begin the begin

I am an FY1 (Foundation Year 1) doctor. There are 2 Foundation Years in total and we go through 6 rotations of 4 months each. I was in ENT (ear, nose and throat) and I quite enjoyed it because there was good senior support and I know I won't mess things up because they are around to help me. 

On the 3rd of December earlier this month, I moved to my 2nd rotation, Urology (kidneys, bladder, urinary problems, prostate). Initially, I thought it would be a crazy rotation but now that it's 4 weeks into the rotation, it's not too bad tbh. 

tik tok

Ever since I started working, I feel like there is just not enough time. I think I am not as organised as I was a medical student. 

You leave home early in the morning, you come home in the evening and then you have to cook (well, I don't cook that often heh), have dinner, do chores, sleep and do it all over again the next day.

It's so much different to being a student. Back in my medical school years, I can happily study whenever I want to throughout the day. Now, I have to work during my hours and I can't just disappear to the library to study whenever I want to. I have to hang around, I have patients under my care, I have expectations that I have to meet. And I also have this noisy bleep. It is a really stressful environment. But yeah, working in Malaysia would definitely be more challenging.

marry you

She made a cake and we brought it to our first ever daurah as husband & wive :)

Yesterday was the 3 monversary (month + anniversary; if there's even such a word :P) of my marriage to my lovely wife, Sarah. I know I have put this blog on super long hiatus but I think it's time to start writing back, bit by bit ;)

I also found out that she has a blog and I love her writing so much that I decided not to share it with you guys, lol kidding. So there's probably won't be a blog entitled "being us" anytime soon.

So let's start with something simple; which is basically a question asked by one of my bffs, Syukri regarding what it feels like to be married & I think I just let the screenshots tell you all about it.

legacy

Just to be clear, this post is simply for my reading. But I don't mind if you want to read it too. As you probably know, I write on this blog because I want to remember things..it's an alternative to writing them in my journal.

I named it "legacy" because it was one of the names of our university email account which had changed a no of times throughout the 5 years. I like this name the most.

So I learned that we're going to lose access to our university address soon. Thus, I transferred some of the emails which I wanted to keep to my business email address and for some, I put them on my blog so I can look at them whenever I want to :D

Let's go right from the bottom end of my inbox:

1. Random Fling

Gambar hiasan. Source: click me

It's the university's Frisbee team which I joined from the first few years. I saved the files on play tactics to my computer in case I want to use them in the future, hahaha.

the only exception

So now you know why I was so stressful in the weeks leading up to the resits. In addition to the thought about repeating the whole of Final Year, I also have an additional worry in mind..

via FB

As always, no matter how good our plan is, Allah's plans are the best. Everything went according to the original plan apart from my failures in #FebFinals. The things which happened perfectly include:

i knew you were trouble

Some things..

medschool's going down.

over you

It's over. I defeated you. 

I managed to slay you by achieving perfection in multiple stations. Alhamdulillah, again another miracle from Allah has been bestowed upon me and I am ever so thankful for He'd given me a happy ending from this long arduous journey. 

"You just remember who the enemy is"

Statistics

Now, I'm going to talk about the double OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) that I faced in April 2013. Firstly, let me just tell you about the statistics for #FebFinals:

91 out of 332 Final Year students failed the OSCEs

It's definitely a huge no of failures. So if you're one of those who failed, you shouldn't be too scared cause almost a third of the year failed. Hence, the failure rate of Nottingham Medical School for 2014 is 27.41%.

70 failed OSCE1 and 41 failed OSCE2. So yeah, still a huge no for both.

But if you failed both (like I did), you're one of the Top 20. Doesn't sound that many now, does it? And because 20 is a smaller number and knowing that I'm facing double OSCEs, the odds were not in my favour. I woke up everyday during this difficult period realising that I'm one of the 20 who have a higher chance of being eliminated.

This is double OSCEs okay! It's like facing double elimination challenge on Masterchef Australia. 

The Double Elimination Challenge

Alhamdulillah, this was the timetable..

I had a day between the 2 OSCEs. Lama okay tak dapat gap between OSCEs, huhu.

OSCE 1

12 stations of 6 mins each 
(Allowed to fail 2 stations only regardless of your marks)

In Feb, I failed 3 stations, hence an overall fail.

In Apr, I put down 4 stations as the ones I'm worried about:

1. Cardio - The examiner was asking me about systole/diastole and I was confused but before the time ran out, I shushed him and said in the most confident way about what happens in systole and he nodded. Result: PASS

Source: Click here

2. Prescribe IV fluids - The wild card station from last year which made a lot of my senior colleagues questioning what they were supposed to do in the station. Now I know how it felt like. I was not even sure of what I was supposed to do. Result: PASS with a borderline mark

3. Set up IV infusion - The examiner was one of my fav Teaching Fellows. But since she let me struggled to find the cap at the end of the IV tube for 2 mins, she's out of my fav list. Didn't complete it at all. Result: FAIL

Source: Click here

4. Cervical spine - Another wild card station from previous year. I knew what I had to do. and believed that my examination was flawless. It was C6 but apparently, the examiner didn't even know what C6 does. Seriously, dia tak tau C6 is elbow flexion pastu boleh jd examiner. Corrupt sungguh. Panas aku dengan examiner ni. I looked at my marksheet and knew that I didn't get full marks for most items. Yelah, dah knowledge si mamat examiner ni pon sangat questionable. Kalau tak tau C6, gi masuk balik medschool la wei! Haha. Result: FAIL

So yeah, the no of stations that I'm worried about was 4 which is similar to my first attempt in Feb but alhamdulillah, since I only failed 2 stations, I passed! Not going to meet any more slackers iA.

They weren't all bad stations. Let's talk about the things that gave me hope..

1. Radiology - I started with Radiology as my 1st station AGAIN! How ironic is that?! And who's the examiner? My funny, handsome and awesome Radiology consultant. I showed him that I can talk about X-rays like water gushing out of my mouth, lol.

Source: Click here

lightning

It was raining heavily on that Friday, 9th of May 2014. The sound of thunder roared through the heavens above and lightning illuminated the darkened atmosphere of Shah Alam. The time was around 5.30 pm and the lights in the house blacked out; I knew that the result was going to be released via email at 7 pm Malaysian time (12 noon in the UK). Then I remembered that my little brother Irfan was scared of lightning. When Irfan was a toddler, he would startle when he sees flashes of bright light during a heavy downpour. So I went downstairs to stay with my little brother in the dark.. at least, if he's scared, he has someone next to him.

Source: click me

While waiting for the rain to subside, I can't help worrying and thinking about the revelation which was about to come. The thought of facing the whole 5th Year all over again was too daunting for me to comprehend. Then I suddenly remembered a verse in the chapter, Thunder (Ar-Ra'd, 13). I decided to have a look at it when the power's back on.

hold on, we're going home

It has been a really tough week for the 91 of us. The OSCEs: All Stars weren't easy but we made it through the week. Now, it's just the wait for the revelation.

And I'm flying home this Friday for my elective period which I have been fighting for persistently since 4th Year. I definitely earned this trip to go back home..I fought 3 times for it well, 4 if you include the Finals:

1. Obs and Gynae MACCS (Mandatory Assessment of Core Clinical Skills) resit

2. May 2013 - Obs and Gynae resits

3. Nov 2013 - Paeds resit

Yeah, my journey has not been that smooth. I survived all of the above and managed to secure my elective period. Sure, I eventually lost a few weeks due to #FebFinals but at least, I'm still going home, alhamdulillah.

Just need to hold on...