[update] elective placement done!

Last week I completed the compulsory elective for my MD course. Although they have made it non-compulsory for people in MD1 this year, for us we were required to undertake at least a 4 week elective placement. The timing was not critical although it needed to be in our holidays.

I did my elective in ICU. Although I was hoping for a cardiology elective, overall I enjoyed my ICU experience. It was a great opportunity to revise a lot of medicine which I learned in second year and we didn't cover very much of in classes this year. The consultants were generally very willing to teach and it was also very interesting to learn about the ICU equipment and how to interpret the machines and etCO2 curves, which are also used in anesthetics. The consultants also did two rounds per day, with a longer morning round and shorter afternoon round, which was great for learning; in contrast to other non-ICU units where usually it is the registrar doing the ward rounds.

Although it was very nice to spend time in ICU and refreshing to learn about actual "medicine" after much of this year, it is very nice to finally have a break now until February.

[update] MD3 2014 results release

About two weeks ago, our overall results for PCP3 were released. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, although it seems like many people got worse this year than last year.

Ah well. I guess the main thing is that I did pass and didn't have to redo any assessments, so I will be going on to next year.

For some reason, they still haven't given back our mark breakdowns though. I would like to know where I actually did badly and where I did well.