Merry X-mas!

<3

Winter holidays!

So. Cardiology exam was uh. Last Friday. I'm not sure if I passed it or not, but to the AMC-Uva's second-years of the future: study hard and study well.
You. Will. Need. It.

Because that's exactly how I felt during my exam. I attended nearly all of the lectures (and no, I was not stealing glances at my rather interesting classmate!) and rewatched/reread the slides at home as well. And I still feel like I ruined my exam. Ugh.

But on a positive side-note. I have winter holidays. And no retakes (I'm sorry for those who do have to retake an exam. Best of luck, loves!)
So I can finally pick up my weapons and handhelds again. Aww yes!

うるさい, ばかやろう!

(Title: Urusai, bakayaro! Japanese for "Shut up, (you) idiot!")

There are several things I absolutely detest..

"It gets easier in Y2/M2.."

No. No, it doesn't. Not at all.
Not for us Dutchies.
It's bloody Friday night, and I'm up studying. Still.

What are they doing tonight?

Proficiat

No room for breathers..

-

This bonus pt test..

.. What the hell?!

I PASSED I PASSED I PASSED!

Wooo!
I passed 2.1 - Sexual Reproduction and Embryology!

2.2 E-learnings

Dit is voor de lazy bitches die op een of andere manier wel de e-learnings maken, maar te lui zijn om na te denken.
Wordt bijgewerkt wanneer ik daar zin in heb.

KWM..

KWM E-Learnings

Jongens, jongens, jongens.. Wat is dit toch een vreselijk vak.

Will be edited until all e-learnings have been included.
Answers might seem off because the e-learnings do contain mistakes, and are sometimes from wayyy past.

>_>

Gynaecology (Gross Anatomy) Mandatory E-Learning Answers

Antwoorden Ingangstoets Gynaecologische Anatomie 
Hello, my pretties~

Today, I bring you the (partly) correct answers to the mandatory e-learning test for the Gynaecology Gross Anatomy Lab.. Thing..
I'm leaving out the 'drag the arrow to X structure' questions because I'm lazy and don't want to spam this page with pictures.
If you do not screw up those questions and keep to these answers provided, you'll get a score of ~90%, which is more than enough to gain entry to the anatomy lab!

<3

• Elk os coxae bestaat uit drie botten; het os ilium, het os ischii en het os pubis. Waar komen de drie verschillende botstukken van het os coxae bij elkaar?
  Acetabulum
  

Shhh!

To those of you who have either cleverly deduced my identity, or who have somehow been entrusted with my secret..

SHUT UP!

Self-Medication: Yay or Nay?

Weekend, weekend, weekend! <3

Yeah! I love my weekends! Sleeping, eating, and shopping, huzzah!
Okay, back to the point. I went shopping because I needed to get some meds; anti-inflammatories and the accompanying proton pump inhibitors, because I'm not very fond of gastric ulcers.

Vaardigheidsonderwijs V2.2.2. Gynaecologisch onderzoek

I'm having the greatest fun watching people google for the answers only to come up on the prank page.

Here be the REAL answers:
Vaardigheidsonderwijs Ingangstoets V2.2.2 Gynaecologie

1.   A = Mons pubis

      B = Prepuce of clitoris

      C = Urethral opening

      D = Vestibule

      E = Hymen (torn)

      F = Perineum

      G = Anus

      H = Posterior Fourchet

      I = Labia majora

      J = Vaginal entrance

      K = Labia minora

      L = Glans of clitoris

Confession #2: The Prankster

Alright guys,

For those of you who are med students at AMC-UvA, and who are currently (at the time of me writing this) in year 2: you're probably well aware of the prank I pulled on you guys. The one which features this:

Antwoorden Vaardigheidsonderwijs Ingangstoets V2.2.2 Gynaecologie

Bio Inc.

Hey guys!

Look what I found this Friday evening!
I was looking for a Plague Inc-like game, and ta-da!
This is Bio Inc. Your goal in this game is to kill off a single person using a disease which you control.
The funny thing is that you can give this person a name of your choice!
So if you really dislike someone, this is your chance to kill that person in your imagination/in game-form.

Pelvic Exam Mandatory E-Learning Answers

Antwoorden Vaardigheidsonderwijs Ingangstoets V2.2.2 Gynaecologie

Sleep..

Is for the weak.

New academic year! New opportunities! New chances to get that bloody A+ for whatever exam..
And of course, another chance to try to learn how to deal with <7 hrs of sleep a day.
I'm starting the year with 2.1 - Reproduction and Embryology (rough translation), and by the gods, my time table sucks.

Y1: Check!

Hey all!

Sorry for disappearing suddenly. After 4 weeks of nursing assistant interns, I'd had enough of it ('it' being the healthcare world), so I decided to take a break.
It's a good thing we have 2 months of summer holidays over here (provided you pass all your courses in one go, which I did. Luckily.).

I've passed my 1st year of med school with acceptable to awesome grades, so the propaedeutics (or the 'P', as we Dutchies call it) is in the pocket.
Med school starts in 1.5wk, and we'll be starting with 2.1 - Reproduction and Development. I'll also be starting Forensics as an elective. I'm rather looking forward to that.
Did you know I once considered a career in Criminology (to be more specific, criminal profiling)?

