Sorry I have been so quiet. I blame board studying for my absence. Now that I have a little more time I felt I could share some of my thoughts about preparing for that exam.

All I can really think to say is the first two years of medical school went by very quickly. One minute you are packing your bags to go out there and the next you are trying to decide which things you will be able to bring back.

At the end of the first year I did a little review of all the courses and I will now do so for the second year:

• Term 3

o Behavioural Science (Introduction to human development)
o Biostats & Epidemiology (Evidence Based Medicine)
o Juris & Ethics (Information about the practice of medicine)

• Term 4

o Microbiology (Combined with parasitology this covers the infectious causes of disease)
o Pathology (The process, mechanism, events and characteristics of disease)
o ACS 1 (Introduction to the art of physical diagnosis)

• Terms 5 & 6

o Pharmacology (The different medicines available)
o Pathophysiology (Clinically focused review of first and second years)
o ACS 2 (Introduction to the practical application of what was learnt in ACS 1)

Hi all,
To the regular readers I want to say thank you. If you left a post and I haven’t responded yet I want to say sorry. If you are just stopping by welcome.

All that said things are pretty busy right now So I probably won’t get back to posting for about a month or so.

I hope things are going well for all.

As an apology I present the post below:

Sorry if this seems unoriginal:

  I hear that most of the professional writers of various television shows have gone on strike. When I was thinking about the show House it occurred to me just how much most episodes seem to follow the formula.

The formula=

Some people are going about every day life the one you think is going to be the patient is just a distractor for the one who really is the patient.

House finds the case himself or someone has to coerce him to take the case.

He refuses to see the patient and starts coming up with ideas based on the few symptoms he’s collected.

He sends his team to run some tests which most often come back inconclusive.

He refuses to see the patient and decides that they have some disease (basically they pick one at random, as long as it’s not lupus) they then start treating the paitent for this condition. As the patient doesn’t have that disease they invariably get worse at this point or have an unexpected side effect which points away from the disease they thought the patient had.

House refuses to see the patient and either has the team just shoot off ideas or decides that they have to give leathal doses of medicines to the patient to see how quickly they are dying in order to tell what disease they have (I’m not aware of that principle in medicine).

Round about this point most of the patients give up and start refusing the more dangerous and unsupported treatments.

House then goes to see the patient, he lies, tricks or manipulates them into following his course.

Just as the show is about to end House will be talking to someone or doing something when he has a Eureka moment and “cracks” the diagnosis. The patient is saved (mostly) and everyone goes about like nothing ever happened.

Oh and I almost forgot he or his team break into the patients house practically every episode

Now you have the formula I’m sure that many internet users with the time and the interest could write a script for House which would be familiar to most who have seen the show

…Longtime no post.

It’s been a longtime I know. I’m quite surprised that anyone is still around and reading. I have been back on campus for about two weeks now. Term5/6 is here with Pathophysiology and Pharmacology to keep us on our toes. Summer came and went very quickly. But was a welcome break.  I guess you would think I would have used some of that time to figure out what I wanted to write about. But I guess not. I did just finish a great book: Cutting Remarks.

I hate to cut things short. But I do have to run. More soon 

I knew if I waited long enough wordpress would fix things and I would once again be able to write posts from within my favourite web browser.
I guess it’s all down to perceptions. But is it just me or do the grey skies, rainy days and rain storms seem to come a whole lot more often during the lead up to exams ? I’m not sure I have the answer to that one. But I will say that last night we had quite a mighty rain storm.

For those of you have been following my series of posts on Medical TV shows. If you haven’t seen the season finale of House season 3 or Grey’s Anatomy I suggest you stop reading now.

*****May Contain Spoilers******

First off I have to say that the stories on House have been getting rather stale and that it seems the only reason I’m still watching is so that I can read the review on polite dissent and see if I agree. I was left asking myself if the writers had been trawling the internet decided that fellowships really don’t last for eternity. If they have indeed sacked half of the main cast then I will have to be watching the show very carefully to check that the new team isn’t made up of the suggestions I put forward in my first post. I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow all of the fellows return under House’s leadership next season.

That brings us onto our next show Grey’s Anatomy. I thought really hard and had lots of things I wanted to say about the show. But this sums it up pretty well: Grey’s Anatomy is a medical soap opera. They string the same story over several episodes they take the main characters through these elaborate looking character arcs at the end of which everyone is back where they started. Next season I might skip a few episodes then watch one and if I can instantly tell the stories of the episodes I haven’t seen then that would cement my soap hypothesis.

That is all I have on the topics for now

WordPress have changed the way posts are written and it is now incompatible with my prefered web browser. This has meant that I have been late in getting this new post out.

This is just to say that the last batch of exams has been sucessfully completed and we are about 1 month away from the end of term. I expect to have more soon

Ok here is the deal:

Exams soon (Next monday until the following monday),

I should have sometime for new content after we finish this set.

So when we left off I was discussing House. I think I said my piece as far as that show is concerned. But wait I said medical students watch medical shows (plural) so maybe I had a little more in mind. I will leave my personal favourite show until last, although most of my post titles are named in the same format as on that particular show so I think alot of you will know which show that is already.

Ok here goes, what is with time on the show Grey’s Anatomy. To be blunt for how many seasons are they going to be interns [first year of training after you complete medical school]. If that was it I suppose that people could wonder why I was being so picky. But while some aspects seem to going so slowly that I am beginning to wonder if each episode is supposed to represent one day or something. Also for the senior surgeons time seems to be racing away, what with them all fighting against one another for the one job.

Actually this isn’t the only show in which the displayed passage of time bothers me. Fellowships don’t last forever any more than residencies do, so I was wondering when are Houses team going to leave for greener pastures. The show has already had 3 seasons like Grey’s anatomy and I don’t remember the exact quote, But the Chase character said he was working for House a year before Foreman and Cameron started.

When I get some free time I will try and see if I can get some more polls and you can all tell me about what you think the passage of time in these TV shows is. That is all for now