[update] 2014 MD student conference over. Semester 2 about to begin. SS1 and Women's Health.

This week we had the MD student conference for the University of Melbourne. It was the first time that we had a student conference encompassing all the years of the MD course during the conference.

Overall, I think this conference has been the best one I have been to so far. We were able to listen to the research which had been done by the MD4 students, some of which was very intriguing. We also had more "optional" sessions this year, where in the past conferences there were more sessions which were compulsory for everyone.

I also felt that the food was better than last year, although not as good as at the MCG. However, others disagreed, saying that the muffins were better last year. Perhaps it is because I don't particularly enjoy muffins anyway, or eat the dessert, so I had that off my radar for "evaluating" the food.

Anyway, I somehow managed to finish my 1500 word essay reflection already, so I won't have to worry about the conference again for a while, when I will need to peer-review two MD2 reflections or e-portfolios.


Meanwhile, over the next few weeks, I will be trying to organize in greater detail my research project to get ready for next year, and writing a literature review. This should be interesting, as we don't have time off for this. As I had hoped for though, I did get a project at St Vincent's cardiology, so I am happy about that.

My next rotation will be Women's Health at the Royal Women's Hospital, then my final rotation will be Children's Health. I think this should be a better semester than the last, although we will be required to spend a few nights at the hospital seeing babies being delivered. Let the semester two proper begin!

[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.

[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 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...