Desperado

you know how when we in primary school and all the "model compositions" used to describe a person pinching himself to wake himself from a bad dream?

i wished i could do that now. i think i speak for my batch when i say it has been the worse two weeks of exams ever, with more carnage to come. misfortune does not come in threes, it comes in sixes. every exam day, we all picked ourselves up while nursing the wounds from the previous day, and marched towards the inevitable outcome.

here's a summary of the written papers:

surgery essays - two on trauma, including one special discussion on trauma in a pregnant patient, one whole question on the entire obstetrics, and one on pid. yes, a surgery paper with NO surgery question.

surgery osse - high level o&g instruments (fetal scalp monitoring and urodynamic transducer anyone?) and a few weird questions.

surgery mcqs - torn between two lovers and feeling like a fool. after cancelling out 3 options, many of us were left with 2 choices, and it was a toss of the coin to decide which option to shade. most of time, we chose wrong.

medicine essays - absence seizures! kawasaki's! dengues! af! NINE marks on the management of absence seizures! go figure.

medicine mcqs - as someone said, tossing a coin had never been more useful in an exam before. i don't think i could have described it any better.

medicine meqs - the jews in the concentration camps were told that they were going for baths - and proceeded to step into the gas chambers. history repeated itself today when we were told at the start "it'd be an easy paper - we don't want to kill you", and then we clicked on the scenarios. mumbler has only seen one status in her life - today she was expected to manage one complicated by anaphylaxis. mumbler has always believed in ruling out life threatening conditions whenever a patient presents - today she was expected to reach a diagnosis after ONE investigation. mumbler has always been taught the standard work up for a man with cough and loss of weight was down the sputum-chest x ray path - today she was introduced to using a BMA to nail a diagnosis of haematogenous TB.

i just think we signed up for the wrong paper. maybe we mistakenly chose "mrcp/mrcs" instead of "mbbs", methinks.

there's no time to waste. surgery clinicals on saturday. the conveyor belt is bringing us closer to the tiger's mouth.