Quantum44’s Medical Journey

[Quantum44]

Sounds great, Quantum!

I remember my first practical anatomy session. You really appreciate how people donate their bodies to science to educate future medical professionals. You get desensitised to the cadavers after a while, so it's nice for me to have a reminder about this!
I reckon it's really cool that they do a memorial service.

Good luck for the rest of your week!

Yeah, I think it’s always good to realise how normal people feel about seeing the kind of things that health professionals deal with on a regular basis. I’ll be interested to see what the service is like, but definitely amazed at the people who have actively volunteered to donate their body for medical students.

Wasn't even aware that you'd started Med at Adelaide! So glad to see you kicking goals, mate. Not in the slightest bit surprised that you made it, but still great to see you have.

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences—Adelaide Uni is fantastic (have some friends there finishing their final year) and I am sure you will enjoy it a lot


Also, crazy that you had your first Anatomy Lab on day 1! As K888 said, a really full on experience. Hopefully down the track you'll reflect on how you felt at that point and how foreign, and indeed bizarre, that experience was.

Yeah I really like how the course is structured so definitely looking forward to the next six years.

Anatomy on first day was very full on, I was expecting at least some kind of buffer period beforehand. I think the whole cadaver thing will become frighteningly normal very quickly, so I’m keen to hold onto this experience.

Anatomy sounds super cool! I know at Monash they have some sort of 3D printing machine for body parts, do they have that in Adelaide? At what point during the course do you start dissection?

I think we have dissection once a term, not sure exactly when. The anatomy labs are actually in the old med school so there isn’t any crazy tech. All the other classes are in the amazing AHMS building, which has a lot of tech and some really cool simulation facilities that are designed to replicate the environment of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. There are quite a few sessions where we do integrated learning with nursing students and get to practice teamwork in the context of responding to clinical scenarios, which is really awesome.

[K888]

Anatomy sounds super cool! I know at Monash they have some sort of 3D printing machine for body parts, do they have that in Adelaide? At what point during the course do you start dissection?

Just on the Monash 3D printing - what's even cooler is seeing the 3D printed model next to the specimen it was modelled off. Really cool. The anatomy lab is awesome!
It's a great learning tool, but still also not as good as the real deal.

[Quantum44]

Now that a few weeks on uni have passed by, I thought it would be talk a bit about my experience. The primary mode of learning in the preclinical years is CBL, which can often be infuriating. We just finished our first case, which was about someone coming in with chest pain due to ischaemic heart disease. Having to learn all the anatomy and physiology of an organ while learning pathology and pathophysiology at the same time is quite overwhelming, particularly since you have to teach yourself with minimal direction. Despite this, I’m getting the hang of it, and I can see the usefulness of having the skills to teach yourself in a career that is continually evolving. My CBL group is also really cohesive, and I’m finding the content of medicine incredibly interesting.

This Tuesday, they have simulated patients coming to clinical practice so we can test our history taking skills. I’ll admit it’s pretty intimidating as everyone in my clin group will be watching and judging me but I’ve been practicing quite a bit and have a good structure ready, so hopefully everything goes well. I’m also doing a practice SJT on Tuesday for research purposes. Apparently med admissions at Monash, UNSW and UAdel want to incorporate a SJT into the process. They’ll correlate the SJT scores with ATAR, UMAT and interview and also test the validity by seeing if SJT performance can predict academic performance in med. I guess if anyone reading this in high school is interested in doing undergrad med, the SJT could be something to bear in mind.

[K888]

That first paragraph resonates with me so much, Quantum - story of my life 😂 my most recent CBL case was also ischaemic heart disease haha.

[Quantum44]

That first paragraph resonates with me so much, Quantum - story of my life 😂 my most recent CBL case was also ischaemic heart disease haha.

