one day

"Now she was going to have to accept the fact that she may not see him ever again... 'I realise i didn't have any way to get in touch with you. I don't think i should. I don't think you should either.' He looked relieved and she felt sleighted once again. 'Alright, why's that?' 'Because I think if you did, I think I would go a bit mad, you sitting there. Because I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do.' Then he put one hand lightly on her neck, and gently kissed her, in the middle of the street, amidst the people.

And it was the sweetest kiss that either of them would ever know. This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today, and then it was over."

- One day, by David Nicholls

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

the evergreen kinship that amalgamated the common pursuit of the idea of something higher than ourselves: something that poked into the soul. the soul is such an overused word, but no, this was no hackneyed link. perhaps one day in the future, it might feel it, but that day, it wasn't. and that day was so real. and that day was ephemeral and yet, will persist forever in the banks of memory.

The female of the species is more delayed than the male.

The future of medicine and women... Interesting publication that states “there is no evidence that female NHS doctors have been directly disadvantaged in their career progression, or that having children negatively affects the career progression of women who have always worked full time.”(1) show that more men (16%) than women (6%) who had worked full time were in surgery. The percentage of women who worked part time who were in surgery was at a shockingly dismal 2%. (oh dear) with the corresponding association between not doing surgery related to being female and working part-time. The median time for attaining consultancy was 11.7 years for men, 11.3 for women who had always trained full time and 12.3 years for all women.

So I suppose all these statistics tell us nothing we couldn’t already surmise: female doctors, who make up an increasing proportion of NHS doctors and make up the majority of medical students in UK medical schools, would take longer to attain consultancy (and would work about ¾ of the workload of their male colleagues, other studies quote). But if women worked the same amount as men, they tend to achieve consultancy faster.

Some more interesting stat facts:

• 12% of British medical graduates are no longer working under the NHS after 2 years of qualification.
  
• Approximately 50% of international medical graduates eventually leave the NHS. (2)
• in 2007, only 7% of accepted surgical consultants and 27% of surgical ST1's were female (3)
  

In conclusion, I would have a 50% likelihood of remaining in the UK after my 20^th year of qualification and I would have a 98% chance of not doing surgery. HMMMMMMMM……

(1)Raylor KS, Lambert TW, Goldacre MJ. Career progression and destinations, comparing men and women in the NHS: postal questionnaire surveys. BMJ 2009; 338:b1735.

(2) Michael J Goldacre, Jean M Davidson, Trevor W Lambert. Retention in the British National Health Service of medical graduates trained in Britain: cohort studies. BMJ 2009; 337:b1977

(3) Elston MA.Women and medicine: the future. London: Royal College of Physicians. 2009.

miss madam

And she was one of those tropical blends
Soft to the touch and hard as steel rods.
She mixed the good and bad winds naturally,
Easily, affectionately.
And all who passed refreshed themselves
On the rays of her presence.
Her word-glue maintained the lives interwoven
And her good cheer like warm liquid to the ear.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

meanwhile, i've just been reminded by circumstances recently that having an opinion is better than not having an opinion. and it has been a slow trickle of blogs of late. perhaps it's because it's been a slow trickle of me of late. am i becoming less and is something (someone) else becoming more? i suppose getting the right looming personality looming would be of utmost importance. or maybe it is just because i have just chosen to keep my opinions and expressions and musings bottled up inside where noone will find because noone holds the key. my limited (but growing) knowledge of myself whispers that it is the latter. cryptic cryptogenic cryptosporidium cryptorchidism.

"To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light."

she did

hospidelicio

"...It actually follows the familiar pattern of 21^st-century life: long periods of boredom interspersed with the occasional thrill."

hmmm...

voiceless

I have gotten my voice back, although not in the literal sense as my laryngitis-induced-voice-loss is still going strong for the 5th day running...
but anyhow, reiterate. I have my voice back. The personality-erosive effects of medical finals is slowly being reversed.

"The unreflective life is a life not worth living." Without offending any non-reflective people (or dull surfaces), I find this saying so close to the truth. And it is so often that God calls upon us to reflect, to think, to ponder, to dwell on our lives, our behaviour, ourselves, to question our actions, behaviours and thoughts and to keep them in check. If to even think evil is a sin, we have much thought-cleansing to do. How did I come to that? I don't know. My pressure of speech is starting to take rein again. Perhaps it is easier on my friends that my voice is gone at the moment..... Break them into me gently, I say...

