start with (according to the anatomy second year subject for Bachelor of Science handbook link from Melbourne).

Anyway, it seems like I'll be having a dissection prac in 3 weeks; after the midsemester break. I'm looking forward to it. I didn't do any dissections before in anatomy, since I didn't do my major in it and at Melbourne you don't get to dissect in the second year anatomy subject.

Number tricks: multiplying and dividing by 10

The GAMSAT this year happened yesterday. If you did the GAMSAT yesterday, I hope that you went well.

While I was helping someone with some GAMSAT questions for practice this year, without a calculator, I was reminded of some number tricks which can sometimes help. When calculators are available they aren't really required, but without calculators, the tricks can be helpful. You won't always be able to use tricks in calculations, but when you can, they can save time.

The trick I'll be discussing is multiplying and dividing by multiples of 10. Essentially, this simply involves moving the decimal point. It is sometimes useful if you are dealing with decimal multiplications or divisions.

Example 1:

300*0.04

Just divide the 300 by 100 (ie move the decimal point 2 to the left for 300) and multiply the 0.04 by 100 (ie move the decimal point 2 to the right for 0.04). Then the product becomes easier.

=3*4=12

Example 2:

0.0075/0.00015

Multiply the numerator and denominator by 100000 (ie move the decimal point for both 5 spaces to the right).

=750/15=50


Tricks like these can sometimes cut out time for decimal calculations.

[update] Blood Pressure measurements with the Finometer device

As I said on my last post, the University of Melbourne was doing a study about blood pressure and how polymorphisms in a gene for a sodium channel affects it. We had another prac today, for the follow-up since some of us were allocated to take sodium tablets for two weeks (and everyone else did more measurements even without taking the tablets too).

I got the results from three weeks ago of the readings of a "Finometer" before and after taking GTN (glyceryl trinitrate, aka nitroglycerin; used for treatment in angina, which dilates blood vessels), and before, during and after standing up from lying down. The Finometer measured a lot of different things (and calculated others using algorithms) in real time; including blood pressure (systolic and diastolic), heart rate, stroke volume, cardiac output and total peripheral resistance.

I was somewhat surprised at how much the blood pressure dropped when I stood up. Without the GTN, straight after standing up, the lowest systolic measured for me was 54 mmHg and for diastolic it was 34 mmHg, even though I am relatively young so the reflexes should not be too bad. After taking GTN, straight after standing up, the lowest systolic measured was 37 mmHg and lowest diastolic was as low as 18 mmHg! I never expected that my blood pressure would ever be that low, but now I know.

The professor/demonstrator then told me that now I should be able to understand why a lot of old people faint when they take GTN and try to stand up. For some reason, I might have felt a little dizzy, but even when my blood pressure was as low as 37/18 I still didn't feel like I was about to faint. Strange. Maybe because it was only for a few seconds.

[update] Urine collection day.

If anyone wants to know, today is the day that I am doing a 24 hour urine collection. At UniMelb, there are people who are running a study determining the effects of the polymorphisms of a sodium channel gene on blood pressure. All the first year medical students were invited to take part in the study to aid in the research of the professors at the university.

Of course, what the uni gets out of it is about 300 more students to get data points out of, without needing to pay financial reimbursement. They need large data sets for determining the effects of certain genes, especially if they do not have a large impact on blood pressure.

For the students, they made it an opportunity for us to learn how to measure blood pressure by auscultation. I think I can do it reasonably comfortably now. It's a lot easier in a quiet room than a prac room where everyone is talking though.

It was also marketed as an opportunity for us to get involved with research, since the University of Melbourne is a highly research intensive university, and because the MD had a focus on research; having a semester dedicated to it.

Finally, they told us that it was good to experience doing a 24 hour urine collection so we know how patients feel when we tell them to do it later on, and so we can explain it better. Meanwhile, my collection bottle seems to be filling at too high of a rate, so maybe I should reduce my water intake for the rest of the day. I don't want to have to carry two urine containers to uni!

Selective Entry Accelerated Learning Programs

When I was in grade six, along with about 100 people, I sat a test to get into the accelerated learning program at a high school. I got in, and a quarter of the test takers would later form an accelerated class at our school.

At my high school, the structure was such that we did year 8 maths (and some covered year 7 and a bit of year 8 of other core subjects like English and science) in year 7, year 9 maths in year 8 (covering the rest of year 8 science and year 9 science, and up to year 9 English), skipping year 9 and doing almost the same things as all the other year 10 classes in year 10 if we decided to stay on at the school and not go to Melbourne High School (MHS) or Mac.Robertson Girls' High School (MacRob) for example.

From then, we had the opportunity to do "two year VCE" if we wanted to, to finish high school a year earlier, or "three year VCE" if we wanted to use up a year "saved" to try to get a better mark in VCE. I took up the "two year VCE" option, like a lot of my peers, and subsequently successfully completed VCE, completed Biomedicine in the usual time, and I'm now in medicine.

