Ophthalmology and exam results

assalamualaikum warahmatullah and hello to all

it has been nearly 40 days since i last updated this blog... many things happened and took place since, but as usual, the lazy me kept delaying and delaying... i try my best insya allah to briefly summarize all the interesting events that happened in my life since early june...

wednesday, june 8, was my osce day... 14 stations in all... covering all of the things i learned this very year in both modules; "nutrition, metabolism & excretion" and "heart, lung & blood"... all of you medics out there should have guess that i need to revise the basic sciences and clinical aspect of gastroenterology, cardiology, respiratory, renal, peripheral vascular, endocrinology plus a lot of other basic clinical skills for this osce... alhamdulillah, the exams went well, started off with a cardio exam, followed by a chest x-ray station... the history-taking and presenting stations involved a patient with pulmonary embolism... the few data interpretation stations have cases like hypothyroidism, diabetic ketoacidosis and chronic renal failure... other stations include basic skills like advanced life support, cannulation and urine dipstick... there is one station for thyroid exam and another for PR exam (non-medics must not know!!!)... the one and only communication & ethics station requires me to tackle a confidentiality issue...

friday, june 10, was the final day of the university academic year for all the undergraduate courses except 3rd and 4th year medics... we in old trafford organised a farewell dinner for all the final years... virtually all of the malaysians in old trafford plus most malay undergraduate students around manchester were present that day... even en nazir and cikgu ali from MSD london came over to join us, and the event esp. the food was amazingly fantastic...

monday, june 13, i worked at the royal bolton hospital for the hospital@night project... my shifts ran over 6 days with night shifts on monday, tuesday, saturday & sunday, evening shifts on wednesday & friday, and an off-day on thursday... i only had to shadow the doctors on the night shift, and record every single bleep they get from their pagers... i slept most of the time anyway, esp. when i'm in the surgical shift... should receive good pay for the job, alas it only lasted for a week, which i think will be the similar period of time for me to finish the wages clean...

monday, june 13 also, the 4-week student selected component (SSC) period began... i was placed in the manchester royal eye hospital (MREH) under the supervision of ms fiona spencer, a leading ophthalmologist specialised in glaucoma... i experienced a lot of things under ms spencer's team... saw "thousands" of phacoemulsification procedures or phaco (lens replacement surgery for cataract patients) both in royal eye and in withington hospital... got to see one trabeculectomy (surgical procedure for patient with glaucoma)... also saw a diode laser being done on another glaucoma patient... most of the time, i managed to let myself play around with the slit-lamp microscopes and the ophthalmoscopes... but the only thing which i'm still confused till now is the principle of tonometry in ophthalmology or basically how to use the tonometer with the slit-lamps...

tuesday, june 21st, the community library in old trafford became witness of one of the grandest event of the year, the wedding of shah shukree, my neighbour in manchester and also a close friend... he wed his schoolmate, now a uia law student, who came over to manchester for the wedding with both shah's and her wife's parents and also shah's sister... ustaz rahim of MSD london acted as the kadi and all of us who attended (nearly 200!!!) had a very wonderful time appreciating the event, esp. the performances and food... only God knows when the time will come for me to follow shah's footsteps ;-)

the british & irish lions tour down to new zealand also began during this period... at the time of typing, the lions have already lost their first and second tests, which means losing the series as well... they will play auckland tomorrow and finish off the third test against the mighty all blacks on saturday... i watched most of the games live on sky, either at fahmi's, mael's or nai's...

at the moment, i'm struggling to finish off my ssc report which i'm thinking of handing in by wednesday before i fly back home to KL for the holidays... my exams results came out last friday, alhamdulillah i satisfactorily passed both my papers... which means i should not have a problem to proceed to the 4th year, which will start on the 30th of august... that's all for now... take care and all the best to everyone... wassalaam...

"O you who believe! Seek help in patience and As-Salat (the prayer). Truly, Allah is with As-Sabirun (those who are patient)."

Al Baqarah 2:153