El Presidente

It would appear my peers are entirely lacking in sound judgement as I was voted in as the new president this week. I'm not entirely sure what I'm president of, officially its the Graduate Entry Medicine Society which is a bit of a vague term. There are social, welfare and charity secretaries as well as student reps, the general secretary and treasurer and im the president. Clear as mud really. The work has started already and I'm meant to meet the Graduate entry Education Director this week, *gulp*.

itchy

Starting to irritate more than just the people who are seen with me, the 'tache is starting to feel like a bristling caterpillar who resents my facial movements. Still at least I look like a tit*.




*more than usual

and breath

Feels like a long week, found out Mummy Bell* is ill and isn't going to get better plus I got my exam results and not entirely sure I've passed. For the multiple choice I did fine but for the essays (which were always going to be tough) I have passed overall *ahem* by 1 mark but apparently you can fail individual questions if you don't get a high enough average! So we had 5 questions each with 2 parts, those are worth 5 marks each and you need to get 6 marks in total per question and for 2 questions I averaged 4 :(

Plus the question I bombed and got 1 for** was written by my tutor so that'll be fun when I have my next meeting with him :(

Also turned out the pass mark was not 55% as I thought but 30 out of 50 ie 60%, I got 31 so bum across the line but only just.


*She didn't want to be called Gran when I was born and because she is my Mum's mum and her surname is Bell she became Mummy Bell :D

**An answer so bad a line was drawn through it and a note added to where I'd written the "baby stage" of development stating that this "was not part of Eriksen's model"
ie I'd made it up. Caught!

not again!

Yup the 'tache is back but this time it's here to stay. For a month at least. As part of Movember some of the guys at uni are sporting/growing/stealing moustaches to raise cash for prostate cancer. I'm part of that hardcore unit, more here

but this is what you've come for:


photo updates through the month people

hanging on in

Well this illness has held on for over a week now and it's ever so slightly pissing me off. I could see it coming to be fair, I haven't been doing exercise and haven't slept properly in ages then Hannah got bundled off to hospital with swine flu and when Mike dropped the next day I knew I was next. I made it in for one of my workshops and managed to spray most of my group in flem over the course of 2 hrs but took the next day off. The weekend found me in bed feeling grim (and missing tipa and john who'd come up for the weekend. Gutted.) Thankfully we had Monday off and I made it in on Tuesday which was unfortunately a 9 til 7 affair :(

It's now Saturday and I *think* it's starting to fade but fuck me it's been endless. First exam is a week on Monday. Even with a 40% pass mark I'm still not sure I'll make the cut off.

EDIT: pass mark is 55%, fuck.

I have a bike. somewhere.

Feeling jaded, riding into school a few times a week but not swung a leg over my mountain bike since I left Scotland. Despite that I've been trying to buy a single speed superfly without success and keep finding myself drawn to bits and pieces to keep me ticking over at uni. I'm sure it'll pass. 4 maybe 5 years...

Listing

It's Sunday and my mood is pretty different from Friday morning. On Friday I felt like I'd had a pretty good week, wasn't as intense as the first week and it felt a lot more coherent than the previous week, things were tying up and relating to one another a bit better. Pretty pleased with myself I sat down with my PBL to discuss the case thus far. Very quickly it became very apparent why I thought my week had been easy. Not only was the topic I'd had to cover for the case covered in our workshops but I hadn't read much to back up the weeks lectures. It was evident I was alone in this. Bugger. So this weekend has been mostly trying to squeeze information into my brain. *sigh*

It's fun but there's a lot to learn, below are our learning outcomes. Not for the year, nor for the module (each module has 6 cases and cases are given weekly) nope the list below are the learning areas for the previous 2 weeks. It's a long way to Christmas.


* Amino acids and proteins
* Basic introduction to metabolism
* Essential amino acids
* Inheritance, DNA and genetics
* PKU
* Breastfeeding
* Composition of baby formula, and breast milk
* Genetics: Carrier status
* Genetics: differences bewteen identical and non identical twins
* Introduction to genetics: genetic crosses/pedigree/punnet squares/cross diagrams
* Consequences of phenylalanine accumulation
* Normal and abnormal phenylalanine metabolism
* Effects of illness on other family members
* Impact of neonatal diagnoses on family members
* Acute inflammation basic principles and features
* Blood cells
* Blood flow in capillaries
* Defence against extracellular pathogens
* Natural defences
* Nature of bacteria
* Recognition of extracellular pathogens
* Types of blood vessels including lymphatics
* (PPD) The importance of familial and social support and implications for prospective old age
* Antibiotics general principles
* Antigens
* Complement
* Inflammatory mediators
* Allergy (definition not detail)
* Fever
* Immunoglobulins
* Antibiotic sensitivity.
* Identification of organisms.