Exams

For once I'm not going to use Backstreet's Back to say hello. Instead I shall use the opening from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Geoff.
The Final Frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
It's continuing mission to find, brave, new, worlds.
To seek out new life and new civilisations.
To boldly go where no-one has gone before.

Now, I defy anyone to admit they are geeky enough to know the real origin of that intro. Post here and forever remain single.

Soooo exams.

Paediatrics MCQ:
Question 1:

Jean Defect is a 2 year old child who is admitted with persistent productive cough, she is growing on the 25th centile (having dropped over the last several months from the 75th centile) and has a chlorine smell about her. Her birth was uneventful but she failed to pass meconium within 24 hours.

On what chromosome (1-22) is her likely defect:

Chromosome F
Chromosome U
Chromosome C
Chromosome K
Chromosome YOUMEDICALSTUDENTSCUM

(Select no more than 3 chromosomes)

Assuming that she has Acute Intermittant Porphyria on a background of Type II diabetes compounded by Sickle Cell, Spherocytotic beta-Thallasaemia, outline the 4 tests you would have performed 3 years ago on her mother during her 1st antenatal visit (not including prenatal scans or midwife visits) from the following list.

FBC
FBC (including Full Blood Count)
FBC (including a Count of Full Blood)
LFT
TFT
Plasma Screen
anti-streptolysin O antibodies
antiendomesial antibodies
endoantimesial antibodies
eostradiol
eastrodial

Remember that you must select at least 2 options from list A and 3 from list a, those options in list B are for reference only and must only be chosen when you are being assessed on module A1OG2FGH (Medicine with Honours but without Honour) and not module A10G2FGh (Medicine with an Honus on Honours)

Question 2:

Remember that thing Will Carroll told you about?
Yea, that thing.
What is it associated with?

Tachycardia
Tachapnoea
Bradycardia
Atrioventricular Septal Defect
Ventriculoatrioalr Septal Defect
Coronory Artery Aneurisms
Spain
AIDS
Benzene
Multifocalpolyleukoencepalopathy
Your Mum

Now those of you who listen to my whinging will know that I didn't do as well as I wanted to in my Paeds OSLER. So we won't mention that, except that I'm particularly wounded because i painted sticks pretty colours for the, presumably young and cute child to play with while I listened to his/her chest.

The kid was 13. The only thing he wants to play with is tucked away in his pants.

Further upset was caused by the attempts by the examiners to cheer me up

"I did even WORSE in my OSLER"
"You know, it's just a mark, if I was interviewing you for a job I might consider, maybe, you know, if there were no other candidates, and I had developed dementia as a result of quaternary syphilis, then there is a chance, though small, that I'd give you the job. Maybe"
"I'd be very disappointed in you if you gave up medicine forever after this. Because this is just the first one of a whole series of harsh blows you're going to get throughout your career"

And others...

But hey, I passed, and that's all that matters I suppose.

As for Obs & Gynae, well, the exam I definitely didn't excel on:

Question 1:

This woman has pre-eclampsia.

OR DOES SHE?

You tell me

True
False

Question 2:

What is the incidence of peanut butter phobia in pregnant women who largely eat celery but have the odd glass of wine on the weekend?

1.2 in 100,000
1.21 in 100,000
1.3 in 100,000
1.2 in 1*10^5
Pi

Still, these values were in the textbooks and, if it hadn't been for the Nugent & Burnhill patented revision through playing computer games/decorating trees/drinking tea campain, I may have known my stuff better.

Finally we had the OSCE today.

The OSCE consists of 4 stations, 2 where you take a history from a patient and 2 where you discuss stuff with a patient.

We had to be at the QMC for 8:30 in the morning so that we could be herded into a tiny room in order to sufficiently undermine each other's confidence before the exam began at 9:00 (for some of us, others were left waiting around practically forever). You get 6 minutes to prepare what you're going to say, having read the scenario and then 6 minutes to say it.

This was fine (ish) for the majority of the stations, except that we had to counsel people about a pre-cancerous disease - 'So I have cancer?', 'no, you don't but you might end up with...', 'Oh my god I'm going to die', 'Well, everyone dies, Madam, but your time is yet to co', 'Well what am I gonna do? WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO'. However the real problem came around with Mrs Pre Eclampsia

'Hi Is that Ms Eclampsia?'
'Yes'
'Hi, My name is Geoff Burnhill, I'm a 4th Year Medical Student here and I was wondering if I could counsel you about this illness. I ask only because I will otherwise fail my exam for not obtaining full consent to FRIKKING TALK TO YOU, despite the fact it makes ABSOLUTELY NO FU*KING SENSE IN THIS SITUATION...

