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.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Fancy-ful
Megs:
I am going through several fanciful affairs at the moment, albeit (thankfully? unfortunately? haha) not with males, but with these:
- Snowboarding. Pure awesome.
- The upcoming Optometry Ball - have been focusing on making the costume for about a month, and I daresay it's finished. Not going to reveal too much about what it's like - but it's been incredibly fun, preparing a GothLoli haunted marionette outfit.
- The idea of playing the accordion. It reminds me of Parisian streets, or that scene from Lady in the Tramp, or both.
- Deciding what to do for a day on a whim.
Hmm. Might put more later.
I am going through several fanciful affairs at the moment, albeit (thankfully? unfortunately? haha) not with males, but with these:
- Snowboarding. Pure awesome.
- The upcoming Optometry Ball - have been focusing on making the costume for about a month, and I daresay it's finished. Not going to reveal too much about what it's like - but it's been incredibly fun, preparing a GothLoli haunted marionette outfit.
- The idea of playing the accordion. It reminds me of Parisian streets, or that scene from Lady in the Tramp, or both.
- Deciding what to do for a day on a whim.
Hmm. Might put more later.
On Learning, and then some
Megs:
How easy it is - to tell oneself: "Alright, now I am going to sit down, and start poring over all of last semester's worth of notes for optom171A [Structure and function of the visual system]," read about 6 pages worth of lecture handouts, absorb about 2, and get distracted.
Productively, though, I made up some songs as mnemonics to help remember some of the stuff. Aren't they great? I wonder how fast a textbook would sell, if it was written not by some old guy with a million letters denoting his qualifications after his name, (eg. Dr. S. Ape Sapiens, PhD, MBCHB, S-thingPsych ABCDEFG)** - but by a [well-achieving] student who could communicate in effective slang exactly in what sort of cheeky ways we could learn/memorise/remember half the crap we're meant to know, before and after exams.
Maybe it's a terrible way to learn things, but at least (some of it) works. I still remember one I learnt last year for the paper POPHLTH111 (Epidemiology to you):
C T I E B C E C. It stood for Can Tim Isolate Everyone, Because Chris Eats Children.
And it was supposed to stand for all the things you have to consider before the implementation of health policies. I remember T stood for "Time", E stood for "Ethics", B stood for "Benefits", and one of the Cs stood for "Cost". I haven't thought about this in a year so I'll try and remember what the others stood for later.
I know of cruder mnemonics, such as the one for remembering the twelve cranial nerves.
The letters are O O O T T A F A V G V. Some of them are rude! And, "because classy sophisticates like us shouldn't stain our lips with cursing," you can look them up yourself xP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mnemonics_for_the_cranial_nerves
Hmmm I have to go, lecture in 47 minutes and I'm still at home. I'll post an update of what I've been up to in the holidays/my current interests-and-hobbies later, I guess.
**NB: I have huge respect for these people. Really. In fact had we but world enough, and time I would probably want to study a million things too. I don't know how people with a million degrees do it!
How easy it is - to tell oneself: "Alright, now I am going to sit down, and start poring over all of last semester's worth of notes for optom171A [Structure and function of the visual system]," read about 6 pages worth of lecture handouts, absorb about 2, and get distracted.
Productively, though, I made up some songs as mnemonics to help remember some of the stuff. Aren't they great? I wonder how fast a textbook would sell, if it was written not by some old guy with a million letters denoting his qualifications after his name, (eg. Dr. S. Ape Sapiens, PhD, MBCHB, S-thingPsych ABCDEFG)** - but by a [well-achieving] student who could communicate in effective slang exactly in what sort of cheeky ways we could learn/memorise/remember half the crap we're meant to know, before and after exams.
Maybe it's a terrible way to learn things, but at least (some of it) works. I still remember one I learnt last year for the paper POPHLTH111 (Epidemiology to you):
C T I E B C E C. It stood for Can Tim Isolate Everyone, Because Chris Eats Children.
