Musical era - fin

Megs:

I've been feeling so ridiculously sentimental that I can hardly believe it.

AYO's pretty much over now - Concert at the Town Hall on Saturday was EFFING FANTASTIC. Good turn-out in terms of audience; the Stalls and the Circle all was fairly full, which was a really nice change to the "crowds" of about 30 that came to the concerts in Tauranga and Hamilton!

This programme has been so insanely demanding: AYO camp on the last weekend of the holidays, then over the last three weeks we've had a tour every weekend somewhere in the North Island, and then there was the concert on Saturday. And in between each of these weekends I've had a test, and this week I have three. *spaaaaaz*

It's partly why I'm quitting next year; I don't think I'll be able to keep up. Also, so many friends are leaving again, that next year the orchestra's going to be very, very different. (Again!)

Anyway, here's the poster for the last programme I played in!!


I miss heaps of people in AYO already :(

In fact I had so much fun on Saturday that I was feeling pretty damn crap about leaving! But it's just not going to be the same next year. I think it's probably like how people felt about leaving high school. I've never properly missed any school I went to; but I have been in an orchestra for longer than I've attended any one institution, so maybe this is why.

I'm also going to miss the music - not just the way that the sound an orchestra makes can be so evocative and paint such vivid pictures in one's mind, but the all the work that's put into making the music up to that standard. In particular, I love listening to piano concertos, and listening to the soloist play while we rehearse is just so fun. And to me, they're one of the most beautiful things in the world when they're played by the right soloist! [You know which one :)]

Good news - we are playing again this Thursday at 8.30pm in the city again, this time in Victoria Park Market (...or somewhere in Wellesley Street), because some graffiti artists want to promote us, or use our music to promote them, or something. :D hooray! so it's not completely over just yet!

Promotional video for this event (you can see me at 0.11!)

http://vimeo.com/15815835

I now have this urge to rummage through all my old emails from AYO Weekly and reminisce.

I think I've been doing that a lot this year - missing and reminiscing and emoing about the past. I must be getting old! Time to retire!

It only takes one to ruin the whole thing

Wil:

Disclaimer: the following post is not intended as an organised attack on any individuals or any organisation. It is simply my reaction in which i'm entitled to voice. The opinions described below are purely my own.
-------------------

I was reading an article the other day and it thoroughly pissed me off.

http://www.pharmacy-today.co.nz/article?objId=d603f9f2-956a-4fbd-9ca8-3d74887d4b90

"A pharmacist who reported his local GP’s prescribing errors to the Medical Council says he was unsupported by the organisation and would think very carefully before reporting his concerns about a prescriber’s behaviour again."

"But, before the doctor was suspended, the pharmacist says he received threatening phone calls from the doctor who had been forwarded his letter of complaint by the council."

"He says the doctor told his patients it was him (the pharmacist) who had reported him to the authorities and, subsequently, they boycotted his shop, resulting in an estimated loss of thousands of dollars."

Now, while I do not know the entire nature of the complaint, this is NOT the type of behaviour anyone would expect from a doctor in any country and in any situation. This is absolutely appalling and if I ever have the misfortune to encounter such an inexcusable health professional I would make it very clear to them the damage that they are doing to the image of doctors and New Zealand health professionals as a whole. Not only was he partaking in illegal activies, but he confront the pharmacist in a most irresponsible and malicious manner.

I would be very interested in hearing what the Medical Council would have to say about this type of behaviour.
The pharmacist stated that, "he was unsupported by the organisation" and while a possibility exists that his words may be tightly biased and unrepresentative of the true handling of the case,
the fact that the Medical Council's management of the case has placed this sort of impression upon him is truly disappointing.

It makes me incredibly sad that, in a world painfully troubled by terrors inflicted by the corrupt, not even health professionals, presumed by the public as some of the most humble, caring, and altruistic people in society, can escape the ill nature of humanity. For me, the image of health professionals will be severely tainted eternally.

Rambling about scrambling

Megs:

I love playing with anagrams. It's possibly one of the most frivolous and useless past-times there are, unless one is in an Anagram-thinking-about Tournament, or like some top secret government dept and has to crack codes that mad international criminal masterminds set (because as we all know, of course, mad criminal masterminds always leave a hint as to how to clean up the mess they're making. Dan Brown evidently thinks so.) I like the game Word Challenge on Facebook and I like wordplay in general.

Recently I've been thinking about what kind of pseudonym I would use, if I was going to write a novel and have it published. Almost needless to say, I'd like it to be something (somewhat) meaningful, and to do with my name. Yesterday Hannah suggested something like Margaret Willie, which is fantastic, but no, merci.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that my name in full is a cow to rescramble. The only decent thing I've been able to come up with after much juggling in my head is Anna G Hemingway. And I wouldn't use this as a pen name, because I'd feel like I was insulting Ernest Hemingway by associating his name with far inferior writing.

Another name, albeit with a ludicrous sense of humour, would be Angina G Wheyman, but I think I'd have to be really drunk, or depressed, or both, to submit anything under that name.

I'm leaving to go watch NYSO soon. Will update!

Capping the pathway to a Cap

Wil:

So it has finally happened. The University of Otago has implemented changes which will limit entry into pretty much all undergraduate courses from 2011 onwards. This decision would have been due to a combination of factors, of the most important being reduced government funding and an increase in student enrolments. Funding from the government subsidises a large percentage of the course fee for domestic students (i.e. what you pay for your papers is only a fraction of the total cost of it).

Students leaving high school and intending to enroll into the university will have been divided into one of two categories - Preferential Entry or Competitive Entry.
If a student has achieved NCEA Level 2 with Merit or Excellence endorsement they would have gained Preferential Entry. This then guarantees a place at the university provided that University Entrace is gained at NCEA Level 3.

Those who weren't successful at gaining Preferential Entry are placed in Competitive Entry. Students in this category will be assessed and ranked according to their academic performance and other relevant criteria and will be offered places in order of priority, subject to the availability of places in their nominated programmes.
There are more details regarding Competitive Entry but let's just leave it at that.

Other ways of gaining Preferential Entry are securing a place at a University of Otago Residential Hall, or earning a University of Otago Scholarship. The basis of these "alternatives" is that any student who has gained a place in Preferential Entry by either of these means would have been subjected to a selection process already and thus deserving of a place at the university. There are obvious flaws to these methods of admission.

So those are the new admission changes for 2011 in a nut shell.

A couple of months back before any details were released, when I first heard about the introduction of limited entry into previously open entry courses I was a bit horrified. I thought back to my time in high school doing NCEA Level 3. My results were something uninspiring. Out of the 36 or so achievement standards I was entered for, I only managed to get about 3 or so Excellence grades. If limited entry prerequisites were introduced back when I was about to enter university, with my mediocre grade I would have felt like I was staring at a 20 metre tall brick wall with a couple of sticks and string to make a ladder out of.

My argument is that if they were to introduce any sort of academic prerequisites at university, it should be at the end of the first year. The logic behind it is that high school is about as different from university as watermelon is from a grape. Sure they're both education (or fruit) but that's where the similarities stop. The way education is taught, marked, proposed, and implemented at university is so much more than high school (and that silly NCEA nonsense). Essentially, some people who don't do as well under NCEA can do exceptionally well at university.
Take for example, me. No matter how hard I tried under the NCEA system all I could get was a couple of silly Excellence grades which I could count all out with one hand. Now compare that to now (prepare for some shameless gloating) where I've managed to maintain an A+ (> 90%) average over my 1.5 years at university so far. Obviously there will be some confounding factors but the story here is that sucky grades in high school does not correlate to sucky grades at university. Hence my argument of introducing limited entry into second year, as opposed to first year of university.

So I was ready to fling out my opinion on what i've just said above to anyone who was prepared to listen until I read the media release from the university on the details of the Preferential entry/Competitive entry admissions system for 2011.

I have one thing to say about this introduced limited admissions system: how tame.

Now thinking about it, it might be a bit unfair of me to say that seeing as I secured both a place in a residential hall and a University of Otago scholarship for my first year, so I would've gotten Preferential entry anyway.

However, any high school student who has half a brain to invest in their future well-being could get a merit endorsement at NCEA Level 2 (Well at my school that was the case, and my high school wasn't the flashest, to be honest).
For the record, I got NCEA Level 2 endorsed with Excellence (just!).


Anyway, what i'm REALLY interested in is how this new limited entry admissions system will affect numbers in first year courses. The one course that I will purposely refer to is Health Sciences First Year (or First Year Health Sciences, whatever). HSFY is the first year course that will lead into Dentistry, Medical Laboratory Science, Medicine, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy.
This year I believe there is about 1800 students in HSFY with at minimum about 50% of them competing to get into Medicine. Needless to say, competition is cut-throat and people go nuts during this first year. I digress!