Anyhoo, also read something very lovely which would be nice to throw into the thought-pool:

"My sole passion is thy love,
In earth beneath or heaven above,
I have no other store.
And though with fervent suite I pray
And importune thee day by day,
I ask Thee nothing more."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


Meanwhile, as usual, my annual / biannual pilgrimage to the motherland has brought me back with more updates from friends, family and others. It is quite comforting to know that despite the differences in location, cultures, and appearances, we are all of the same species, living out our jobs, living out our relationships, living out our religions and practising our beliefs, feeling similar sentiments, having identical needs and desires, in true Maslow-like fashion. A comforting reassurance of our existence as humans. (it never fails to provoke me that Maslow put 'sex' as a physiological need and 'sexual intimacy' as a need for belonging/love...) A reassurance... I suppose the dehumanisation and personality erosion was needing a good kick up the backside.
Anyhow, I ramble too much...

the jelly express

Royal jelly. hmmm. All female bees result from genetically identical larvae, but only those that feed on royal jelly become fertile and end up queen bees.

I wonder if humans had the equivalent elixir or 'royal jelly'. arguably, i do understand how some people might be prone to believe how some prescribed medications taken without a prescription may aid intelligence and performance. Surveys have shown that a significant fraction of students from top universities such as Oxford and Cambridge use drugs such as Ritalin and Modafinil to aid attention and concentration.
Well, i can't decide what my opinion on the matter is. Coffee / caffeine pills / red bull / paracetamol, etc etc have been manipulated and similarly partaken in order to improve study and prolong waking hours. Arguably, with newer drugs, the long term side effects are dubious. Furthermore, academic performance becomes something less meritocratic and more based on 'who's got the most money/ friends with connections'.

But then, having just emerged from the protracted blurry haze that is studying for medical finals, i have just experienced the constant upward struggle that most students nowadays have to contend with: getting connections to get hold of the most number of past papers, knowing people who know doctors who set the exam, spending money to buy the latest Littman stethoscope, paying for medical courses, etc etc... especially promoted by the fact that more than 50% of our paper were recycled questions...

Anyhow, before i further maul my foot further by this continuous stabbing, i suppose most of life is based on such an unfair selection. Nepotism in the workplace, in the selection of political leaders, etc etc... But educational institutions should not be the place where such unfair play takes place and where such behaviour should be clamped down upon. Just as there should be 'markets with morals' (ohhh-ohhh, spot the Gordon fan!!), educational institutes with mottos such as 'The way, the truth, the life' (Glasgow) and Dominus Illuminatio Mea (
"The Lord is my Light") (Oxford) should more so be institutes where such unfairness is discouraged.

je ne sai pai

well, apart from having an extremely eventful Christmas up in Aberdeen shire, where I perhaps, was a bit impolite in indulging myself in a little English history (much to the chagrin of my doric host)... I have learnt a few interesting facts outside of medicine these past few weeks:

1) the Grampian highlands are home to 10% of the stone circles found in the U.K... such as theseee:
2) a study done on 13,000 nuns in 1952 found none of them to have cervical cancer

3) the Met office is still classifed under Britain's war defence system

4) Elvis Presley origins were from Aberdeenshire.right, ok so i lied... but 3 out of 4 facts that were unrelated to medicine isn't too bad.... meanwhile photos from my trip!

save now

"What is this thing that happens with age? Why does everyone want to pervert love and, suck it bone dry of all its glory? Why do you bother to call it love anymore?" - Don Juan

the news today: cigarettes, suicide and mental health

smoking news
so with the new anti-smoking images in place, people who smoke are now forced to come face to face with the consequences of their habit.

i wonder if the people who had allowed this to happen were presented with the same picture of the future would still have gone ahead with it...

"The Bishop of Derby, the Rt Rev Dr Alastair Redfern, added: "I'm horrified by the actions of these people

"I hope they feel deeply ashamed. Here was a very troubled person crying out for help. What he needed was attention, not abuse."

Mike Shewan, chief executive of Derbyshire Mental Health Services NHS Trust, said: "We can't condemn this sort of behaviour strongly enough. No-one knows what was going on in his head, but encouraging him to jump is so wrong."

- taken from the telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3108987/Suicide-teenager-urged-to-jump-by-baying-crowd.html)

obvious conclusions aside, i wonder how it had come to this. what had led to this avoidable tragedy from taking place in a society like ours. goading a man to take his own life... geez. it's like battle royale, except with less hassle and less blood on one's hands...
or is this just one of the few instances in the media when man's depravity did actually make it to headlines?
not great news to be witnessed at a time such as this, i expect.


but i think the thing that troubled me the most was hearing this account of a friend of 17 year old Shaun Dykes:

(paraphrased) "Shaun just did what he had to do, he had to leave behind his studies, his life and move on to a better place."

he "did what he had to do"... mmmmmm.... suicide as something we have to do... ...


just a little bit worrying, no?

