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.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
[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.
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.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
[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.
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.
Friday, July 6, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
[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.
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.
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