HSFY has previously been open entry (provided you had University Entrance) and the university was quite happy with that because imagine the amount of dosh all these kids were bringing in (~$5400.00/student x 1800 students = $9720000.00; or $9.72 million).
Anyway, I'm going to try to find out next year how much the HSFY cohort will have been cut down as a result of this limited entry. It shall be interesting, no?

Note that this does not make it easier or harder for those who get into HSFY to get into dent/medlab/med/pharm/physio. This is because even without restriction of entry in HSFY, those who would have been caught out by the limited entry admissions requirements would have dropped out after the first semester (or first month). In either case, only the "real" competition makes it to the end of second semester.
Hmmm I should practice caution here but I think I remember hearing that up to 400 people dropped out of HSFY after first semester last year when I was doing the course.


Anyway, so I guess the other obvious questions have to be asked:

- Will these limited entry methods stop douches from entering uni and wasting the country's money on silly little degrees like a BA in eating chalk?
- What will happen to the people who unfortunately miss out on a place at uni, but genuinely want to have a go at university?
- Why has the university only brought this in now? (in my opinion, restrictions should have been brought in ages ago regardless of funding status. But that's another story!)


Stay tuned!



----

Disclaimer: All comments made in this post (and in the whole blog anyway) is the opinion of the author and does not represent that of the University of Otago and its admissions committee.
The author has endeavored to present as much correct information as possible but there's a likely chance that something in there is made up. Amendments may be made at any time without notice. By reading this you can't hold me legally to anything. Ha!

Worth Noting

Megs:

Haha, now I'm reciprocating by blogging you this while you're at your ball. Hope Chicago's awesome.

This week's been oddly fulfilling. Saturday - July 31st; day of the Eye Ball, aka the Optometry Ball 2010, the Horror-Opter. I'd been looking forward to this for a month!

But what was most memorable about that day wasn't the ball at all - it was earlier, at the Hospice. It was the first time I'd really felt affected, really involved, or moved or however you would describe it. Obviously, I've seen and met many patients over the last year and a half and heard recounts of incredible struggle during my volunteering shifts. But at the end of every shift I guess I'd leave everything behind at the Hospice when I went home.

I have wondered about that, and about myself; I've questioned my own (in?)sensitivity, and why it seems to take a heck a stimulus to evoke a passionate emotion in me. With the exception of Hadashi no gen (and I don't even know why - my classmates didn't find it very emotional), I can honestly say that I've never cried while watching a film or reading a book. When I see something tragic in the news, or hear of someone's passing away - I am sorry; pensive, but not really upset. Trying to maintain a "stoic" image isn't something I have any particular interest in, so I don't see a point in having a front. It's just the way I am, I guess.

But I digress about the previous Saturday. Maybe it's because of the fact that, apart from making sure that the counter-tops sparkle and making tea/coffee, all I really do is lend an ear to patients to hear about their day; and last week, as I was bustling along the corridor near the end of my shift, I was quite evidently 'spotted' by some nurses and other staff. They asked me if I spoke Chinese, and I said I did. What transpired was that someone in one of the wards was having trouble communicating the patient's needs to the nurses and the doctor in English and they needed a translator.

My quick visit to said ward made me feel this terrible sadness. I think it was the joint effect of seeing the patient's condition, seeing her husband's devotion to her, and how, despite being present in such a caring environment, they were still struggling and experiencing isolation, a kind that only a language barrier can bring. The husband had such an expression of gratitude on his face when I told him I was able briefly bridge for them this gap. His thanks was far more than I deserved; all I did was a quick rattle-off to the nurse of what had been troubling the patient for the last three days. It took about five minutes. I went home.

It's like this. You might do something small for another person and to you, "it's little, oh it's nothing". But someone else it's very obvious that they needed this help. And of course, more often than not, people can feel pleased with themselves if they know that the "helped someone". There's nothing wrong with that. But simply, it's just so so so different to having this chord, this need, struck in you. It's a stricken feeling and I'm finding it difficult to articulate. Like... 'you know you did something good + they needed your help + something personal just happened + you don't deserve such huge thanks + you need to be doing so much more.'

Had I just unwittingly stumbled on the experience of the "humanistic reward" that medical schools bleat on about? I dunno. But I had to assuage/act on/do something about that feeling. I returned three hours later and got the patient's husband help me make a bi-lingual chart so he could point to a sentence and tell the doctor or nurse how his wife was feeling and what she was needing. It's been a week and I hope it's helped them somewhat.