However, after my year level went straight to year 10 and skipped year 9, the school decided to change the arrangements of the accelerated program for future year levels. Instead of skipping year 9, you did mainly year 10 core subjects in year 9. In "year 10", students were required to take up year 11 English, History and Mathematical Methods (mid-level VCE maths). Due to the inflexibility of the subjects possible for electives, it effectively forced people to undergo "three year VCE", with the first year being year 10.

To be honest, I was quite baffled with their change in policy at the school. I personally did not feel that there was much wrong with the old "two year VCE" after acceleration system. What was so wrong about people leaving school one year early, when they were entirely capable of doing so and able to study at university? Surely going to university would be more effective use of their time than staying back at school for another year.

The stated reason from the school seemed to be due to concerns about the maturity about the students leaving. There was concern that the people undergoing two year VCE after being in the accelerated learning program would not be mature enough to go to university because they were one year younger. While this is a point which may be true for some people, I don't think it is a good reason to keep everyone back. Myself and many others who have done "two year VCE" after being part of the accelerated program have managed to successfully complete a bachelor degree within the normal time frame. (In hindsight, maybe I could have skipped two years too, seeing that my GAMSAT score in 2010 was still clearly enough for UQ medicine for a CSP place for 2011 entry, or 2012 entry for that matter, without an interview.) Furthermore, for those who may not be ready for university that early, they still did have the option of "three year VCE" to use up their "saved" year.

Furthermore, being unable to skip a year anymore at my high school (which has a lower SES on average) removes one of the advantages of staying on at the school. Before, the advantage of staying on meant that you got to skip straight from "year 8" to year 10 and finish a year earlier, which you couldn't do if you went to MHS or MacRob for example. Now though, that option does not exist, so there is less of a reason to stay on at the school and not move to MHS or MacRob.

Sometimes I wonder if the school had another motive for changing the system. Was it to try to lift up the proportion of 40+ (top 9%) study scores in their statistics? I'm not sure if it was a reason, but if it was, then it was not really to the benefit of the students who could have started their bachelor degree a year earlier.

[update] Last public transport concession day tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be the last day I am eligible for public transport concession fares. This is because the card entitling the fares expires on the last day of February, in the year after the issue of the card. Since I was a local student and Biomedicine was an undergraduate course last year, I was eligible. However, since the MD is defined as a masters by coursework degree, it is not eligible for public transport concession travel.

Above is the situation of public transport concession travel in different states, from the CAPA website. Only New South Wales and Victoria deny public transport concession travel to postgraduate and international students. All other states and territories allow them to have concession fares, like local undergraduate students. It's a situation I hope will change in the future in Victoria.

As I said before on my blog, I've listed links to an online petition from CAPA on my links page or on the right of the screen. We can also try sending messages to our local state MP or the Transport Minister in Victoria to advocate for change. Concession fares would enable postgraduate students to spend less time working, worrying and struggling to make ends meet, and therefore be able to focus more on their studies or research.

Gillard 71, Rudd 31

Yesterday, the leadership spill of the ALP occurred. The result was a very comfortable win by Julia Gillard, 71 votes to Kevin Rudd's 31 votes.

This vote highlights the differences in the sentiments in the Labor caucus, the majority of whom prefer Julia Gillard over Kevin Rudd, and the general Australian public, the majority of whom prefer Kevin Rudd over Julia Gillard. It therefore retains this rather strange situation where neither of the major parties is led by a member of parliament in either party who is most preferred (Kevin Rudd from the ALP or Malcolm Turnbull for Liberal), and where the disapproval rate for both the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader is above their approval rates.

It seems like Kevin Rudd's style of leadership internally and method of working when he was Prime Minister not liked by a lot of the Labor MPs. It's been a while since then though, and it is an open question on whether or not he would make the same mistakes if he was the PM again.

From here on in, Julia Gillard's victory was so strong in this vote that there does not seem like a high chance of a re-challenge. However, if the public sentiment does not improve leading up to the next election, then I think the ALP might think about it again. Alternatively, it might take them losing the next election before they get shocked into taking action. We'll see.

Kevin Rudd resigns as Foreign Minister. Julia Gillard calls for caucus vote for Federal Labor leader.

It's been quite a turbulent few days in national politics. Kevin Rudd was away overseas carrying out his duties as the Foreign Minister, when Simon Crean started the criticism of him as being not a team player. From that, it escalated until 22 February Australian time, when Kevin Rudd announced his resignation as Foreign Minister, saying that it would not be good to continue, as there did not seem to be strong support from the Prime Minister (Julia Gillard), as the Prime Minister did not repudiate any of the attacks on him.

