so

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Isn't this beautiful? Makes me want to go read Hamlet again. Because I can.

BECAUSE.

I passed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Awaits round of applause*

So until the time I decide to get onto a training program, which may well be 2 to many years away (hope not the latter) I AM FREEEEEEEEEE. Well, I am now enslaved by NSW Health but at least I can rearrange my bookshelf to look neat for a couple of weeks. LOL.

I realised I have spent 8 years in the University of Sydney. This is the longest stint I have ever stayed in any institution =0=;;;;;;

I now have all this paperwork to fill in and insurance to buy and unions to join and affairs to set in order.

I still have an 8 week term left before graduating but there are no immediate exams on the horizon, only painful EBMs and more paperwork.

To be honest I didn't feel very apprehensive (or sad, upon my heartless soul, or soulless heart) when I left high school for university. To me I didn't anticipate the environment being much different and I think in many ways that was true. The world got larger but you're still just as protected.

But I think this time I am a bit nervous, for a combination of reasons. I don't feel I know as much as I should, and certainly not as much as I can. There are suddenly real responsibilities, even if not a lot, and with enough safety netting to truss you up before you actually faceplant the ground. And I'll be at a new hospital where I'm unfamiliar with expectations because they train UNSW students, who in my pink idealised vision all have anatomy coming out of their ears, or that's what our rheumatologist said XD

Have I learned enough in four years? I feel like I've forgotten more of my medical science than I've picked up on the clinical. I used to remember the complement cascade! I used to be able to name you 8 different receptors and cytokines coming out of a T cell! I used to know the exact mechanism of antibody selection! I used to know what plate to culture a Staphylococcus on as opposed to an enterobacter!

I used to think I have good memory but now I think I need to upgrade all my hardware, starting with RAM, which may allow me to multitask more than what is humanly achievable in 24 hours. Wouldn't be lovely to use all that waiting around for late clinicians time for sleeping? Perhaps humans will evolve into a species that survives on microsleep.

Sometimes I feel EBM is driving the medical field towards too much protocols and guidelines. But maybe that's all we need. Maybe one day all we need is a sophisticated AI that can map differential diagnoses according to a survey of patient history, that can do cursory examination and investigations, then draw from known likelihood ratios what the likely diagnosis is. I have a feeling that the success is probably not going to be much different to a trained human. Maybe health will run like a factory. Patients are conveyor-belted from machine to machine for the appropriate imaging and blood tests. And they leave with a print out with their diagnosis and a packet of personalised pills.

Ah the future, how glad I am I do not live there. LOL.

Gosh there are so many movies on the Japanese Film Festival I want to see this year. Gantz 1 and 2, Arrietty, the funny-looking Takenouchi (the boss of Boss in Boss) and Mizukawa one, and maybe even Akunin.

I am so 'rupt.