Saturday, March 17, 2007
1 day before exams:
Episodes of mild hysteria during studying, as you realise that anything - ANYTHING - can happen. Or even worse, you suddenly mix up the GINA and GOLD severity classification and treatment guidelines for asthma and COPD respectively, draw a complete blank when recalling the treatment of congestive heart failure, and mix up the Schwartz equation for glomerular filtration rate calculation with dosage calculation for potassium replacement. Please, please don't let it be Prof Yap. She remembers me as the guy who would admit a baby with dengue instead of her father. (BTW, the answer is the father - higher chance that he has been infected with a second serotype, with a risk of haemorrhagic fever and dengue shock. I was literally in shock that day, and she looked wildly entertained by my fervent explanations that a baby is more prone to haemodynamic instability etc etc etc while my other examiner giggled in the background. Wouldn't you, as a sympathetic human being, admit a baby instead?)
This is interspersed with long periods of catatonism and numbness as you sit there, totally drawing a blank.
Then the reality comes back to you and you get into sympathetic overdrive with dilated pupils, heart rate of 140 bpm and constricted, cold peripheries.
4 hours before exams:
Escapism as a maladaptive mechanism gets turned on once again, and you either blog about nonsense like this, or pray that you get some nice dove of an examiner today, or that you won't trip and keel over while running between the adult case and the paediatrics case later, or that you won't faint, get a heart attack/stroke, or baulk all over the examiner later. I vaguely entertained the thought of arriving with a cervical collar to gain some sympathy points.
Sympathetic overdrive is in full blast today. Sweaty palms, icy-cold hands and feet, mild tremors and extreme restlessness.
Please don't let me get acute confusion later, or have my voice stuck in my throat. After all, it's just 20 minutes with 3 very unknown examiners who may be out to murder you, but I'm guessing those 20 minutes will probably seem like an eternity.
To those who have already started on one of the most major of the last 5, hang on in there!
Labels: rants
Wenky
8:11 AM
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