Scott’s Spiel

So this is what my eyes currently look like. It’s not the greatest photo but I think you can still clearly see the difference in pupil size. Something like this would probably be taken as a sign of some quite bad problems in a patient. Thankfully however, this was brought on by the wonderful actions of tropicamide (0.5% - an antimuscarinic for all those that care).

Basically the point of lab this morning (possibly the best in a while) was to get us to use ophthalmoscope for the first time. This involved making everyone having one very dilated eye and the other with which to examine someone else’s very dilated eye. I now want an ophthalmoscope, purely because it’s the best thing I’ve used since a tendon hammer. Unfortunately they start at £80 so probably not until I actually need it.

The downside of one dilated eye and one responsive is that reading/writing or anything involving near vision (the pupils should contract for near vision but the tropicamide paralyses the ciliary muscles responsible for this) was quite blurred and is only now coming back (2-3 hours later).

I’ve also finished my coursework (rejoice!) which was all about monoamines (again, for those who care). This means I can probably go to the rugby tomorrow as well as Hampden, providing I get my uniform and kit bag today.

General, Medical, Uni

Well it’s time again for the annual phlebotomy job hunt. I could apply again and put a little bit more effort into the application. Then again I could just leave it. The battle going on at the moment is whether I have enough time to work as well as study, volunteer and keep a relationship going. Personally, I’m struggling as it is.

However, I really could do with the money. More so if I want to get a car this summer.

In the end I may end up applying, even just for kicks and giggles. Don’t get me wrong - I really do want to do it - but I’ll only know if I can cope when I start.

Interestingly it appears that no-one who reads this blog has a proper job. Perhaps that’s a sign that I shouldn’t either? Or that I should just to put all you lazy people to shame….

Read more…

General

Yes, that does mean I got my first choice for SSM. Huzzah!

This has possibly been one of the best days I’ve had in the last nth weeks. Last night I stayed late in the SL to get my PBL finished, which I managed. I also found time to go into town and look like a complete twat carrying around a bear from Make a Bear. The bear was for our VS tutor who is leaving after Christmas (to have a baby).

Today then I went into VS trying to disguise the quite large box containing a teddy bear. I managed it though and she seemed quite taken aback by it, which is always nice. In the meantime we did some more neurological exams, which I’m quite happy with now. It’s a good job too because next week I’m going (back) to Hairmyres to try it out on some proper patients. This should probably act as a warning to any potential musculoskeletal/neurological patients in Lanarkshire (who I’m sure frequent this blog) to avoid going to hospital next Thursday morning.

After VS I came home for a semi-decent lunch before going for, shock horror, a swim! It’s been so long since I’ve had a couple of hours fully free and was quite nice to just swim for some time.

I then went up to the library and managed to find my way around the cataloguing system to get a nice bit of light reading. Whilst there some older (I’d go early 30s) guy was very confused at the cataloguing system and really couldn’t find his book. After miss-hearing “psychology” for “physiology” and sending him on an extra hunt in the totally wrong place, I found out he wasn’t even looking in the right part of the floor. Poor guy eventually found his book and went back up to “where he belongs”.

Now I’m going to feast on my £1 cheesecake before having to get up early for my second Family Project visit. I tried to phone them to check that it was still OK for us to visit. However I only left a message and I don’t think she has my phone number. Hopefully she’ll get the message and be expecting us, how dreadful would a surprise visit be!

General, Uni

So for the last well…24 hours or so…I was thinking it would be really quite useful to have my calendar on my new phone (6500 classic) sync’d with the one on iCal. Even more useful would be having that also sync’d with my Google calendar. So began the hours of googling required to find out if it was possible. It is, with some very cool (yet geeky) results.

First thing’s first is getting the phone and Mac talking. Bluetooth is the way I’m going for that, cables are so last year. OS X also has iSync, which is pretty much what it sounds like - it syncs a large variety of devices with the Mac. Unfortunately mine wasn’t supported (it’s a new phone, perhaps that’s why?). Roll on Nova Media and their plugins. They had one which got my phone compatible with iSync. Unfortunately I had to fork out an, all be it small, fee for this.

