Falling Into Place.

I feel like everything is coming together...falling into place.

And so the third year of my course begins. I am now at Monash Medical Center (MMC), and the people there are just amazing. I feel like a sponge. Everywhere I go there are new things to learn. The fifth year students, interns and doctors are all very helpful and pleasant to work with. It is a patient centered learning environment and I am enjoying every minute of it. We are taken on ward rounds and are being exposed to the ways in which patients are being managed. There is no real "work" to speak of. What I learn depends almost totally on my prerogative - the course handbooks only gives an outline of what we need to know. Medicine is not about memorizing drugs, it is really about clinical reasoning. How well I manage integrate clinical reasoning, people skills, and procedural skills will determine how good a doctor I become. Streams of thought must be coherent, and in the face of a medical problem, I must be able to connect the dots.

I am very happy to be placed at MMC: It is a big place with all the different types of wards (eg. Neuro, Resp, GI, Cardio, etc). I will spend four weeks in each of the eight wards - being exposed to as much as possible... sponging up knowledge as I go along. Schedules are made on the fly to accomodate the packed schedules of the doctors and consultants who give us tutorials. Third year is pretty much an 8am-5pm job. The very big differennce is that there is alot of homework things that require further study and mental effort. I wake at 6.30 to be able to make it on time. There is simply no time to cook. I have lunch at the MMC cafeteria and dinner at the mess hall on weekdays. The food at MMC is really good, if a little on the pricey side...and the coffee is one of the best I've had in Melbourne. The people are awesome. The course is awesome. The food is awesome. The coffee is awesome. What more could I ask for?

Last friday, I finally managed to get my hands on the album of a band that I have been listening to for months. Only one store in australia had it, and what do ya know... It was in Ringwood, just a couple (ok, maybe more than a couple) of suburbs away. Took a nice long drive after class and snapped the last two copies of their album just before the store closed.

The icing on the cake is that the most beautiful woman in my cohort happened to be placed in MMC as well. My personal benchmark for female beauty. I pray that one day I will be in her league, but a little eye candy to motivate myself to get out of bed in the morning and be all that I can be in my relentless effort to be a better man couldnt hurt.
Confident. Knowledgable. Respected. Well groomed.

In the words of Barney Stinson: L-E-G-E-N-D-A-R-Y