clinical knowledge

Thank you for chancing upon my blog somehow. Whether you are some SEO person assigned to increase your client’s visibility in this increasingly cluttered WWW, or a bored somebody perusing medical blogs, or a fellow medical student, or better yet, a doctor who is actually spending time reading the ramblings of “that blogging medical student”, i welcome you humbly to my blog.

so what’s been happening in my life so far? well, i just finished my Family Medicine rotation. 9 weeks just zoomed past like that. in your mind, perhaps family medicine is all about coughs, cold, routine blood pressure check ups. for some part that is true. there is a lot of preventative health stuff going on – BP control, diabetic screening, colon/cervical/breast/prostate cancer screening, vaccinations, diet, lifestyle. if you enjoy explaining such stuff to your patients, then great, do Fam Med. otherwise, u might, just like me, find it a ‘tad boring. GP-land is not as exciting as they make it out to be, at least at Monash. see, we get this Professor of General Practice, who incidentally wrote THE bible for general practice. his name is john murtagh, and mention this name, most if not all australian trained doctors will know him. he is synonymous with excellent general practice teaching and care throughout his career. “General Practice” is in its 4th edition, and prof murtagh has written numerous other books to aid GPs all over the world. how is GP different from internal medicine then? shouldn’t we stick to Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine? oh yea, to me, i still value american medicine higher, and harrison’s is the gold standard of internal medicine for me. CMDT 2010 is also something i use frequently. however, GP texts tend to focus on primary presentations, e.g. murtagh’s book has a section with many many chapters on first presentations, e.g. cough, back pain, chest pain, headaches, etc. the symptom is the topic of the chapter, not a particular disease. patients don’t present with a left bundle branch block, they present with syncope and lethargy.

anyway, its all part of training to be a doctor. most avid readers know i want to be a surgeon. however, i dont want to be a cut em and dice em brainless surgeon, if that even exists. probably exists in the preconceived notions of unlearned individuals who probably never had the honor of working or learning under surgeons. or in comedies like scrubs. nonetheless, i want to have a broad base of medical knowledge to back up my future practice, which is why im studying so hard now. more than ever. partly because of exams, but also for the future. 4th yr is the yr of our big MBBS exams at Monash. 5th yr we’re pretty much on our own, trying to get good letters of recommendation from various consultants so we land an intern job in a hospital of our choice.

so yea, im preparing for it US-style. im working my way through lange step 2 CK Q&A, and Kaplan Step 2 CK Qbook. they shd put me in good stead with int med, surgery, psych, obgyn and pediatric clinical knowledge. lets hope monash exams ask stuff similar to step 2ck standard! otherwise its still good prep for step 2ck which ill take next yr

kudos, thats enough for an update in the midst of exam prep!! take care now, thanks for dropping by, and i promise more frequent posts after exams.

oh and if u want to host SurgeXperiences, let me know! gimme a yell. the only online surgical grand rounds needs you!

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