how time flies. it's very nearly the end of the basic clinical skills posting, and of course i've got this nagging feeling that my "basic" skills aren't really enough. it doesn't help that my cg was taught neuro just on friday and that seniors have gotten neuro long cases for csfc tests!

but it's been an interesting five weeks. there's been so much to learn, from the books and doctors and patients, that there was never a dull day. tiring yes, but never dull - the young man who's got his mitral and tricuspids destroyed due to a drug habit, the elderly gentleman who waited and waited till the growth on his scrotal skin grew into a huge, fungating, hemorrhagic mass that gave off a smell, and the poor patient who got toxic epidermolytic necrosis. very sad.

am pleasantly surprised and touched that the patients and their relatives and friends are so understanding about us examining them. of course some think we're the "big doctors" themselves, but the rest have been quite frank and open about talking to us. am grateful for that. there are nevertheless some who mask details about their history, but most of the time they've got dementia. i will never forget though that middle-aged gentleman (this is so final mb/mrcp) who exclaimed that he never had any blood in the urine ever before in his whole life etc etc, but had given a history of "gross hematuria" to the er doc. gosh.

on to non-medical stuff, attended a close friend's twenty-first last saturday. got me wondering about mine. it'll be at an inconvenient time (end of postings should be in that week) and my house isn't exactly party friendly (it's perpetually in a mess) so if i do decide to have one, i'll have to do it outside. hmmm. whatever, it's too far away for me to think about it right now.

and taylor hicks is the new american idol! yay! right from the start i've always rooted for him, as well as for lisa tucker. was pretty sad that lisa was knocked out, leaving the contrived and unoriginal paris bennet the only young, black female in the competition. granted, paris' voice does remind me of billy holiday, but c'mon, a sixteen yo trying to sound like a mature woman? gimme a break. anyway, i'm glad taylor won, even if his dancing sucks, simply because he's genuinely into the music he sings, and when he performs i want to get up from my couch and dance along. poor elliot and chris though. they both deserved better.

right-o, my surgery test's on thursday, medicine i don't know yet because the department is keeping the identities of our testers under wraps for now. osce's are on friday, and then - the hols!! whoohoo!