..FURTHERMORE WHY THE HELL WOULD A MEDICAL STUDENT COUNSEL YOU ABOUT PRE-ECLAMPSIA, SURELY THAT'S THE JOB OF A REAL F*CKING DOCTOR'
*cough*
'Yes that's fine, if it wasn't fine you'd be somewhat screwed wouldn't you?'
'OK so do you know why you're here'
'Yes the midwife sent me here with no detail or anything'
'I see, well, she sent you in because you have (imagine, if you will, the camera zooming further into her face on each symptom)
High Blood Pressure (DUN DUN DUN)
Proteinuria (DUN DUN DUN)
and Mild Epigastric tenderness (DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN)
and these are indicative of what we like to call 'Pre-eclampsia''
'What's that then?'
'It's a systemic disorder characterised by your symptoms that occurs due to incomplete 2nd migration of the embryonic trophoblast causing placental insufficiency and the formation of an inflammatory response' is what I wanted to say because as soon as I said 'It's when your placenta gets in trouble and causes a reactive response in your body', the examiner started scribbling 'FAIL' in large letters on my marksheet. He then drew gallows next to it, with an uncanny cartoon of myself hanging.
'I see, so what are you going to do about it'
'Well, we have to admit you to hospital'
'Sorry what?'
'Admit you. To Hospital'
'WHAT?!?!?!, BUT BUT BUT BUT When?'
'Well, like now.'
'BUT BUT I CAN'T; MY SALON'
'Your salon?'
'YES I NEED TO RUN MY SALON'
'Your salon?'
'My salon!'
'I see, well anyway when you get into hospital, we'll need to give you oral steroids to help your babies developing lu-'
'Well can I not just go home and come back if I feel ill?'
'No, because you'll die'
'But my Salon'
'Sorry I said you'll die'
'my Salo-'
'SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR F*CKING SALON YOU STUPID COW, YOU ARE GOING. TO. DIE. WHO'S GONNA RUN THE SALON WHEN YOU'RE DEAD. YOU'RE DEAD CHILD? No, because HE'LL BE DEAD TOO! NOW GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF *slap slap*'
'OK OK so I need to come in, what will happen when i'm in hospital'
'Well as I was saying, we need to help your developing baby by-'
'Oh my god it sounds like I'm going to be in prison'
'No, no, not at all, it's just tha-'
--TIME IS UP, WE HOPE YOU DISCUSSED TREATMENT OPTIONS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A CAESARIAN SECTION WITH THEM--

Anyway the exams are now over. I was looking forward to celebrating with voluminous alcohol but was instead granted GASTRIC FLU for my troubles.

Thanks, Jesus, you've always got my back.

In other news:

The search for the 3rd housemate continues.
I sent what I like to think of as a HILARIOUS mass e-mail to everyone in the entire medical school detailing the amazingness of our house and the relative cheapness of the rent. I immediately received 10 responses!

This excited me.

Every one of them read. 'Hahaha, you are so funny. But no, I'd rather die in the fires of hell than live with you. You punk.' more or less.

I have now resorted to advertising it to people in the real world. But they are apparently not content with sharing a bathroom and so I shall be doomed to live on the street, with great furniture and a piano. Let's hope it's never cold or raining in britain.

B'oh!

The wait for my new MINI continues.
I had an exciting call today from the MINI Man (did I mention I ordered a MINI, well I did) and I have got the registration of it already! It ends in WCK (for WarwiCK, I like to think) I also had the choice of WCC and, WDC. WDC being Dr Carrolls initials, I was almost tempted to get it as an act of sycophantic wondery. Sadly it would remind me that I SUCK AT THE ONLY THING I LOVE (no innuendo implied) so I went with Warwick, when I was good at stuff.

The hunt for the red october.
Is a film.

I now have 700 gigs in the next 2 weeks.
Woo, you might say? Well no as I'm getting paid for NONE OF THEM. Which is fine because I'm a wonderful, giving, kind person. Except that Nottingham Lace Market Theatre are a bunch of FECKING UNGRATEFUL TWATS and, despite me giving up two nights a week for their rehearsals and lending them my keyboard, they still get pissy with me for not recording their individual vocal lines onto CD for them (in my no spare time, with my no copy of the score) and then proceed to get even pissier when I can't do early Sunday morning rehearsals

1. I need sleep
2. I'm getting back from London late on Saturday
3. I hate you
4. I hate you
5. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

*Sigh*

Still, it'll all be over soon as the wonderful wonderful Christmas Holidays are coming up. Sadly I have to learn ALL OF OPTHALMOLOGY by then and buy lots of presents for everyone. I am of the opinion that everyone should get 'The knowledge that Geoff has a shiny new car' as their christmas present. But apparently this isn't on.

Hmph.

What else?

Oh yea, Dave moved into our tiny tiny 3rd room, barely big enough for his enormous talent and it is excellent. For me, at least. He is probably going nuts and wishing he was back in his old house with all the mould and the housemate who leaves bits of flaky skin on the toilet seat when she goes for a pee. The only downside is that I have eaten a million kilos more of fat than I normally would and as I do NO EXCERCISE and he does ALL THE EXERCISE this can only end badly for me.

Hmmm, what a negative blog. Meeeee, negative??? Never :)

Thus we well end on something positive:

The relative charge on a carbonyl carbon.

HOHOHOHOHO AREN'T I FUNNY!!!

OK um...

we have a christmas tree now and it's pretty.

That'll do.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeee