Up Side of Down Under

My first step into third world medicine!

2008-09-12T00:10:00.000-07:00

At the end of october, I will be embarking on a four week medical elective to Kavieng, Papua New Guinea. PNG is a new country. It gained independence in 1975 and is a member of the Commonwealth. Preindepent government, it was a land with many tribes. There is approximately 850 languages. (EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY!!!!). Around 4.5 million of its 6 million people live in "rural" settings. This combined with the language and cultural issues has made it difficult for them to establish a social framework. The health of people in PNG is quite poor. Life expectancy is hovering just below 60 years. They still suffer from many of the world's terrible, but preventable, diseases. Measles, typhoid, hep, TB, mumps, diptheria are all far too common. PNG is one of four countries around the world which has not decreased mortality in these diseases since like 1980 (the others are Niger, Zambia and...I think Burma). About 15 years ago someone (they think from Indonesia) transmitted HIV/AIDS to a person from PNG. Needless to say, their current health system is not suited to handle all of their problems.

While it's hard to push to the people of PNG, I am firm believer that health is more than the “absence of infirmity”. Good health goes way beyond the doctor’s office or hospital bed. It begins before birth and is affected by a range of factors, some of which are hygiene, nutrition, basic immunizations, exercise and access to potable water. Effective health promotion requires an improvement in health education. As such, I have been in contact with Kavieng’s local surf club and tourism board, as well as the PNG segment of Save The Children Australia, in an attempt to develop or help out with a community based health project. Hopefully, we'll be able to get something going.... A lot of the major NGOs do only brief stints in the area of PNG I am going to, but they are trying to connect us with the locals and small groups that are there. I also just found out yesterday that the Rotary Club of Brisbane, has a scholarship setup to sponsor 3-5 UQ students to go to PNG/samoa/surruonding area for a medical elective. They will pay for flights and make a donation to purchase medical equipment. Hopefully, I'll get that! Me and my friend Dave (who I'm going with) are both going to apply and if only one of us gets it, we will split the prize.

Kavieng is the capital city of New Ireland Province, which is the most North- Eastern province in the country. There is one main island and many tiny surrounding ones. (One of which is apparently a volcano visible from Kavieng!!! Should be exciting!) The province has a population of 130000 and the only hospital in the area is the Kavieng District Hospital...which I am going to. It has a obs/gyn ward, surgery and emerge wards spread out over 130 beds. The ends of the island are connected by a 193 kilometer highway. Apparently it makes for a lovely bike trip!

A bit of history.... Wikipedia tells me that have been "at least three waves of migration" to New Ireland.......wait for it...over the last 40, 000 years! At least three! I found that statement funny. Also, during WWII the Japanese were stationed there. The Aussies and Japanese battled it out in many places in North Australia and PNG. There are a few wrecked war sites still remaining but most were either temporary or fully destroyed. The majority of the mainland is mountainous forest with no roads or separate islands. Transport is thus quite tricky. As a result, PNG has 578 airports of which 557 are grass.

I'm quite excited to go!

AMSA Convention Melbourne 08

2008-07-15T01:41:00.000-07:00

So, for those of you who don't know, I signed up for the Australian Med Students Association's annual convention. This year I headed to Melb on my bday for an event I didn't really know to much about - other than ifyou get a spot (rego fills up fast), you must go! Rego is short for registration, Aussies shorten any word they possibly can. They can even make up new short forms on the go and the rest of the people listening don't miss a beat, yet I'm baffled. So the convention combines both academic and social components and is a massive task to organize. It's the largest med students conference in the southern hemisphere. The one week has a million dollar budget, fully supported by the AMA, the Gov, etc. They brought in a ton of very cool speakers. For example, it was kicked off by the governor of Victoria - a former doc himself. He gave a welcome and motivational speech. Other speakers gave talks on patient centered approaches to weight loss, preimplantation genetics, leading techniques in medical imaging, wound management, HIV/AIDS, euthanasia debate anda bunch of others. I'm going to describe a few of my favs. Not those but they were also good. All the things you learned were not essential to passing the medicine course but fascinating to learn about.

Obviously I was going to like this one: They had a six person panel consisting of a current top Aussie rules football player, former olympic gold medalist in swimming and former aussie cricketer, two sports med docs and one surgeon. Basically they talked about medicine in sports from both sides. What athletes will do to play, what docs will or won't hlep them with, etc. Interesting debate/discussion. They also talked about how sports med has changed through the ages.

