Vampy's Weblog - Life of a Medical Officer

I'm backkkk... I arrived yesterday night and after a restful night... I'm feeling much better. The weather is just great... It's chilly. I hope this chilly weather lasts. Tomorrow I'll be starting my term again and I'm doing the Community term - GP/ Family practice. Not sure whether I'll enjoy it or not.

I really enjoyed myself during my Paediatrics term - so much fun with the kids. Doing the paediatrics term reaffirmed my plan to specialise in paediatrics in the future if I can. I'm not too sure if I can re-tune my mind to a mostly adult practice. But the good news is that for the next 5 months, there NO EXAMS! Yipee!

I passed all my paeds assessments and now I'm looking forward to going home for the next few months. I hate packing...It's amazing how much junk you can accumulate during the years. Anyhow, I'll be flying off this weekend and I'll be without computer for the rest of thr week as I need to pack my room up before I leave. Sigh... so much to do...so little time...

I'm halfway through my term in Paediatrics and I must say I'm enjoying it a lot more than adult medicine. The only part I'm not enjoying is the umpteen number of paperwork I have to get signed off on as well as the lectures and tutorials. I'm the kind of guy who learns more when I am asked to do something rather than sit passively in a room and absorb knowledge. I a couple of weeks, I have my paediatrics exams and I'm really at a loss of what to focus on. Paediatrics is like a whole new branch of medicine.

Why do I enjoy paediatrics? Cos' I get to play with the kids with talking to them/ their parents. Fine, I'm a big kid. I can make the most ridiculous faces and sounds and get away with it. I get to play with the nice toys in the wards and clinics. Call me crazy ! And I think kids are the cutest! No matter how bad your day is, kids can do the darnest thing and you'll just crack up or just simply smile.

How about the parents, you say? True some parents can be quite a pain in the ass but most of them are just anxious parents. If you can help alleviate their anxiety even by 1%, they are more than grateful. Sometimes, they just want someone to tell them they are not crazy/ hallucinating.

I got my results for my final exams yesterday - and I PASSED!!! Yippee! Starting coming Monday I'll be in 4th and final year of my studies... OMG! How time flies. I'm just so glad I passed this exam. I'm looking forward to my first rotation for 4th year - Paediatrics. It's what I hope to be able to specialize in the future. In 4th year, each rotation lasts for 9 weeks with exams every 9 weeks or so.

Also, I'll be doing one of my rotations back in Singapore - General Practice as well as a 4 week elective in Paediatrics. So I'll be away from Sydney for about 4 months or so before coming back to Sydney for another 4 weeks of electives - again in Paediatrics. AS you can see I'm on a one-track mind right now. Hopefully paediatrics works out for me.

I went celebrating with some of my classmates yesterday at one of our favorite Korean restaurant in Glebe. It's a cozy little place run by a Korean couple and they served the most delicious Korean dishes ever and it's modestly priced! After that scrumptious dinner, we proceeded to my classmate's apartment and had a couple bottles of sparkling wine...I really like the wine from Brookewood. Too bad we forgot about strawberries. Anyway, I started my journey home half-past eleven.

I managed to catch a train just past midnight. Then to my horror! When we were halfway through the journey, an announcement came saying that due to signal failure at one of the downstream station, the train is unable to proceed and were asked to remain the train to receive further instructions. We waited...and waited...and waited some more... Finally about half hour later, they told us that buses have been dispatched to send us to our respective stops and were asked to alight from the train.

So mass exodus of people from the train made their way to the road to catch the bus. We waited for about 20 mins with no buses in sight despite being reassured that the buses will be there is about 5-10 mins. Then a second announcement came and told us that a train is now able to take us back. So once again, we boarded another train. We then realised that the train is going to take the long detour in order to bypass the station. So by the time I reach home, it was past 3am... I just spent 3 hours traveling on what is usu. at most 45 mins journey. Sigh.. the delights of CityRail.

Hi, all! I've been having 2 weeks of holis since my exams ended and yesterday I went and watch Josh Groban's Awake World Tour Concert here in Sydney Opera House. I've been looking forward to the concert (Read my other post on my blog) for so long. It was worth the $150 I spent - I was about 10 rows from the stage. The concert started off with Josh singing "You are Loved (Don't Give Up)" with him shrouded behind a massive white satin drape which fell down in one swift motion during the climax of the song -revealing Josh on stage. Everyone was ecstatic! Mostly he sang a collection of songs from his latest album "Awake" but did everyone's favourite - "You Raise Me Up" as he last song. This was my first time attending his concert and boy! did he blow me away! He stand true to his commitment of putting his heart and soul to every single note he sang. I was truly touched by his voice. One fan put up a sign which says "Josh, can we exchange our drum sticks with yours. We brought ours." Guess what Josh did! He exchange his drum sticks with that of the fan!

The highlight of the whole concert for me was when he actually walked past the very aisle that I was seated (right past me!)... OMG! I manage to shake his hands and he was so great about interacting with his fans that he took as much time as he can to shake our hands while singing the song. Of course, you can't say you've been to a concert without buying the merchandise - I bought a hoodie, a coffee mug and the program book. Below are some photos and a short clip of Josh singing "You Raise Me Up" in the concert. This was indeed my most memorable and enjoyable concert I've been.

Josh in the aisle I was seated...

Josh Groban singing You Raise Me Up