As it stands, the majority of the ministers who have spoken up are in support of the current prime minster. However, Kevin Rudd appears to have the public backing of ministers Martin Ferguson, Chris Bowen and Kim Carr. Of course, it's hard to know where everyone else who didn't comment publicly stands.

As for the public on the other hand, for the past year or so, all the polling seems to suggest that Kevin Rudd is preferred by most people over Julia Gillard as the Prime Minister (and Malcolm Turnbull seems to be preferred over the current opposition leader of Tony Abbott, but that's an aside). Interestingly, I've also noticed that Kevin Rudd has a lot more followers on Twitter than Julia Gillard at the moment. At the time of writing, Kevin Rudd has 1068860 followers, which is more than five times of Julia Gillard's 185968 followers.

This number seems to be inflated very recently however; I suspect due to the recent events. When I checked towards the end of last year, Kevin Rudd had roughly double the followers of Julia Gillard. Either way, having more followers seems to suggest to me that Kevin Rudd might have more people who approve of him on the internet, which is consistent with the news polls. The other possibility of Australians having a very keen interest in Foreign Affairs compared to the Prime Ministership seems unlikely. If anything, under usual circumstances, you would think that more people would be interested in a Prime Minister than a Foreign Minister.

Anyway, it seems like if Kevin Rudd will challenge (which was not said specifically but seems likely from what he has been saying in the media), then we should know the outcome of the caucus vote next Monday. Julia Gillard says that if she loses, then she will retire to the back bench and not challenge again. Kevin Rudd is currently on a plane back to Brisbane and will arrive tomorrow morning. It will be an interesting few days ahead.

GEMSAS 2011 Participant Survey released + GEMSAS 2012 applications open 30 April 2012.

From the GEMSAS website and the Facebook page of the MDHS faculty at the University of Melbourne, there was a link to an online survey for people who applied through GEMSAS in 2011 for 2012 entry into medical school. The survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=21tUD5dqvdZtYfDzwTauVA%3D%3D

Let them know if you can suggest any improvements.

I notice also on the GEMSAS website that the applications for medical school for 2013 entry will open on 30 April, 2012. It's interesting for them to set a date of opening, because it was never done in the past with either GMAC or the first iteration of GEMSAS for 2012 entry. This opening date is slightly earlier than it was in previous years when it was about one week into May. However, unless they also release GAMSAT results earlier, letting people apply to GEMSAS earlier probably won't be something that affects most people unless they did the GAMSAT last year and not this year so they only have that score to use (and if that score was OK).

[update] Foundation week is over.

Today marks the end of foundation week for UniMelb medicine. After today, there will be a lot more to learn again.

During foundation week, there were a few interesting experiences to be had. The clinical visit was somewhat interesting to see the doctor interaction with patients, but since I just started medicine, I didn't get to do much.

Some of the rest of the week I didn't find as interesting though, although they were things you'd sort of expect to find during uni orientations about support services and all that. We had to fill in a form for feedback on the foundation week, but although I didn't find certain parts of it interesting, I didn't think that I should make too much comment about it, because those parts would still seem "necessary" for orientation. I really don't know how they can present certain things in a more interesting way either.

So as a result, the comments on my feedback form probably weren't that helpful. I didn't even write my main comments in English. And if they did decide to translate it, it wouldn't be relevant to orientation week at all.

Written:

지금은 소녀시대! 앞으로도 소녀시대! 영원히 소녀시대!

(Right now it's SNSD! From now on it's SNSD! SNSD forever!)

순리에 맞춰 사는 것 넌 길들여져 버렸니? 괜찮니?
암담한 세상이 그댈 주눅들게 만드니? 괜찮니?

(Lyrics from The Boys-SNSD:
Living according to reason Have you gone soft? Are you okay?
Has this gloomy world intimidated you? Are you okay?

Credits: soshified taengbear & minigiglo for lyric translation)

Anyway, I think next week will probably be more interesting. Back to learning more biosciences again! There will also be a dinner next week celebrating 150 years of teaching Medicine at the University of Melbourne; the oldest medical school in Australia.

[update] First day of medical school

Today was my first day doing Medicine at Melbourne Medical School. It was quite a new experience with the medical course, because the format of material given is not the same as undergrad. I had an experience with CSL (case supported learning) today too, which was interesting.

There were quite a few indemnity insurance companies also which were represented today, and I joined one of them because it was free for students. I hope I never need to rely on them though, but mistakes do happen in medicine.

It was nice to see some of the same faces in medicine as from Biomedicine at Melbourne, as well as a considerable number of new faces. This is probably the first time that I've known so many people in my next stage of study studying the same course as me, because not many people from my primary school went to my secondary college, and not many people from my secondary college went to my uni, and only one other person in my year went into the same course as me. The majority or plurality of people from my secondary college who went to uni went to Monash.