Tim Costello, the head of world vision australia talked about global poverty and how changing the poorest nations health and health infrastructure is the most effective way to bring them out of poverty.

Vinay Kumar flew in from the USA for free. (Apparently a lot of them volunteered their services but he had quite the distance to cover!) You won't know who he is, not even mom did, until I mentioned that he is the chief editor of Robbins' Pathological Basis of Disease. Aka a text book used by 95% of med schools around the world for around 50 years! He is this 70-something year old Indian, who worked with Robbins himself, and is basically considered the king of pathology. People actually brought their textbooks and lined up to have him sign it! He spent most of his free time with the UQ delegation (that's my school!) hanging out and even having some drinks! Hilarious man.

Jeff Kennett is a former politician who retired after someone in his family took her life from depression, to chair a national depression initiative entitled "Beyond Blue". He gave a passionate speech on the importance of basically having a life outside medicine. Having hobbies, having time to do nothing and relax, and having a support group (and GP) for yourself, both as a med student and doctor. Just a great speaker and he gave a great talk. It coincided nicely with the fact that AMSA launched a "Get a GP" campaign a few days before.

And lastly, my favourite talk was by Jeff Rosenfeld. He is a neuro surgeon and prof in Melbourne. He talked about a technique he pioneered and then helped teach other neuro surgeons how to do it. But it got really interesting when he started talking about how he likes to give his time to those less fortunate. He does teaching stints at the one med school in Papua New Guinea teaching surgery and neurosurgery. He works as a surgeon for the Aus Defence Force and that has brought him to Rwanda, East Timor, Solomon Islands, Bougainville and Iraq. He showed amazing pictures about how quickly the defence can get in and set up a field hospital in remote areas during times of crisis. Places like Iraq and Rwanda were during the wars, but he went to the island nations after natural disasters such as tsunamis hit. Basically the army can set up a fully functioniong hospital and these surgeons go nonstop. Amazingly powerful speech!

So it was great to hear all these talks and obviously - as med students are renowned for doing - we managed to squeeze in some fun in between!

You are now entering crocodile country

2008-07-03T03:51:00.000-07:00

It took over a week but we finally made it to Cairns. We decided to have a relaxing day before our trip to the reef. We decided to stay at a hostel to get some laundry done, have some showers and hang out by the pool. We also had to go out and hire an underwater digital camera - which is the source of our numerous beautiful photos. At 7am the next day we made it to the harbour to meet the captain and crew of our boat. Our captain was a former phys ed teacher, who retired to run a volunteer organization for a few years, all while sailing recreationally. He then decided about a year and a half ago to buy a boat, and run a diving and sailing company. He was an amazing and friendly captain! The crew consisted of a cook and a diving instructor, who both helped out with the boat. It took us about three ours to get to the reef. It was high tide and got a little rough for a while. A few people were getting a bit woozy. Then we finally got there! Our own spot on the reef. Not a boat in site and we took up all 10 spots on the luxury yacht. We started off with a little bit of snorkelling before lunch and then went for our first dives. We had to learn a couple skills before heading in and then do them again at the surface before descending. Without a diving license we were allowed to go to a depth of 12 meters - so the plan is to hover around 10. At about 7 meters, my one ear wouldn't pop. It was a little frustrating not because of the pain but because I thought I wasn't going to be able to dive any deeper. All I had to do wasgo back up to 5 meters, than slowly go back down again. The first dive was quite the experience. 10 meters is really far underwater! However, I definately felt a lot more relaxed on the second dive. I was less concerned with my gear and my ear and just swam and embraced the ocean. While snorkelling at this spot enjoying the unbelievable reef life, I saw something big out of the corner of my eye. I look over and saw a 6 or 7 foot White Tipped Reef shark!!! Looks like a miniature Great white.......quite scary at first! But I figured, the odds are slim of seeing this thing so I can't let it go. I only managed to call over one other person - to enjoy (and verify) my sighting. We followed it as best we could. It only eats little guys and didn't mind us cruising up to about 5-10 feet from it. After we had all been amazed with the first site, we pulled up the anchor and moved down to another site. We had a chance to do a quick snorkel and some people dived in what would be our overnight location. We weaved into a location that had us surrounded by reef on all locations and hence had the name "360". The reef protected us well overnight so the waves weren't too much of a bother. We had a great dinner - all the food was freshly cooked and delicious. We played some games and hung out on the deck before calling it a night quite early. I really wanted to see the sun rise and woke at 6am.....10 minutes too late! Nevertheless, it still looked stunning. Somehow I managed to be up before everyone except the cook. I was done breakky and back in the water by 730-8am. The reef at 360 was quite built up, but as it builds it gets too heavy for it self. Certain portions collapse in on itself and create amazing swimming lanes to flow through. It also had one area known as the "swimming pool". A massive circle of reef had caved in creating 10 meter walls on all sides (except a few channels to swim into the pool). I believe this is in one of the clips from the youtube video I posted yesterday. We then packed up early in the morning to head to one more site. After seeing how good 360 was compared to the first chunk of reef, we thought there was no way it could get any better. Turned out, they saved the best for last. The final spot was a chunk of reef - that if viewed from the air above - was heart shaped. It also had about 870000000000 fish of all colours. One of the most neat lookign fish was a "trumpet fish". (Sorry mom, I didn't have the camera with me at the time to grab a shot of it.) After a second wonderful day, we had to pack it in. We were lucky enough to see two turtles (I only got a glimpse from theboat, never in the water), a shark, a trumpet fish, and about 380 thousand different types of fish. On the way home the ocean decided to give us one more treat: a fleet of dolphins cruising beside our boat.

We then spent the night camping in a small town outside of Cairns, by a river called "Butcher's Creek". Felt like we were in a cheesy horror movie.......for the girls. Turns out it was only Justin scaring them. The next day we made it to the Undara Lava Tubes. 180000 years ago a massive volcano erupted spewing tons of lava. It burnt holes in the ground and made massive tubes which are still around today. Pretty cool sights to see. It was also nice to make a bit of a trip into the outback and away from the coast. When we left the Lava tubes we saw a sign that said "DONT MESS WITH THE ROAD TRAINS". Turns out its easier to attach 5 truck beds than to have 5 trucks..........these big beasts get up to 55meters long. Basically you move to the shoulder when they are coming the other way. You also try to ignore the dead kangaroos and odd cow that have been smashed every 50 feet.

Trip Notes

2008-07-02T01:48:00.000-07:00

Somebody on the trip compiled a bunch of the videos people took. It's about 4 minutes and located here: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=42NvB09noy0

So our trip started off, at around 330 am as we headed down an empty open highway towards Fraser Island. We boarded one of the first ferries over to the island. The island is part of Great Sandy National Park and is the largest sand island in the world and a world heritage site. It had some pretty amazing sights and beautiful beeches and rainforests. Travelling around Fraser is pretty hectic. The major "highway" on the island is the beach! You just cruise along the sand ...during low tide only. And avoid one section that doubles as a airstrip - we had no idea until the plane came! Since you're advised to not swim in the ocean there becauseof sharks, we went swimming in two of the inland freshwater lakes -Lake Wabby and Mackenzie. Wabby is the one that is beside a massive sand dune in my photos. Every year the wind moves the sand towards the lake and it loses about 1-3 meters inwards each year. It was a pretty relaxing way to kick off the trip.

Our next stop was in the town of Agnes Waters and 1770. They are two tiny towns side by side. It's a pure surfer/beach town. They didn't get electricity until 1984!!! Some guy named "Ron", used to ride to Bundaberg once a week to pick up fresh foods, such as milk. Anyways, we hired out some surf boards and hit the beach. At night we went to there one bar, and oddly they were hosting a ping pong tourny. We thought what could be more fun. Turns out we were the least skilled people in hte tourny. It was like the olympic pingpong trials were taking place in 1770. We were back out on the water early next morning to get some surf in before taking off down the highway again.

We made a one night stop in Airlie Beach. There wasn't too much going there unless you are doing boat trip out the reef or whitsunday islands. We did spend the afternoon and fired up the barbie before leaving. Public barbeques is a fantastic thing! You can find them in almost every park or public place that I've been to. After Airlie we didn't know where we were going to stop. Then we saw a random highway sign for a national parkwith camping sites. So we decided to stay. Turned out to be one fantastic choice! The swimming area was called "paradise waterhole" and it was an area of a small river that widened out and got really deep. We just hung out there. Played in the water chasing fish and turtles and as you saw in the pics, worked on our flips. This was just a great day as we were in the middle of nowhere enjoying untalked about Australian outdoors.