To let

How the humble stick beats us just as we remember to forget.
Challenged to look beyond the personality to the character - will we let Him permeate our disease?

There is no cure, only salvation.







"What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" - Romans 7:24

the wind.

was jogging along some dusty roads in seminyak, bali, when i passed by these rice fields. the way the flags caught the wind was just so beautiful i had to run back to get my camera...

the big burr hole

And so here i am again,
falling at your feet..
falling, fallen, found...
Dead, i give up.
As Mr Frost once said:
it goes on.
And so it does..
but not without the relentless
assaults.
The frequent backwashings
of what we term
human nature.
But we hurt each other again and again
and it never ends.
I chose to be of more glorious company,
and yet... and yet..
some things are not in our choosing:
Some things we were brought into...

Why we are all so confused?
He scoffs at them.. the One laughs...
He rebukes them,
But now, not so terrifyingly...
The nudges..
that
we
feel
oh
so
often
but
so
often
we
do
not
respond.

Kiss Him, lest he be angry.

I choose to be in more glorious Company.

work moderately, play moderately.

keeping it real, but at the same time without being heavy-handed. oh the obtrusiveness of these other-classes.... the sign of these times that we are in, despite trying to conglomerate the two, we whizzed past the shop of east meets east. but then when and where do we fall? in between the trenches? the trenches or would they be deemed as the middle-ground. the... permissive hybrids?

but who is that with the quizzical brow and the golden locks? would there be a more archetypal prototype, despite the political-correctness of the audience, we balked in a totally scottish manner and poured foolishness over our reputations. the minutes lasted for hours but all in good stead.


meanwhile, this is london :

also, cherries are the best fruits... the iniquity of english cooks has been replaced by the ingenuity of the mixing pot that is londonium. thank goodness for the French, Italians and Japanese...

the Gift

a sudden revelation. a sudden heartsink. a sudden... drop. can it be termed an epiphany if it was something i had known before?

nothing else matters, not money, not fame, not intelligence, not beauty, not looks, not status... only Love. only love conquers all, only Love, only Love has the way.

dinner last night... why that kinship with him over him... for once i did not stand on the side of intelligence.. for once i stood on the side of the underdog, for once i chose His side. the dull cup. but it was true...

2 m 13. a teacher. it could only be a Gift...

oyster

Returning from a long weekend of camping up in Garve and a night at the lovely Barber's residence up in Dingwall, i'm absolutely shattered and ready for bed.

It was massive fun on our wee camping adventure. Pitching tents, lugging sleeping bags and mats, picking firewood, starting a fire, cooking pasta on a gas-stove and sleeping in tents while a relentless rainstorm battered away at our tents was definitely a truly Scottish adventure.
Of note was watching Callum, Gill and Rachel swim in the icy coldness of the waterfall, dolphin watching, camping, sleeping in tents, teamwork banter and meeting Callum's interesting friends from Englandshire.

But all these adventures and all these months left in Glasgow has just left me pining for London even more....
Paris (3 weekends ago!), on the other hand, was definitely somewhere i could see myself live in... Ack, I just love big cities, period.... LOOONNNNDDOOONNNN IN 6 DAYYYSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! *excitement*

you will love england.

so today was the assessment day for the end of my first medicine block...

i was told that i was definitely in the top 80th centile of medical students that my consultant has seen. This is more than twice times i've been told this by at least two different consultants... So maybe i am that good....... he said that i retain information very well, have great clinical judgement and have a fantastic memory. (except for most things non-medical, i'm sure he didn't notice..)

but he also said it would be really easy to just pass me right by and neglect me for my capabilities because i never really express them across. but it's not that i'm not confident, i'm just humble! humility is to admired too, isn't it, isn't it????? on the otherhand, if you don't blow your own trumpet, noone else will blow it for you. point taken, dr S. carol shall now be shoving her intelligence down all your throats, whether you can accept it or not.. awright, big bad medcine world, be prepared for my mind.

and then my previous consultant said i was quiet! QUIET?? me, quiet?? i'm never quiet! i dislike quiet people! i'm not shyyy!! i was just too busy to make friends! (as i usually am...)

right. so basically, i need to express my knowledge more and make a better effort to build rapport with colleagues.. i suppose my humility will not fail me now.