And it was supposed to stand for all the things you have to consider before the implementation of health policies. I remember T stood for "Time", E stood for "Ethics", B stood for "Benefits", and one of the Cs stood for "Cost". I haven't thought about this in a year so I'll try and remember what the others stood for later.
I know of cruder mnemonics, such as the one for remembering the twelve cranial nerves.
The letters are O O O T T A F A V G V. Some of them are rude! And, "because classy sophisticates like us shouldn't stain our lips with cursing," you can look them up yourself xP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mnemonics_for_the_cranial_nerves
Hmmm I have to go, lecture in 47 minutes and I'm still at home. I'll post an update of what I've been up to in the holidays/my current interests-and-hobbies later, I guess.
**NB: I have huge respect for these people. Really. In fact had we but world enough, and time I would probably want to study a million things too. I don't know how people with a million degrees do it!
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Hoorayendofexams
Megs:
Here are some of the best feelings in the whole entire world:
1. Going for a pee after holding it in the whole night because it's too cold to leave the bed. (In the toilet in the morning, that is.) - Kudos to my friend Chris, who told me with much conviction this has to be the best feeling there is.
2. That scarily happy high feeling after you finish your last exam and knowing you are on a break and you don't have any uni to bother you for the next month and a bit and you are so happy you could scream!!!
I'm sure there are several other best feelings but whatever; I'm kind of on #2, although I'm quite sleepy at the moment, so I'm not really all that high. I have never studied around the clock for two weeks solid in the time leading up to exams! Stupid crazy things happen to you when they shove all of them together - Thursday am, pm then Friday am. My last exam was Stats, so I guess you could call this the aftermath! Ahar har har.
There isn't much to discuss about mine, except that Physics sucked for everyone, Medsci didn't, and Stats was a cinch. Pretty much sums up S1 2010. No paper I did this semester will really be relevant in my career. (Cheers to my mother for pointing that out). Someone from my class told us that his mate, who is an older Optom student, failed Physics, and passed Mechanisms of Disease with an A, and begged the Optom department to let him into 2nd year, so they were like "meh okay". Hooray! There is hope for all of us yet. And I understands statsy jargon now, which I suppose is of quite some benefit. Yee!
Nothing else is new that I haven't told you. If there is anything that is a bit different in my life that is worthy of putting on this blog is that I am put off pork and feel sick after eating it. The taste and smell makes my stomach turn. One more step towardsvegetarianism becoming a rabbit.
Well now that I'm sitting here I might as well think about my to-do list for these holidays.
- Get Restricted driver's license (so slack; I probably won't get this done til Christmas)
- Finish watching Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- Finish 31 paintings of Kuan Ying
- Design dress/costume for the Eye Ball (another Ahar har har). Since the theme for the Optometry ball for 2010 is Horror, so I'll have to come up with something freaky and crazy. Lady Gaga will probably be good inspiration :D
Hum. I'm incredibly sleepy. You spiked the pizza at lunch didn't you? :P Hope you're having fun at work.
PS. Isn't it incredible that I am counting down the days til July 2nd, not because that it'll be my birthday, but because my TXT2000 will renew then? How things have changed. Ahaha. I need to get Txt4k.
Here are some of the best feelings in the whole entire world:
1. Going for a pee after holding it in the whole night because it's too cold to leave the bed. (In the toilet in the morning, that is.) - Kudos to my friend Chris, who told me with much conviction this has to be the best feeling there is.
2. That scarily happy high feeling after you finish your last exam and knowing you are on a break and you don't have any uni to bother you for the next month and a bit and you are so happy you could scream!!!
I'm sure there are several other best feelings but whatever; I'm kind of on #2, although I'm quite sleepy at the moment, so I'm not really all that high. I have never studied around the clock for two weeks solid in the time leading up to exams! Stupid crazy things happen to you when they shove all of them together - Thursday am, pm then Friday am. My last exam was Stats, so I guess you could call this the aftermath! Ahar har har.