I'm also secretly very proud of my unofficial sorts-of mentee, who will be starting med school this year. Kid, if you're reading this, I wish you the best of luck. You worked hard to get there, and you've really earned your spot amongst us, fair and square.

So here I am, sorts-of-back. I hope I'll be writing more regularly in the future, but I can't promise you anything.

Ainyria

Nursing Assistant Internships..

Medical students at the University of Amsterdam have to go through a 4-week internship as a nursing assistant, to get a hang of how healthcare is organized, how we as a future healthcare provider are going to do this, which personal qualities/behaviours we have to ditch or learn, and how medication is passed around in nursing homes or hospitals.
Our tasks include helping people eat, washing them, dressing them, and to keep an eye on their wellbeing.

Initially, I thought, "Nursing assistant interns.. For real? We're going to be doctors in 6 years. Our tasks won't include washing them or feeding them. It'll be healing them, or keeping their lives manageable if they have a medical condition..
But okay. It's a mandatory thing in our med school programme. I'll bite my tongue and live through it.
And maybe I'll even learn how to deal with people who suffer from dementia. At least that'll be useful. And maybe they're just trying to win our hearts for Geriatrics."

It's day two of my internship. And I've already learned several things. 
A. Patients with dementia can be nasty.
B. The nurses I'll be accompanying can be nasty.
 

Stop eating my notes!

Om-nom-nom!

Does anyone else have a pet that likes to nibble on your notes? Especially when you're trying to study for an upcoming test?
Meet Raikiri, my professional (albeit small-sized) paper shredder.

WTF?!

Does anyone else hate it when they put you through this hell?

Omg! Lab!

Is it weird to say that I kind of like the fact that the next block (1.4 - Infectious diseases, Immunology and Inflammation) takes me back to the labs?

Yes, I disliked spending more than 3 days at the lab, but I can't exactly say that I liked waiting around for my samples to be done. Nor did I really really like H&L Sciences.

But I'm kind of excited to be spending a couple of days at the lab again..
Only this time, it's for med school :D

Confession #1

Mock exams always make me feel.. Incompetent..

And I only finished 30 out of 95 questions so far. Ohoho, this is going to be a disaster.

Hep B: The Last One!!

As always, the band-aids are interesting enough to cause people to giggle/stare at me like I'm a retard.

Weird conversations..

While my classmates and I were hanging around at the hospital, waiting for our gross anatomy lab to start, we overheard a rather unusual conversation.

"Have fun with your brain disorders!" - Person 1
"Sure, thanks!" - Person 2

1.5 - 3D Human: Passed!

I scored a 9.5/10, which could be rounded off to either a 9 or a 10, cause we generally don't do decimals here.
I'm so happy :D Another awesome grade to add up to my cum laude goal!

Even though the course '1.5 - 3D Human' was quite intensive, with lots of hours spent dissecting cadavers in a chilly room, lots of hours spent preparing everything at home, and a lot of hours spent staring at sometimes impossibly vague radiology images, it was quite worth it. The virtually 100% pass rate is proof of that.
I've come to the conclusion that I really do have a slight aptitude for Radiology, so I'm adding that to my list of potential specialties.

Thank you, nice professors who were quite clear in their instructions and explanations.
Thank you, to the makers of anatomie.plict.nl! (even though I didn't spend a lot of time using the site, it's been rather helpful)
And a HUGE THANK YOU to the teaching assistant who made my 9.5/10 possible! (You probably don't even know I'm writing this, but hey, thanks anyways ;) The Twix was good, by the way.)

Lessons of Medical School #4

So.. what's your priority?

Things Med Students Like #2

Weekends.

With or without booze and parties.

Back when I was in primary school, high school, and H&L Sciences, I already appreciated my weekends.
Of course, primary school and high school weren't much of a challenge (my inborn laziness however..), so I didn't appreciate my weekends all that much. H&L Sciences was a bit more intensive compared to high school (duh, it's a BSc course), but I managed to get by with reading the recommended literature at home and skipping nearly all the lectures.
I slept in every day, and my weekends and school days didn't differ, much.

But now that I'm in med school, I've suddenly started working my ass off to get good grades (I'm aiming at >80%, cum laude).
Not only that, but med school is hard. It's not physics or maths hard - the fountain of knowledge is just rather hard to drink from. We have to learn so many things in so little time!

You might wonder; 'Why are you exhausting yourself in trying to get cum laudes?', but here in the Netherlands, the best grades are the best tickets to a residency spot in your favorite specialty. Considering the fact that there are only a handful of spots available each year for the more popular specialties, it's best to put some effort into your studies if you want to keep your options open.

Aside from that, I've also decided to attend a large part of the lectures (I'll be stuck with ~350 classmates for 6 years. Might as well make acquaintances friends, right?)
It is only reasonable that I've come to appreciate my weekends a lot more.

Those who are already in med school will probably agree. Weekends are sacred, unless you're spending your weekend studying.
Those who are still trying to get into med school: you have been warned.

