I Hate Med School – And That’s Okay

I hated the selfishness I saw festering in my colleagues. I hated noticing how our passions died, how we began to work just hard enough to get through the day. Dreams clinical and humanitarian prowess fell by the wayside, and we shuffled forward towards that degree like zombies past their expiration dates.

Presenting a Patient: Lessons from Alice in Wonderland

It is my last week of Internal Medicine, which means several tests, portfolios, and an OSCE. Gotta admit, Internal Med has been harder than usual this year, and I was shaking like a leaf before the exam began today. As you can see, I survived. It actually went reasonably well, so now I just have

Tips for Third Years Starting Rotations

Scheduled post. Our third years will be starting their first REAL rotations soon. I thought I would share some tips for hospital rotations in honour of that very exciting milestone.

If I Could Teach Them One Lesson

Registrars are meant to be clever people. Duh, they’ve graduated medicine and practised a few years and are brave enough to specialise. I’ve seen a lot of registrars do a lot of stupid things, but I won’t dwell on that because that’s not what today is about. I recently heard a registrar complain, “If you

Le Document Pour MB.ChB.III

The inspiration for this document came during my second year while studying for an end-of-block test. At the same time, the then-first years were studying for Pathology, aided by “Le Document”. Somewhere in this time period I looked at a fellow second year, threw my hands in the air rather dramatically and exclaimed, “I wish

Book Review: A Life in Pieces

This past year, one of my modules was Psychiatry. Matters of psychiatry have the potential to scare me, having heard of patients who tried to harm my fellow students. My clinical psychiatry rotation will take place in my fifth year, and I am trying to build my knowledge and my confidence sufficiently so as to

I am now half a doctor

I suppose it is appropriate to share the good news on Thanksgiving, even though we do not really celebrate the holiday in South Africa: I passed my third year final examinations. If you have been following this blog, you will know that I started the year with the will to be a “better student” and

Surgery Woes

The day you start Med School, everyone tells you that it is nothing like Grey’s Anatomy. And when, two years later, you are finally unleashed upon the poor unsuspecting state patients, you realise: it’s exactly like Grey’s. Except, funnily enough…  in surgery. I finally made it to my third year abdominal surgery rotation. It is

Inspired by the Elderly

After you’re older, two things are possibly more important than any others: health and money.  Helen Gurley Brown I am currently on my Family Medicine Rotation. We visited a nearby old-age home yesterday. I was not really looking forward to it, but it blew my mind.

A Reason I Love My Clinical Group*

Me: Y’all have to be nice to me. I have the Apley’s**. Guy 2: We have a better textbook. Me: Which one? Guy 1: Apples Me: That’s not a textbook. And I prefer naartjies. Guy 1: It is. An apple a day keeps the doctor in. * I sincerely hope you find this as hilarious