Our next stop brought us to Mission Beach. It gots it named because it was a small town with some other name until it got devasted by a hurricane about 80 years ago. At which point people rallied together to help rebuild it "mission" style but there was no religious involvement. And for some reason the name stuck. The campsite we stayed at was meters from the beach. And the beach was awesome. It was like 50 meters of sand deep that was just perfectly flat. We stayed there for a couple days, kept ourselves busy by playing beach cricket and cracking open fresh coconuts- which is not as quick or easy as we had hoped. But still fun and delicious!

Anyways its time for state of origin - a rugby league battle between queensland and new south wales to determine which is the superior state. Clearly there is no doubt...go QUEEENSLAND! Tomorrow or the next day, I'll follow up iwth the next part and detail our amazing trip to the reef.

Happy Canada Day!

2008-06-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time! However not a lot of excitement was happening here since my last post. A lot of studying, which turned out well - earning me "high distinction" on the midterm as I smashed out an 80%. Justin Underhill showed up here from New Zealand in mid May. He hung out until our exam adn then 10 of us went on an epic road trip from Brisbane to Cairns. I don't feel like writing at the moment since it has taken me ages to go through almost 1000 photos and pic out the top 100. I posted them for you. (And an album of when me and Justin went ot a Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane.) I had to sharpen a bunch of the photos - mostly the underwater ones- to make the images better. But the hours it took are well worth it as you will soon see! Tommorow or the next day I will document as much of our adventures as I can. Here is a brief (for those following with a map!) and the photos follow the order of the trip:

Exam on June 5th ( a thursday). 3:30 am on June 7th, we collected all 10 of the original group and headed out to Fraser Island. We only had 2 nights/3 days there so we wanted to maximize our time and arrive on the first ferry across. June 9th in the evening we arrived in Agnes Waters/Town of 1770. Its actually called "1770". Last place to surf before the reef begins.
After making stops in Airlie Beach, Mission Beach, and the "Paradise Waterhole" in Paluma National Park, we made it to Cairns. Stayed for two nights then boarded our vessel at 7am. Sailed to the reef and snorkelled or scuba dived at 3 locations. Returned hte next day at 6pm. Camped outside of Cairns that night. Headed to Undara Lava Tubes in the middle of nowhere. Then off to Townsville and checked out an amazing Sanctuary...yaaaay crocodiles! A few more stops on the way home - some people went home a day earlier. But the final 5 of us stopped in Noosa for an afternoon of surfing, camping outside of town and more surfing in the AM before returning to Brisbane. Enjoy the photos.

http://picasaweb.google.com/MattSolomon85

Two new albums are of the lone pine sanctuary with Justin and myself. And then theCairns Road Trip one.

Kia Ora

2008-04-02T05:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to the blog! It's been far too long I know. At first I had nothing special to write about and then I got to busy once I did...so let's begin. The major thing that I've done in the last month was make a journey to New Zealand to visit Justin Underhill. I went in around and Wellington for a week. It was a great time! For those of you that don't know, NZ is made up of two major islands - North and South - and a bunch of small ones. Wellington is the most southerly capital in the world (before I arrived I thought the capital was Auckland....ooops). It lies on the southern tip of the north island. Most of NZ consists of hills/mountains and valleys. Not a lot of flat land. It used to be quite forested but now the forests are in the areas where people don't want to live. While I was there, I climbed a mountain with a view overlooking the city on one side and the ocean on the other. If memory serves correct, the elevation was about 700-800 meters from where we started walking. Another day, we took a train out to this little beach town. We got lucky on the day we went. It was sunny in wellington so we didn't bother to check the weather report. About 20 minutes in to hour 50-60 minute train ride it gets cloudy, then starts raining. What a day for the beach! About an hour or so later, it all cleared up and the sun was shining. The rain must have scared everyone away because the beach and town were empty. The sun was shining so hard that it got the melanocytes on my stomach kicked into overdrive. Apparently, you need more sunscreen in NZ than Australia because of that hole in the ozone. Ooooops - don't worry it wasn't that bad, its just my stomach was that white. I posted a photo album so you can see a bunch of landscape pics from both of those days.

