History taking--- huh hahh!

Huhahh!! I had the second history taking session today at the Clinical Skills Unit. The entire session was only 8 minutes i.e. 7 minutes of history taking by me and 1 minute of comments from the simulated patient, and it was video-taped. Wow....I was so high-spirited throughout the entire session, even till now, I feel so excited about it, although, well, I didn't get graded as Excellent I guess. But I had a lot of fun even that was only a talking session with the sp. Luckily I practised taking history with my friend before the session. Huhhah!

So what's history taking all about? I didn't know that a person with so little medical knowledge can take history from the patient! And usually only by taking history from the patient, the doctor is able to diagnose about 70% of the illness. It can be said that communication plays a very vital role in it!

Basically, as a medical student, every time we take history from any person, whether he or she is a real patient or a simulated one, we have to introduce ourselves and ask for permission to take history. Then we start off the session by asking about the patient's personal information like his or her age, occupation, marital status and so on. And then we ask about the illness. From there, we find out the cause, severity of the illness and as well as the associated illness, which is the illness that is brought about by the initial illness. After that, we ask about family medical history and then we move on to the patient's habit like if he or she smokes or consumes alcohol.

Overall I find it very interesting, well, I'm quite impressed of my performance actually. At least for the 7 minutes I didn't get stammered and stop talking in the middle of the conversation. Although, of course, there are a lot more to improve, I actually was given the comment by the SP that I seemed to be more concern about her family background rather than her illness, in which the scenario was that her foot got caught in the drain and got swollen.

Heeh...Relieved and energetic!

busy huh?

Yesterday was Monday and Monday is always the day with the most packed schedule. Normally we would have 2 hours of morning plenary and in the afternoon we would have a one-hour lecture. I joined so many activities and some of the ones that I'm most keen to take part fall on Mondays! 

Well, so yesterday was the first trial for fencing. Yay~ I find it really a COOL game! But there's no free lunch right? If I join the club I'll have to pay 80 bucks fees on a monthly basis. I'll also need proper attire later on after I've learnt all the basics and the attire, which includes the chest protector(for females), a pair of gloves and 2 more protective layers. And they cost RM400. Hooh~ 

Investment?

So if I'm joining the fencing club then every Monday from 7-8 I'll have training session in IMU. I really think that this game is cool and fun. hehe...

University life started yea? Hmm...No idea. But I still need to work hard on my time management. hmm hmm... Work harder, yimin!

It's not the matter of time, is it?

Last time I used to blame myself for not blogging because I didn't have time. I don't have enough amount of time now as well, do I? But the difference is that now I HAVE TO blog because there are so much to tell, to share, and to express.

The 2nd week of class has passed. And tomorrow will be the beginning of the 3rd week in the first semester. We'll be doing FOUNDATION BLOCK throughout the entire semester. And next month there will be a Online Formative Assessment, whereas the In-Course assessment would be in the end of February, next year.

Imagine it's only the 2nd week and I already feel suffocated at times. I'm not really stressed. I'm not really torn. Well, I can't be dying in the SECOND week. But I feel like time really pasts extremely quickly. For today's lunch, I cooked some rice and soup using the rice-cooker. There's only one dish where everything is cooked together in the rice cooker but it took me 1 hour to do that! Is that my problem? I thought of not going out to buy food because I wanted to save up some time but eventually it seemed that preparing even the simplest meal takes a lot of time.

It's obvious I have to work out on my time-management. So as my stress-management. If my time is well-managed,I guess I wouldn't have stress management problem, probably.

LOL. I really have to focus a lot. Although I think that I spend most of the time on studies, I still have to be very alert of how much time has been used on unnecessary things, such as Facebooking and...etc.

All the best. You can do it. I hope that the next time I blog, I would be sharing about the happiness instead of stress and problems.

Recruitment drive

It's now exactly one month from the 1st day of commencement of class! Yesterday we had recruitment drive at the atrium. We got to choose whatever clubs or societies that we are interested in, then we sign up for it and go for trial sessions. There are so many kinds of clubs and even some that I haven't heard of before.

I find some clubs pretty interesting so I signed up for them. And everything seemed so attractive so I didn't really think twice before joining them and at the end of the day I realised that I have joined 11 clubs and societies. I joined games that I've never seen or experienced before, like fencing. I joined Squash as well. Oh yea, I joined the Yoga club as well. But these clubs except Squash club requires fees. Besides RM5 upon registration, for fencing, it is RM80 per month for a 1-hour session per week whereas it is RM120 for three months of yoga sessions, 1-hour per week as well. However, Squash is totally free. Even squash rackets and balls and transport to the stadium are provided. Well, I joined not because it is free but in fact, I have been thinking of playing squash for quite some time.

Besides games, societies that I joined are: First Aid Club, Debate Club, Speaking Club( or Speech Club), AMSA( Asian Medical Students' Association), Community Service Club, CruisAiders, ISOW( Support for women's club), Buddhist Society.