There isn't much to discuss about mine, except that Physics sucked for everyone, Medsci didn't, and Stats was a cinch. Pretty much sums up S1 2010. No paper I did this semester will really be relevant in my career. (Cheers to my mother for pointing that out). Someone from my class told us that his mate, who is an older Optom student, failed Physics, and passed Mechanisms of Disease with an A, and begged the Optom department to let him into 2nd year, so they were like "meh okay". Hooray! There is hope for all of us yet. And I understands statsy jargon now, which I suppose is of quite some benefit. Yee!
Nothing else is new that I haven't told you. If there is anything that is a bit different in my life that is worthy of putting on this blog is that I am put off pork and feel sick after eating it. The taste and smell makes my stomach turn. One more step towards
Well now that I'm sitting here I might as well think about my to-do list for these holidays.
- Get Restricted driver's license (so slack; I probably won't get this done til Christmas)
- Finish watching Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- Finish 31 paintings of Kuan Ying
- Design dress/costume for the Eye Ball (another Ahar har har). Since the theme for the Optometry ball for 2010 is Horror, so I'll have to come up with something freaky and crazy. Lady Gaga will probably be good inspiration :D
Hum. I'm incredibly sleepy. You spiked the pizza at lunch didn't you? :P Hope you're having fun at work.
PS. Isn't it incredible that I am counting down the days til July 2nd, not because that it'll be my birthday, but because my TXT2000 will renew then? How things have changed. Ahaha. I need to get Txt4k.
Friday, 18 June 2010
Back in Auckland once again!
Wil:
Well... and so i'm back in the wonderful land of Auck. Woo! I'm very happy to be so.
I am sooooo ridiculously tired. Our flight was delayed 1.5 hours because they'd lost a screw somewhere behind some panel and had to call in the engineers to come find it -_-
In the end they couldn't find it and just told everyone we're going to fly anyway. Ha!
So yeah, semester 1 has come to an end. I'm quite relieved! I didn't think I could work harder than I did last year in Health Sci but I certainly proved myself wrong! Whether or not my results will reflect that will be another story. Let's discuss each exam:
1. PHCY256 (Biopharmaceutical chemistry): I think those fortnightly 'End of Module Tests' (EMOTs) actually were good things after all. I certainly didn't have to study nearly as hard as the other papers for 256 as I had studied the subject to quite a reasonable depth by the time study leave came about. Woo! I guess that's one of the main objectives of the EOMTs.
The questions were quite predictable and I was able to answer all questions with a relatively high level of confidence (except one question about Thin Layer Chromatography *yikes* I never liked TLCs...)
2. PHCY231 (Biochemistry): Despite having only had 17 lectures in the entire semester for this paper I felt there was an awful lot to learn (or more like memorise!). But what do you expect of biochem? Anabolic pathways, catabolic pathways, drug detoxification, inhibition of regulatory enzymes, activation of regulatory enzymes, influences of hormones etc etc Just a whole lot of memorising! For only a 7 point paper I felt that I spent too much time studying.
Being such a small paper overall it wasn't hard to predict (almost bordering on being psychic) what was going to be in the exam - there wasn't a lot to choose from! As long as you had all the pathways memorised then you were fine - and I was! I'm hoping for a good mark in 231 too!
3. PHCY254 (Physical Pharmacy A): Okay this is where it starts to go down hill (just a tiny bit mind you). The format for this years exam changed a little bit from previous years and the questions were a lot less predictable. Fortunately, I enjoy physical pharmacy as a subject in its own right and enjoyed studying for it. I'm just a bit bummed that it might not have been my best exam! I'm glad this exam didn't ask questions on very specific points that I hadn't fully studied.
4. PHCY251 (Physiology for Health Sciences): 32 multiple choice questions and 10 mini essays. Studied squat for it and still managed to successfully wing through most of the questions. Huzzah!
It's suffice to say that if I get anything higher than a B+ then i'll be quite happy!