The two touristy things I did in Wellington were kind of dissapointing. The first was riding this cable car up to the top of the city and hiking back down through the botanical gardens. It was straight up lame. It didn't go very high - which is why I climbed the aforementioned hill later on. And the botanical garden seemed to lack any plants that looked good. The other thing was the Te Papa National Museum. It gets hyped all of NZ and in all the tourist books and guides. I thought it was trash....unless you are 12. In that case, the depth of the museums artifacts, stories and "innovative" areas may have challenged you thinking! It was supposed to show both NZ art and culture, old tools, how the land was formed and much much more. I don't really don't know why it got such great reviews. I did the whole musuem in 2 hours. Maybe I just expected too much going in.

One thing that I did enjoy in NZ, was that the Maori culture is a full part of their national identity. Unlike in Australia, they treated the local indigenous people with respect. I don't know if that has always been the case, but certainly it is now and for a while. (On a side note, I heard one theory saying they got respect, back in the 18th century, because they could fight -and eat eachother! Whereas, Europeans demolished any Aboriginal tribe that attempted to fight back. No idea whether its true or not.) Anyways, all the signs are written in both English and Maori. You can just feel that they appreciate the Maoris more there. Another thing, is Maori's are typically large people. It seems all the islanders (Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, etc) are just large people. I don't know what they put in their water, but something keeps em big! Which is good because they love to smash eachother on the rugby pitch!! And I love to watch. Which brings me to my next point....

I went to a Super 14 rugby game between the Wellington Hurricanes and Canterbury Crusaders. This is the same league I watch in Australia. But most Australians play for the Aussie teams, South Africans on their teams, and New Zealanders for their teams. And New Zealand rugby means only one thing: All Blacks. I didn't get to watch them in action as a unit, but there were over 20 All Blacks spread out over these two teams. As such, they are two of the top teams in the league and the locals take it seriously. Justin managed to get us 3rd row seats at the half line! Unbelievable. The yelling that comes out of peoples mouths when their team sucked or they thought the other guys cheated was not for the faint of heart! Naturally me and the other boys couldn't contain our laughter. At this point in the week, Blyth Gill had also arrived in Wellington. He played rugby at UW....when we played in London against UWO one year he came over pregame for some bagels and cream cheese! Anyways, back to the All Blacks. I met Jerry Collins in the bar a few nights before. I believe my reaction resembled a 13 year old girl's reaction to the Backstreet Boys coming to town. Probably the only words that came out of my mouth were along the lines of "Oh my god, its really you! I love you! You're my favourite player eveeerrrrrrrrr" After I composed and pinched myself, I realized I was standing beside a 6'3 240 pound tank. This guy flattened the massive, caveman-looking dude on the french rugby team! Unfortunately, the people who took a picture of me and Justin with him did a poor job so its not too clear.

I posted a bunch of the pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/MattSolomon85/NewZealand

Also, I got a new cell phone. The number is the same 0011(61)405634417. However this phone brings the magic of Skype (free international calls) from my computer to my cell phone! So, you can either dial me up on your regular phone OR use your computer and Skype me. My skype name is "mattsolomon85". (some people couldn't add me, just let me know and I'll add you.) I usually answer my cell phone unless I'm in class, lab, etc. So give it a try!

New Photos

2008-03-05T22:10:00.001-08:00

I got a hold of some awesome photos of campus and of Brisbane. I put them in a web album. Check them out http://picasaweb.google.com/MattSolomon85/CampusAndTheCity

You're the voice!

2008-02-28T22:34:00.000-08:00

So to start off, I omitted something from my last post that I meant to you all about. Feb 13 was "Sorry Day". The new PM Kevin Rudd gave a formal apology from the Aussie gov to the Aboriginals for some of the things that have transpired over the last century or so. To begin, the indigenous people think of white people colonizing as stealing there land. Which they did....anyways, around the start of the 1900s, some one in gov't decided to enact crazy and ridiculous laws. (For example, Australia had the "no whites policy" until 1980. You couldn't immigrate there...unless you were white. And even after that it was much tougher for non whites until about 10 years ago.) They thought that the aboriginals were doing themselves harm in the way they lived and treated their kids. The Aussies started stealing kids from communities and putting them in homes or boarding schools to Westernize their life. It sounds terrible, but as Rudd (the PM) eloquently put it. It was done with the best intentions and probably did improve the health, SES and lifestyle for many - but it wasn't what they wanted or decided to choose. Anyways, Rudd gave a really nice speech. The opposition gavea soso speech that angered some. Anyways, this was a really really big deal here. Described as one of those times in history where everyone will remember where they were and what they were doing when it all went down. The apology is nice, but really does nothing. Its just a first step to hopefully many more things. We just finished a week on indigenous health. It's brutal. Worse than the Native Canadians. Their average life span is 17 years lower than the average population. SEVENTEEN!