Wow! I wonder if I would have enough time for the activities! But there's one good thing of joining clubs in IMU is that activity attendance is not compulsory, so it's flexible for you to join or not =)

朋友怎么啦

妈妈说，在大学里，我们很难找到知己。我说，在大学里，要找到跟自己有相同志趣的朋友就很难了。
我不至于没有朋友，但是，我并没有感觉到友谊的真挚，或许，自己跟人家的频率不一样吧。很多人会认为我是安静的人，或是没有个性，因为他们并不认识我。在人群里，我不喜欢多话，不喜欢花言巧语，不喜欢不实际的动作。然而，我总会迁就大众。小的事情，我可以很随意接受。
比起大学里的一些人，我算是幸运吧。虽然没有找到有相同话题的朋友，但是懊恼至少不是因为自己感觉孤单，而是需要时间选择适合的朋友。
来到大学，如同来到新的城市。这里有很多各式各样的人，实在一言难尽。
没有朋友偶尔会让人烦恼，但是总比认识猪朋狗友好吧。当然，这只是比较。我庆幸自己没有认识猪朋狗友，只是，各有兴趣。

我想，一切顺其自然吧。要来的，总会来；要去的，总会去。
相信缘份，做好本分吧。

dam good ... midpoint of inguinal ligament Vs. mid-inguinal point

What is the difference between the midpoint of inguinal ligament and the mid-inguinal point?
Hah hah!!

First of all, we have to know that the inguinal ligament stretches from the ANTERIOR SUPERIOR ILIAC SPINE(ASIS) to the PUBIC TUBERCLE. The PUBIC SYMPHYSIS lies just medial to the PUBIC TUBERCLE and is the fibrous joint between the 2 halves of the pelvis.

Well, now that we have a rough idea of the position of the ASIS, PUBIC TUBERCLE and PUBIC SYMPHYSIS...

The midpoint of inguinal ligmaent is halfway between the ASIS and the pubic tubercle, which is the position of femoral nerve. It is used in femoral nerve blocks.

Whereas the mid-inguinal point is halfway between ASIS and the pubic symphysis, which is the position of the femoral artery. It is used in palpation of femoral pulse.

Hurray~

1st week of school

Hurray...One week of plenary has passed.
Students in IMU carry out a lot of self-learning. We get very few hours of plenary (a.k.a. lectures) everyday, sometimes as few as 1 hour a day. We have to go online and download the lecture notes from the e-learning portal so that before the plenary, we already know what we are going to learn.

I came from a Chinese school so basically I have to translate everything that I learned into English. It wasn't that tough so far but I really have to keep the pace and I can't afford to stop learning at any point of the time. There are so much to learn.

In IMU, I guess students are not so worried if they get too busy. But if we feel too relaxed or have too much time to enjoy life, then that is worrying because we probably are not doing what we're supposed. 2 hours of plenary a day and the rest of the day it's free and easy. No, It's free, but not easy. You have to manage your time really properly and carefully so that you plan everything that you do and not waste a bit of time. Timing is crucial. If you want to learn well, you have to study or at least glance through the lecture notes before each lecture and meanwhile, you have to revise on what you learned on that particular day. 5 pages of lecture notes seem so little but if you study all the slides, you might realize that there are so much ambiguity that you need to tackle before it becomes too complicated.

So I guess this is the scary part of self-learning. Because you have to be so disciplined and so alert of what you should do. Your future is in your hands. This statement has been embedded in my head for so many years but only now I realize how true it is. Nobody is going to tell you what to do, where to find out things that you're unsure etc. You certainly have to even find someone to benchmark against so that you won't feel like you're not doing the right thing.

Gosh! It's so much of differences compared to high-school life.
No worries. I'm definitely going to tackle it!
All the best ---- with all the blessings!

FOCUS FOCUS

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!!
ORGANIZE!!!!!!!
PLAN!!!!!!!
TIME MANAGEMENT!!!!!!!1


I LOVE YOU =)

IMU =) muackssss

today is the first time i ever blog after entering IMU.

There are a lot of emotions going on here. And i feel like I'm walking in dark alleys, climbing up rocky mountains, swimming down the streams and standing on mountains. 

I met all kinds of people here. Basically there are more or less 260 of us in the same batch, ranging from 18 to 22 (from what i know). Everyone really comes from a different background. We speak English of all kinds of accents. Personalities and behaviours vary a lot from one person to another. But there's one thing that is similar, that is the enthusiasm in doing medicine. As I know, there are at least 60 JPA scholars in the batch, which means, there is a rather high percentage of 'genius-like' people here and also, it means, a lot of things out there would be a lot of competitions.

I think I've get used to the environment now. Vista and IMU. I walk to school happily everyday, hoping to meet more friends and get closer to my groupmates. I'm lucky and I appreciate a lot for meeting such nice fellas in the group. Well, at least, they do no harm to me and they bring a lot of joy.

Today we had the first plenary at LT3. It's about proteins. The lecturer is from India I guess, because of his accents. I like his class. And after the first lecture, I feel more like a university student now. 

There are a lot of self-learning and student-centred learning in IMU. We have 2 hours of plenary a day generally. And all the other time there should be no other activities. But I do not expect myself to spend the day facebooking, blogging or hanging around with friends. Exam will be in 6 months time and it would be the first filter, which means, and according to the statistics every year, there would be 10% of students (+-26) failing the exam. I DON'T WANT TO FAIL. Because I cannot afford to fail it. 

I did Biology in Chinese when I was in high school. And I am NOT any smart person. I have to spend a lot of time studying. Therefore, I can't be any other person in IMU who take up lots of other activities, have fun, so on and so forth. I must have GREAT time management so that I can manage stress as well. 

I just celebrated my 19-year-old birthday a few days before. Now that I am a Uni student, somemore a medical student, somemore I'm not a billionaire's daughter, I HAVE TO do well in IMU.

Regardless of anything, I just need to do well.

Remember:

1.Manage your time. as dad always says, Fix it now, Do it now. 

2.I am not smart. So work triple harder than any other people.

3.Enjoy. Do great deeds to change your life for the better.

Finally,

All the best =)