@#&%*(@#%

Things we/I hate:

People who claim the university computers.

I get it, you're going to grab a snack at the restaurant while you're taking a break from studying. This could take 15-20 minutes. Fine. But don't leave for two hours and expect to find 'your' computer to be still yours.

If I had any proficiency in cybersavvy skills, I would've hijacked 'your' computer to use it myself.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Or Forever-Alone Day, whichever you prefer. I care not.

Seeing as I'm one of those Forever-Alone figures, I spent some time indulging myself instead.
Love-Yourself Day. Hmm.

You know you're a med student when..

1. You've become a hypochondriac.
Seriously? After hearing all those professors talk about whatever crazy, infectious, parasitic something, you'll start dragging dettol with you whenever you can. And those people leaving their used napkins all over the place? Ew!

2. You wash your hands upon entering AND leaving a room. Any room.
Washing our hands becomes part of our professional behavior. Can't have those nasty MRSA bacteria spreading around, can we?

3. You see an extremely tanned person, and think "Skin cancer.. I see skin cancer everywhere..!"

4. You see a smoker and think "Small-cell lung carcinoma everywhere..! PS. Stay away from me. I don't want lung cancer :("

5. You start having dreams about medical school and your classmates.

6. You start having dreams about your crush from medical school.

7. People ask you about their suspicious cough/discoloration/symptom when they find out you're in med school.

8. You manage to win a candy bar from your teaching assistant for finding a hard-to-find structure in gross anatomy lab.
True story. My TA dared us to find some occult structure, which was very hard to locate, let alone bring it into plain view. The reward? A twix candy bar.

9. Non-med people start looking at you like you're crazy when you start explaining things.
It's probably because you started using some gazillion-letter, German-sounding words. Either that, or you used Latin/Greek.

10. You always have to ask "which left/right?" when someone tells you to look left/right.
We're taught to look at things from the patient's perspective. So the liver is on the right side of the patient, but if you're looking at your patient from the front, it will be on your left side.

11. Your martial arts instructors always look to you for guidance when they're describing the weaknesses of the human body.

12. Your friends start calling you 'Doctor' even before you've got the MD.

13. You're satisfied with a pass.

14. You're extremely satisfied with 80% (or whatever grade which nets you honours. Honours = easier acceptance into residency!)

15. You can tell your family doctor that your liver is very hard to palpate, because the TAs and your classmates tried to do so during peer physical exam.

16. You start thinking 'liver failure' when someone mentions acetaminophen/paracetamol.

17. You diagnose a patient in 'House M.D.' before House does.
Double points when you were right.

18. You name your pets after a medical term.
Maybe I'll call my guinea pig (genus name: Cavia) 'Vena Cavia' for fun.

19. You've had people stare at you like you're a maniac, only because you've had your carotid arteries, jugular veins, trachea, thyroid gland and claviculae drawn on your skin.

20. You can explain to someone in great detail what tumor suppressor genes such as Rb and TGF-beta do, yet you still don't know a thing about why someone's knee hurts.

21. Your 'normal' friends tell you to stop talking about meds, because it's become the only thing you can talk of.

22. You can spend your day at the hospital without people asking "What happened?! Were you hurt?!"

23. You dislike breasts because they're so damn annoying to deal with during physical examination!

24. You like having breasts because you can practice palpation and percussion on yourself.

25. You play with medical gloves whenever your TAs/professors aren't watching you.
This includes blowing them up like a balloon, or slapping people with them.

To be continued..
I'm open for suggestions!

I PASSED!

The unthinkable has happened!
I passed 1.2 - Metabolic Disorders! I passed biochem!
It was a lousy 70%, but I'm still eligible for cum laudes!
I'm so happy!

Also, I'm sorry for my month-long absence. After my biochem exams, I just had to take advantage of the winter break, and ever since classes started again, I've been really busy with Radiology, Gross Anatomy and Physical Examination.
All three are quite nice. I scored a 100% on a Radiology bonus point test already, so I'm quite certain that I'll be alright for the final exam. Gross anatomy labs are awesome, but they'll start to wear you down after 7 days or so. But they're very useful.
Physical examination (PE) was quite awesome as well. We didn't really go at it like real doctors - it seemed like they were giving us a chance to get used to the fact that your classmates would look and touch your nearly-bare body.
We sought for some superficial structures and marked them on our dummies' bodies where we thought them to be. After that, we were allowed to check on some structures of the neck using ultrasound.
I'm bound by the Hippocratic Oath to not divulge information about what we found or about what happened during PE, so I won't be able to tell you anything about that. Anyone who breaks the oath through gossiping about what he/she found in another student/simulation patient during PE practice must leave medical school.
But I'll assure you that, although I did feel slightly exposed, I had a safe feeling to go with it, although that may come from my background in some contact-heavy sports. I've mock-wrestled people of all sizes and genders, so some physical contact isn't all that unusual to me. I can assume that this might be different to other students, especially females with a background story or with certain religious beliefs. But my school has tried to make PE practices as safe and comfortable as possible, and I could certainly see that.