I always have all these ideas of things I need to write down on my blog and then when I get here.... my mind goes blank! We had last friday off, so I went with some Aussies to a local lawn bowling club. It was surprisingly fun! Lazy day in the sun playing curling/shuffleboard on grass... with cheap beers. I think we were the only people there under 65. Also, game 2 of the cricket trinations finals is in Brisbane on Tuesday. I'm probably going to head to that. The series is between Aus, India and Sri Lanka. Aus - India finals. I'm told its a cultural experience. Cricket is a wonky game that I only half understand. But sometimes it goes for three hours and sometimes 5 days! They only stop because the sun goes down.....I'm also joining a touch rugby league. It should be good. I'm supposed to be on a team with Aussies, but some Canadians are putting in a team and actively trying to recruit me (since no other canadians play rugby). I might play both if the schedules don't overlap.

In school, so far the major topics we've covered are shock, acne/abscesses, indigenous health, hepatitis, parasites. And all angles and issues related to those. Our patient in the parasite week had giardia....aka beaver fever....only the pbl tutor knew it by that name. Apparently there is some research now saying it isn't passed through contaminated water.... and more direct physical contact with contaminated feces/soil, despite years and years of thinking its the water. We've done lots of anatomy and microbiology labs and pracs, they have some cool physiology software. Also, me and some other canadians ordered our stethoscopes online....from the USA! It was cheaper to get a nice steth (Littman Cardio 3 if you care) than to buy the average one in the stores here. I'll have to post the standard pic of me posing with it! Anyways time to go!

PS You're the Voice is a song by John Farnham Aussies most hyped singer......

2008-02-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

Well I'm now 4 weeks into medical school. The pattern of how things work is finally becoming apparent and regular. We are also now beginning to add in procedural skills and clinical coaching. I talked to my first patient, which was weird but fun at the same time. It was weird because I really had nothing to offer him. I just found out why he was in the hospital and what they had done but couldn't help. My shoulder feels wonderful. I've begun doing the lame, but important rehab exercises. I can't wait until I can be fully active again. And surf. Everyone is quite friendly, so there are lots of opportunities to do things. Like I played in a random pickup soccer game. It was pretty tough, not because people were good but because it was 4 in the afternoon. Some days the humidity gets over 85% It's insane. Normal people sweat a lot, so I'm just like a human shower.

In other news, my weekend started early (thursday at noon). Because tommorow is supposed to be the most fun day of the year. Its known as sports day. And involves a torch run across town. The 4th years start at 830am at the hippocrates statue and say the hippocratic oath. They then run off to various bars and collect the 3rd years, then 2nds years then the first years. And everyone ends up on campus for various games and "sports". The only requirement is that you are wearing scrubs. Everyone gets the day off - including those on rotations anywhere in queensland. I've heard a rumor that even the profs participate. They don't really tell us first years much more than that, but anything that involves 1000 people going to pubs and bars before noon and then rendezvous'ing at a huge bbq/games fest on campus can't be bad! Tommorow is also the opening game of my new favourite team, the Queensland Reds! So I get to have an afternoon of mayhem and then an evening of rugby. I couldn't be more excited.

This is mostly pointless babbling, so I should probably stop. I posted a photo album for all of you to check out! I keep forgetting to bring my camera around to take pictures of things. But I haven't been out of the city much (besides a trip to the coast) because of my arm. Hope you enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/MattSolomon85/AustraliaTheBeginning

Getting Settled in....

2008-01-29T17:41:00.000-08:00

We found a house! Its just under 10 minutes to walk to campus fairly nice but very empty. Finding a furnished place was near impossible..... or crappy. We hit up a garage sale where some lady was moving to another country and bought up as much as we could. We have been scouring signs posted on campus and at bus stops for people trying to get rid of stuff. We have the two essential pieces: a bed and a fridge! Being able to buy groceries was a nice feeling. We still lack a microwave, blender, chairs for our ktichen table, couches, etc! So we are a long way away but nothing is urgent. We should have internet set up in a week. It's expensive. There was an article in the paper, where this Aussie who has been around the world, made fun of the Aussie internet setup. Apparently, the locals don't use the internet much because they don't know what it can do. Just basics like email. Anyways, in a program like mine, where they require you to have internet access for research it's semi annoying.