But I do have to say that some of those mini essay questions were horribly written. Also, some sub-questions (of the bigger overall essay question) were allocated a big mark (>5) but you could only write very little on it (i.e. just a bit more than a sentence or small paragraph). So depending on the question it was either very easy to get marks, or very easy to lose them.
Ah well I can't wait to get my results back.
It's sort of time to relax now that holidays have arrived but I still need to do my community placement! As you know, that's sorta playing on my nerves a bit. Getting a bit anxious...
Oh! and we also have a group assignment to do for our NZ Health System module! Which reminds me - I need to email out information to my group partners!
Ugh it's late. Normally I would be in bed by now. I really hope my suprachiasmatic nuclei forgoes my temporarily adopted need to wake up at 6:30am every morning and let me sleep in for once! I don't think it has received the message that exams are over...
Blah
I love cheese. Nom.
I'll ttyl. Come visit me once you're done with exams.
Well... and so i'm back in the wonderful land of Auck. Woo! I'm very happy to be so.
I am sooooo ridiculously tired. Our flight was delayed 1.5 hours because they'd lost a screw somewhere behind some panel and had to call in the engineers to come find it -_-
In the end they couldn't find it and just told everyone we're going to fly anyway. Ha!
So yeah, semester 1 has come to an end. I'm quite relieved! I didn't think I could work harder than I did last year in Health Sci but I certainly proved myself wrong! Whether or not my results will reflect that will be another story. Let's discuss each exam:
1. PHCY256 (Biopharmaceutical chemistry): I think those fortnightly 'End of Module Tests' (EMOTs) actually were good things after all. I certainly didn't have to study nearly as hard as the other papers for 256 as I had studied the subject to quite a reasonable depth by the time study leave came about. Woo! I guess that's one of the main objectives of the EOMTs.
The questions were quite predictable and I was able to answer all questions with a relatively high level of confidence (except one question about Thin Layer Chromatography *yikes* I never liked TLCs...)
2. PHCY231 (Biochemistry): Despite having only had 17 lectures in the entire semester for this paper I felt there was an awful lot to learn (or more like memorise!). But what do you expect of biochem? Anabolic pathways, catabolic pathways, drug detoxification, inhibition of regulatory enzymes, activation of regulatory enzymes, influences of hormones etc etc Just a whole lot of memorising! For only a 7 point paper I felt that I spent too much time studying.
Being such a small paper overall it wasn't hard to predict (almost bordering on being psychic) what was going to be in the exam - there wasn't a lot to choose from! As long as you had all the pathways memorised then you were fine - and I was! I'm hoping for a good mark in 231 too!
3. PHCY254 (Physical Pharmacy A): Okay this is where it starts to go down hill (just a tiny bit mind you). The format for this years exam changed a little bit from previous years and the questions were a lot less predictable. Fortunately, I enjoy physical pharmacy as a subject in its own right and enjoyed studying for it. I'm just a bit bummed that it might not have been my best exam! I'm glad this exam didn't ask questions on very specific points that I hadn't fully studied.
4. PHCY251 (Physiology for Health Sciences): 32 multiple choice questions and 10 mini essays. Studied squat for it and still managed to successfully wing through most of the questions. Huzzah!
It's suffice to say that if I get anything higher than a B+ then i'll be quite happy!
But I do have to say that some of those mini essay questions were horribly written. Also, some sub-questions (of the bigger overall essay question) were allocated a big mark (>5) but you could only write very little on it (i.e. just a bit more than a sentence or small paragraph). So depending on the question it was either very easy to get marks, or very easy to lose them.
Ah well I can't wait to get my results back.
It's sort of time to relax now that holidays have arrived but I still need to do my community placement! As you know, that's sorta playing on my nerves a bit. Getting a bit anxious...
Oh! and we also have a group assignment to do for our NZ Health System module! Which reminds me - I need to email out information to my group partners!
Ugh it's late. Normally I would be in bed by now. I really hope my suprachiasmatic nuclei forgoes my temporarily adopted need to wake up at 6:30am every morning and let me sleep in for once! I don't think it has received the message that exams are over...
