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...