Intro for Anaesthetic Undergraduate Students

The student was standing on their tip-toes, peering over the drapes. They had barely looked at the ventilator, so engrossed were they in the surgery.  “So, are you here for anaesthesia, or for surgery?” our registrar asked.  The student turned. “Well… I am on my anaesthesia rotation, technically… but I’m actually interested in surgery.” Ten

The Last Weekend Of Mental Health Awareness Month: Watch This

Or: Guess who’s back. A little over two years ago, I heard of an old classmate working on a documentary project about bullying and discrimination in medicine. Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have written about bullying and discrimination before. The director and brains behind the project, Adil Khan, interviewed a few

Another Song for Medical Student, Interns, and Basically Everyone

I heard this song for the first time as I was driving to my New Year’s Day call on Friday. Apparently I’m the only person in the whole world who hasn’t heard it, but WHATEVER okay. I wept a little. THIS is what I want to say to people. To the new interns who are

A Song for Medical Students, Interns, and Basically Everyone

By now this is an old song, but I remember last year I thought: this is the song I want to dedicate to my class. I don’t know if I’ve always followed its advice. Have I grabbed every opportunity to LIVE? Perhaps not. But I’ll keep working on that. I keep saying this about medicine:

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.

A Letter to Final Year Medical Students

Trying to reduce your finals to a list of survival tips is a slap in the face of the hard work you have done, and will still do.

I PASSED MY FINAL YEAR!

I’m going to be a doctor!   Final year of med school done. Name badge with “Dr”: received. I’m officially on holiday for a month before I begin my job as Intern. Just an oath taking and a graduation still to come. It feel so unreal! I don’t know what else to say. Woooooohooooo!

Things That Kept Me Going Through Exams

I’m waiting on exam results (nail-biting!) but I remain surprised and grateful that I actually survived TWO hell-weeks this year. Our exams don’t only assess our competence as future doctors, but also our nerves. They are an emotional game, pushing us to our limits in the span of a week. I mean, they won’t admit

On the Go: Jetting off to MWASA 2014

Firstly: I survived hell-week! It was very different than the first hell-week in April. In April I was examined on two completely different subjects a day. This month it was one a day, but with much wider subjects like Internal Medicine and Paediatrics, so it was still an insane amount of work.

The Medical App You Should Get NOW (and an exam PSA)

Figure 1 might not be new to my international readers, but I am SO EXCITED to share that today the app launches in South Africa! I’ve been using the app a bit longer because I have access to an American iTunes account, but now it’s officially here and we can share some of our awesome medical images too! It is available on App Store and Google Play and you can download it here.