Insert-Optometry-Ball-description-here... or I think I'll do it in a later post, if I can be bothered.

Midnight! Good night.

Something a bit more serious and less frivolous

Wil:

I'm quite interested in joining the Matagouri club. It's an association/organisation/thing which promotes and encourages health professionals moving into rural practice because we all know the lack of health professionals in rural areas. They do things like visit rural towns and schools to give presentations and demonstrations to students. Essentially, we're opening their eyes to opportunities in the health professions and hope they'll persue an idea we throw at them. I think it'll be a good area to extend myself even though i'm not particularly fond of living in rural areas because I do love the big city, but I think the disparity of health care availability between urban and rural areas is one of the more trivial issues (but still important) that we can solve compared to other health service discrepencies (such as disparities of health between ethnic groups/SES groups). It's a good first step for me in thoroughly exploring the health care system and its accessibility from those who need it.

Speaking of accessibility of health care, it's one of the themes we've been learning in our 'New Zealand Health System' module in our 263 paper (Pharmacy Practice). Growing up in a relatively financially stable family, health care accessibility and availability was never really an issue for me. So when I was studying about the difficulties low socioeconomic status (SES) families have with obtaining health care in New Zealand I wasn't able to completely relate, however, I was able to sympathise.
It wasn't until I did my community placement in Auckland that I was exposed first hand to these issues that my lecturer talked about. Northcote itself has quite a large population of low SES families and during my placement I observed a considerable number of patients who would first ask the pharmacist for the full price of their prescription before putting it in to be processed. After being told the price, you could see the patients trying to decide in their head whether or not their prescription was absolutely necessary to their health in order to avoid "unnecessary" spending. On one occassion we had someone opting for only 2 out of the 3 medications they were prescribed because they simply couldn't afford to pay for all three.

I know there are things such as Community Services Cards which help patients with paying for medications, but in these cases I wasn't sure what the circumstances were.

After observing these incidents it really did get me thinking about how some people have it unfortunately hard. It makes me more appreciative of my own living situations and the benefits I have when I require health care.

This reminds me of an article I had to read which described the state of health care in the US. There are medical centres in the US which are run by voluntary doctors and offer free health care. However, because the medical centres are not-for-profit their resources are limited, much more so than your average medical practice. Undoubtedly, these medical centres get swamped with people who need health care but can't afford it because health care in US is so expensive. Basically, if you don't have health insurance then you either fork out hundreds for health services or don't get it at all. Health insurance premiums are in their hundreds anyway. So in all cases, people with lower incomes lose out.
Back to the article, so people come from far and wide to visit these medical centres hoping to get a free appointment. Because the medical centre can only see such a limited number of people the only fair way of deciding who gets access to health services is via a raffle-like process. Patients are given a number and the centre randomly picks out numbers. If your number is chosen then you get a free appointment with a doctor. All the others miss out.
The fact that it has come to this stage, where the availability of health care for patients is based literally entirely on luck, in this day and age and in a developed country such as the US is such an immense step backwards.

When I finally become a pharmacist, I think I will be most happy to have patients being able to freely walk into my pharmacy and ask for health information without having to make an appointment or pay for a consultation.

A-pack-a-day habit...

Wil:

I've resorted to my pack-a-day habit (almost). What i'm talking about are crackers. I basically eat no proper meal during the day, but instead snack on crackers throughout the day. As a budding health professional, it's almost hypocritical of me to be living this sort of under-nutritious lifestyle but seriously, cooking takes an unnecessary large amount of time out of my day. Also, the state of our kitchen due to my somewhat unharmonious flatmates tends to discourage me from setting foot in there.

As with everyone else, I'm finding it much more harder to get stuck into my work this semester compared to the previous semester. The enthusiasm I obtained earlier in the year from the "omg i'm finally studying pharmacy - my dream career (almost..)" has finally started to wear off and now i'm just here staring at hundreds of antibiotics, the concepts of micromeritics (study of small particles), and weighing out 20 capsules and their shells individually in order to test their quality and uniformity of mass.
Anyway, where i'm going with this is that it's now taking me ages to get one lecture done. It doesn't help that I'm procrastinating every 2nd minute.

Ball is coming up. Theme is Chicago, as you are aware off. Not going to do anything for it. I'm just going to dress like a normal person going to a ball. Nothing fancy.



Ooh i have something else to talk about. But i'll start that in a new post.