Makes you wonder why you pay the university so much when you have to teach yourself everything

[Quantum44]

It’s a been a while since I made an update. Quite a lot has happened in the last couple of months. I’ve been enjoying soaking up the knowledge, however there are a lot of assessments coming up so I’m now glad that the course isn’t graded. Just had an oral case presentation in clin today (apparently they do these in hospitals so I guess it’s a useful skill) along with doing GI histories. Next week we have a clinical reasoning test, MPPD quiz and FBS test. Then the week after it’s the anatomy spotter exam and clin case write up. At this point I’m looking forward to swotvac.

As for the course structure, I think it’s pretty good. By the end of the semester we’ll have done all of cardiovascular, respiratory and GI systems in CBL along with all the clinical skills for those areas. Thankfully there is only one med exam this semester, a MKE (medical knowledge exam) which combines everything we have learned into 90 MCQs.

On reflection, it’s pretty insane how much I’ve learned in the past few months. The amount you’re expected to know is huge, but I’m enjoying the challenge so far. Uni really is so different to high school. The societies are also really great. Recently there was a clinical skills night for pre-clin students, which included cardiac arrest and pregnancy simulations as well as practice at taking blood. There’s also going to be an introduction to emergency medicine, with heart attack and anaphylaxis simulations, which I’m really excited for.

[Quantum44]

Quick update since I haven’t posted since last semester. On a whole, I was pretty happy with how I went in semester 1. I did well in my medical exam so I am quite sure I have a good study routine going, and I continued going to the gym frequently while balancing a good social life. I’d say the only things I’m struggling with right now are diet and sleep, which seem difficult to get under control.

In terms of study, right now I’m taking a quick break from memorising the infuriating amount of muscles in the forearm for the upper limb case which starts tomorrow (safe to say orthopaedics is definitely out). In clin, we are doing neuro exams, which are pretty fun and interesting, something I need to get through the case for this week.

[Quantum44]

Since the year has pretty much come to an end, I thought it would be nice to wrap up my thoughts on the first part of my journey.

I think the year has been defined by a degree of uncertainty. I, along with many others in my cohort, was thrown into a new city having just finished high school. Being an 18 year old, your level of wisdom and experience is very low, yet from day one when you’re being lectured in the anatomy labs, you know the expectation is that in six years you will become a knowledgeable and respectable professional. Even now, it seems like there is an unbridgeable gap between where I am now and where I must be at the end of my degree, despite all I have learned this year. I think one of the great things about undergrad med is that you get to learn and mature with your cohort, but I can see the appeal of being able to have some experiences before starting med school.

There’s also the ironic juxtaposition or expectations of medical students to act professionally and the reality. Everyone acts so professionally during CBL, clinical skills and medical professionalism tutorials, but when it gets to the weekend it becomes a haze of intoxication and other seedy activities. I’m certainly guilty of indulging in these activities myself and I don’t necessarily believe they are of issue, it just feels strange.

I think mental health also has to be brought up. It honestly feels like most of my friends and people I know suffer from some form of depression or anxiety. I’m not saying that this is an issue exclusive to med school or even university, but I never really realised how prevalent it is, and I definitely feel it is something that needs to be urgently addressed.

Now finally onto exams. I was quite disappointed with my OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) mark. I’ll admit I’m fairly used to receiving solid enough grades but I knew from the start this would be tough as my strength is definitely written exams. I did plenty of practice on history taking and doing physical exams and I honestly don’t know where I went wrong. In the end I think it might be because I’m a naturally shy person and I didn’t sound confident enough, but I’ll have to find out. It’s definitely shaken me a bit as I’m concerned that I can’t be a good doctor no matter how hard I study because I’m too introverted. Hopefully I can figure out how to improve next year.

On the topic of next year, I’m looking forward to doing an elective relating to neurological diseases in semester 2. It feels good to at least be able to finally choose one subject for myself, and it’s certainly an area I’m particularly interested. I also dabbled in some research in human neurophysiology this year and I’m hoping to expand upon that next year. Not really sure how involved you can get as an undergrad student but I guess I’ll find out.