This is then the easy bit where I click on the nice sync button and magically everything from iCal goes to my phone, all my phone calendar stuff to iCal and the address books sync as well just for giggles.

Sorted.

Set two of getting things from iCal -> gCal and also gCal -> iCal proved pretty difficult. You can quite easily subscribe to a feed in iCal which gets things from gCal. Unfortunately you can’t easy take things from iCal and automatically get them into gCal, unless you do it manually. I managed to find two hopefully looking pieces of software to help me out. GCALDaemon and Spanning Sync. GCALDaemon is freely available, whilst Spanning Sync gives 15 day trial followed by a $25 fee for a year.

At the moment I’ve went for the 15 day trial of Spanning Sync. I probably won’t keep it after the 15 days though when I’ll give GCAD a go and see if it does it just as good.

Spanning Sync was pretty easy to set up via system preferences and doesn’t need much explaining from me. I have it running every hour which is more than enough for me.

The last part of my puzzle was to try and get iSync to run without having to open it every time myself. After a long while of searching I came across a beta application knows as Home Zone. This simply performs actions whenever my Bluetooth device (phone) enters or leaves its detection. I have it set to run iSync (a built in option) when it enters the zone. This stops needless running of iSync when the phone isn’t around or Bluetooth is off.

Other software, such as Sailing Clicker exists and is perhaps a little more stable (as well as greatly more functional). Sadly this didn’t work with my phone and cost yet more of my limited cash funds.

So there you have it, phone < -> iCal < -> gCal. Just what I wanted and hopefully will be of some use to others.

I’ve took Home Zone a little further with some Actionscript so that when I leave my room iTunes pauses and the screen saver is activated. When I come back the screen saver drops, iTunes plays (there was no built-in unpause in Home Zone, Actionscript required) and iSync runs. Confused the hell out of my flatmate the first time I did it.

Geeky

Exciting times. Unlike first year when you do one chest examination and a bit of musculoskeletal stuff, second year feels a lot more “proper”. So far we’ve done a musculoskeletal screening test known as GALS and have gone over the basics of a neuro exam. Compared to first year it actually feels that we’re proper medical students. The timetable for all this vocational skills (VS) stuff is pretty busy. Next week we’ve got more neuro (plus a bit of CPR which should be easy enough for me) followed the week after by doing it on patients for real. At the moment we learn it on each other which is relatively save. Sadly our tutor is leaving us before Christmas. Considering she is probably the most organised person I’ve met yet on the course, I’m quite gutted about this. Hopefully we’ll get someone equally decent to replace her.

SSM deadline has been extended due to IT problems (which seems to be a recurring theme in medicine these days). My top choice (intro to pain management) currently has 20 people picked it as a first choice for 16 spots. How they decide who gets it we don’t really know, but the word on the street is that it is completely random. Compared to probably the most popular - addictions, which has 4 slots and over 25 first choices - I’ve got a fairly good shot of getting it. Hopefully find out on Monday. Hopefully.

Scotland vs. Italy tomorrow. We need to win to qualify. I’m not a betting person, but I can’t see us pulling this one out of the hat. If we do though, I’ll be very pleased. Since it’s playing at Hampden the whole of Glasgow seems to have gone manic. Scotland flags are a popular site outside of windows etc. I can’t help but wonder where I’d be watching it if my Disclosure was back now but I’ll have to settle for a local pub instead. Sad thing is I have noone really to go with.

General, Uni

They went for applicant’s who had more relevant experience.

Oh well. I feel quite down about it, so maybe I wanted it more than I thought I did. Or just need money and don’t want a “proper” job.

Then went to volunteer for Save a Baby’s Life which is very similar to St Andrew’s so probably doesn’t highlight my “all-roundedness” as a person. Why is it that I should be thinking about making my CV look good already? Competitiveness sucks. Either way though, I’m doing stuff others aren’t, which can’t be a bad thing.

General

So I was quite surprised today by an email letting us know that the SSM1 choices were going up at 4pm and we had to select the ones we were interested in by 5pm on Friday. Unlike previous years there was no first-come-first-served policy (apparently) so no need to rush and pick them. I did that anyway.