There were quite a few lectures today about housekeeping issues. Some of it was interesting, and some less so. Maybe it would be more interesting or engaging if I didn't have to spend all that time learning this professionalism or "what makes a good doctor" stuff to say during the interviews.

What I liked about today was the commitment that the coordinators of CSL at Melbourne seemed to give about upholding a high standard for the basic science given, so that we know what is happening within the patient at a deep level. Because we only have one preclinical year at Melbourne, I was wondering if they would cut out a lot of the stuff. By looking at the notes of the curriculum development before today, it seems like they tried not to cut out stuff, by making anatomy, physiology and biochemistry prerequisites, and integrating some of the remaining biological science teaching to be taught in clinical years, but it still seems like a major task fitting a lot of things that most other graduate entry medical courses fit in two years in just one year.

I hope they've done it well. It would be a shame if Melbourne stopped their long tradition of upholding a rigorous treatment of their medical course and basic sciences, which they started from the beginning of their medical program's existence 150 years ago with a five year undergraduate program instead of a four year undergraduate program which was predominant at the time, and with Melbourne graduates having the highest first sitting pass rates of the Basic Sciences Examination of the RACS (Royal Australasian College of Surgeons) as recently as the mid-2000s.

(For the record, during this period, USyd had the lowest pass rate in that exam due in a large part to their low emphasis of anatomy in their original graduate entry medical program, although this was recently resolved with a trebling of hours devoted to learning gross anatomy after their review in 2007.)

Anyway, I will be having my first clinical visit tomorrow. I'm lucky that my clinical visit for tomorrow isn't too far away, given that some people have clinical visits some distance away at the other side of the city to where they live.

GAMSAT 2012 registrations close today 5 pm AEDT.

As a reminder for anyone who was planning to do the GAMSAT and leaving it until late to register, you have to apply today by 5 pm Australian Eastern Daylight saving Time to avoid any late fees. http://gamsat.acer.edu.au/gamsat-australia

After that, you can apply until 10 February at 5 pm AEST according to the website, provided that you also pay an extra $100 in late fees. I find it interesting that they say 5.00pm AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time) instead of AEDT for late applications. I wonder if it is a mistake on the GAMSAT website. That said, if you want to apply for the GAMSAT, you should complete it no later than 5 pm AEDT today to avoid any late fees anyway.

All the best for your preparation if you are planning to sit the GAMSAT.


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If you're interested, then follow this link to order your preview package: http://prepgenie.com/free-preview-copy/

[update] Extra trip to Melbourne.

Today I went into the City of Melbourne, to go to uni. I live about one hour away from uni by public transport. I thought we started today, since the original timetable showed that. But they actually changed it to next week, and I didn't read it carefully, so I came today. I wonder why they want to start it later though; our preclinical year is already only one year rather than two, and yet we start medicine three weeks later than UQ which has two preclinical years. I realize that we have done prerequisites though.

So I wasted a bit of money for traveling expenses by buying a myki pass for a week where I wouldn't actually need to travel. Ah well. At least it was on concession still, so it wasn't too much money. My concession card from biomed expires at the end of February, and "Masters by coursework" students in Victoria, including Melbourne MD students, don't get concession travel; as I discussed earlier in this blog. Nor do any international students. I really hope this will change in the future, to be in line with most other states, where postgraduate and international students are eligible for concession public transport travel.

Anyway. I still got a few things done today. I handed in a few forms in at the Student Centre and got a new student card. I didn't get a new photo though. I didn't feel there was anything wrong with my photo at 17 years of age.

Then I checked out some graffiti artwork of Girls' Generation (소녀시대) member, Jessica (제시카). I read about it online, and it was in Hosier Lane, Melbourne:

It's good to see their influence in Melbourne. I hope they come to Melbourne one day for a concert.

I also bought the workbooks for the Melbourne MD year 1, included with a folder. The folder is quite fancy, although it wasn't that cheap at $40.30.

I also walked through Chinatown today and went to the front of Parliament House just to look at the building. The Brisbane Chinatown is more fancy, with a fancy mall pavement. It might be a bit wider than Melbourne's one, but not as long. Melbourne's one is different among the Chinatowns that I have been to around the world in that cars can drive through. It's harder for pedestrians that way if you want to cross from one side to another.

Anyway, it seems like I will be starting for real next week. A few days left of a break which I didn't really plan for. If I knew that we started next week, I would have enrolled in an intensive course for Chinese at UniMelb's Confucius Institute which ran from January 9th – February 5th, 2012, because as I have commented on this blog a few times, I always thought it was good to learn Chinese, but it wasn't a very urgent thing to do. Ah well, I'll see how things are next year. If I did attend the short course this year, I wouldn't have been able to go to Queensland though.