Blah
I love cheese. Nom.
I'll ttyl. Come visit me once you're done with exams.
Friday, 4 June 2010
And so ends Semester 1, 2010
Megs:
Well, like, what the heck? It's June already. This is officially my last month of being a teen! And I haven't achieved a whole list of things! But it's okay, I can do it in the holidays.
Here's something sciencey, I guess. Rabbits do not change sex. This is something that Marianne seems to be wholeheartedly convinced about. Rabbits are mammals! Mammals do not change sex, unless they're like the Man Who Gave Birth, except the Man Who Gave Birth was a woman to begin with. And this is something I saw on 20/20 sometime last year, and I'd noticed that he and his wife seemed very hurt by the fact that some people said it was no miracle that he gave birth to a baby. But since he used to be a woman, it was still biologically possible, so I would not have called it a miracle, regardless of how much he claims that it's a miracle because he's a male. It's like having a toaster and altering it so that it has a television screen and marvelling at the fact that it can still make toast. Anyway, rabbits do not change sex, Marianne, so there.
Animals that do change sex are salmon, and some other fish.
Here are some Semester One achievements. I've bought an Optom T-shirt, which is the wrong sex and like a size too big, but it's purple. I've written and finished 25 poems. I've attended for the first time a poetry reading evening and found out that I freaking love listening to them (but I guess it does depend on the writer/performer). I've sat 4 tests, have gotten marks I'm generally pleased with and have also gotten my lowest test score EVER, in physics, which I thought I didn't suck at at the beginning of the year, but apparently do, which is a new type of thrilling. I may have brought the class average down! Woopee. I feel as though I ought to frame the test paper on my wall :D
I have watched the first two episodes of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and the first half of Great Expectations (the 1946 adaptation). Hmmm, have noticed a real pattern of not finishing the things I begin to watch. Kind of reflective of a lot of projects I do. Sigh.
Woo, wall of text. Huzzay!
Tomorrow begins the mad scramble to learn physics from scratch in two weeks.
Wish me luck.
x
Well, like, what the heck? It's June already. This is officially my last month of being a teen! And I haven't achieved a whole list of things! But it's okay, I can do it in the holidays.
Here's something sciencey, I guess. Rabbits do not change sex. This is something that Marianne seems to be wholeheartedly convinced about. Rabbits are mammals! Mammals do not change sex, unless they're like the Man Who Gave Birth, except the Man Who Gave Birth was a woman to begin with. And this is something I saw on 20/20 sometime last year, and I'd noticed that he and his wife seemed very hurt by the fact that some people said it was no miracle that he gave birth to a baby. But since he used to be a woman, it was still biologically possible, so I would not have called it a miracle, regardless of how much he claims that it's a miracle because he's a male. It's like having a toaster and altering it so that it has a television screen and marvelling at the fact that it can still make toast. Anyway, rabbits do not change sex, Marianne, so there.
Animals that do change sex are salmon, and some other fish.
Here are some Semester One achievements. I've bought an Optom T-shirt, which is the wrong sex and like a size too big, but it's purple. I've written and finished 25 poems. I've attended for the first time a poetry reading evening and found out that I freaking love listening to them (but I guess it does depend on the writer/performer). I've sat 4 tests, have gotten marks I'm generally pleased with and have also gotten my lowest test score EVER, in physics, which I thought I didn't suck at at the beginning of the year, but apparently do, which is a new type of thrilling. I may have brought the class average down! Woopee. I feel as though I ought to frame the test paper on my wall :D
I have watched the first two episodes of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and the first half of Great Expectations (the 1946 adaptation). Hmmm, have noticed a real pattern of not finishing the things I begin to watch. Kind of reflective of a lot of projects I do. Sigh.
Woo, wall of text. Huzzay!
Tomorrow begins the mad scramble to learn physics from scratch in two weeks.
Wish me luck.
x
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