We have to select 6 ranking them in preference from a list of about 20. My top preference is “An introduction to pain management” which is vaguely clinical and quite interesting. It only has 16 spots though so whether I get it or not is a different matter. My 2nd is an anatomy SSM which has 56 slots so if I don’t get the pain one I’ll hopefully get that. If not (gulp!) my 3rd is something about viruses. If that falls through (major gulp!) I could be doing Spanish or French or finally RBC antigens. The languages was quite a brave attempt for me, as I really dislike them. However, it’s useful at least so I wouldn’t mind doing them if I have to. Spanish was first as I know a little French already and my parents don’t know any Spanish (which was always a reason for not enjoying French!).

Have no idea when we actually find out what we’re doing. I’m hoping next week but I can’t see it happening. We don’t do this SSM till February so I was quite impressed with this organisation from the medical school. It’s certainly a change.

SRC interview tomorrow. At a difficulty on what I should wear. Probably end up going formal, though I don’t like it. Could be employed by my next blog post. Isn’t that scary!

General, Uni

Option A.

Disclosure is now on its was out. Only a month or so later than when it should’ve done but what can I do. Will be giving Disclosure Scotland a ring in a few weeks if I still haven’t got it back. So frustrating.

I do however have the SRC interview on Tuesday. The problem I’m having with this interview is that I’m only slightly determined about getting the job. My last proper interview - medicine admissions - was someone I obviously felt a lot more strongly about making a good impression. If I get this job, however, it’ll probably mean even more pressure on my already hectic timetable. That said I’d probably fit it in. The money is also something I kind of need these days. I’ll see how it goes, can’t really do much else.

I was watching attentively today as the 2014 Commonwealth Games were awarded to Glasgow. Firstly I loved the mess the BBC made of the announcement - turning away from the Sri Lanka feed to some school and turning back in time to miss the decision.

I feel it’s pretty good news for Glasgow though, especially the East end. This will turn some much needed attention over there and hopefully influence some changes that will remain after the games have gone. The next 7 years will probably be hell for getting around the East end as things change but I’m determined to look on the bright side.

I don’t know how things like First Aid will work for them, but by then I’ll (touch wood) be qualified which should be interesting. There is also the chance that I’ll be nowhere near Glasgow by then but I can’t see that being very likely (unless there is more job mayhem).

I was pretty annoyed to read comments by people on the BBC’s Have Your Say attempt at a forum saying various things along the lines of “another thing for the English taxpayer”. They seem to have forgotten all about the (probably much more expensive) Olympics and a host of other things that rarely benefits anyone out of London. I was quite happy about London getting the Olympics so I can’t see why so many people are annoyed about us getting the Commonwealth Games. Some people are much too bitter by anything these days, it’s a wonder they don’t just move away. End rant.

General

So 6+ weeks is a long time to wait for a Disclosure. Especially when I’ve already had two done previously and Disclosure Scotland has the waiting time of about 14 days. As I was looking at this last night I found out that Disclosure Scotland can be contacted to find out about the process of a Disclosure. They recommend however we contact the Registered Body first to see if they still have it, which for me is CRBS.

Gave them a ring this morning and they were having none of it. They said that St Andrews had to contact them to go “through security”. Sounds like the PC culture speech for “we’re too scared of what might happen if you’re not who you say you are”. Personally, that just sounds stupid. They must, at least, be able to do a quick check on their system and see if they even received a Disclosure in my name. I could tell them virtually every detail on it if they wanted me to prove who the hell I am.

Disclosure Scotland obviously agreed with me. The member of staff I received when I phoned was only too happy to check whether they had received my Disclosure or not. After taking a few details he told me I had one in 2005 and 2006 but none this year. Great, where the hell is it then?

I’ve come up with 3 options:

1. It’s still at St Andrews doing god knows what
2. It’s at CRBS gathering dust or something
3. It’s lost in the post

Even if we take the best of these and assume CRBS sent it today, I won’t get it for another 2 weeks at least. If we look at the worst it could be another month at least, after I fill out another form.

Personally though I’m more annoyed that because of the bureaucracy involved one part of the process is happy to converse with me and the other isn’t. Just highlights another flaw in this whole system. Gah!

Rant