Speaking of my program, this paragraph is going to outline how its run. So if you don't care continue reading after this paragraph! They do what is called a problem based learning (PBL) model. Everyone is in a group of 10 for the year. (Actually mine only has 9....one guy never showed up!) They give us a problem with triggers, eg John, 58, complains of chest pain... And then as a group we have to figure out all the possibilities (Yes, Derek, we use a white board and its just like "House"). The one this week was a drunk 20 year old who crashed into a tree. He broke his leg which rupture his femoral artery and also has a leaking pulmonary vein. The lectures all correspond to what is going on. So we covered anatomy, physiology, etc of the cardiovascular system and the leg. And then we get a public health lecture on the toll of drinking. And the effects of alcohol on the body. It makes the lectures seem all over the place but apparently this is the way to do it. They also keep telling us to focus on 'breadth not depth'. And that they use a double spiral system of teaching and go over all the topics in first year and then, in second year go over all the topics again, but in more detail.

Random fact that I learned from the former Australian Surgeon General who went to UQ: The symbol of medicine is the rod of Asclepius, not the Caduceus. The Caduceus is the symbol with TWO snakes intertwined on a rod. Apparently this is wrong, despite being used by over 75% of practices (not the associations) in the USA (I wikipedia'd that fact) AND the US army's medical division. The rod of Asclepius is a symbol with ONE snake winding up a rod. It comes from Apollo and passed down through various people, at which point it was the symbol of Hippocrates - the guru of modern medicine. The Caduceus has a much less reputable past! It was the symbol of Hermes, the God of Messengers, who was also the patron lord of gamblers, thieves, tricksters and alchemists. In another random fact, the school of medicine's logo here revolves around the Victorian cross. Which the queen used for herself despite not knowing its past with the crusades. And has a skull on it! The skull is from Ashintosh Macopenjy who was the doctor aboard the Endeavour. That's the ship James Cook sailed when he discovered Australia and everyone in Aus learns about repeatedly. For some odd reason, the school of medicine has this guy's actual skull. He died in 1775. It's the mascot and sits at everyone meeting of the med society. It's very weird. They also named their charitable wing after him.

This past weekend was a long weekend! Saturday was australia day. Which brings out everyone's Aussie colours, friendly cheers and drinking hats. On sunday, me and my housemates hopped on the subway and took a ride to the Gold Coast. It is a fantastic beach! Once my arm heals (its coming along nicely by the way - I don't use the sling anymore), I'm eagerly looking forward to learning how to surf! While we were at the beach we visited with some silly wannabe teachers. Luckily, it was beautiful and sunny....because yesterday it rained all day. The aussies are still pleased (because of the drought). It's like they haven't had green grass for a decade.

Also, I'm probably going to become the Queensland Reds BIGGEST SUPPORTER! They went 1-14 last year...good for last place. It's only going up from here! That's the Rugby union team in the super14.

It's Not Wrong, It's Just Different!

2008-01-21T01:10:00.000-08:00

Gday! I've been in Brisbane one week and decided to give you a thorough update. I currently have two housemates and a cellphone but no house. Finding a home, is a slow process here. We are expecting to have a place any day now. House hunting is a great way to explore the near by neighbourhoods. So parts of brisbane are becoming much more familiar. Apparently, the drought and rains are ending. It's supposed to be getting even hotter! It was 33 today! Lookout. Of course, I'm sweating all through the day. It's good that I've come here though, because back home I'm the only one sweating, but here everyone sweats. Not classy, but there is nothing you can do. Profs do look quite funny speaking in a shirt and tie with huge sweat marks.....

On Friday night, I went out with a couple upper year med students. The connectiong is that my soon to be housemates are sleeping on their couches at the moment. On Saturday night, I went out with about 25 other internationals med students(mostly Canadians!). It’s fun meeting all the new people. Haven’t met too many Aussies though. The other programs don’t start for a month, so campus is rather empty. Speaking of which, the campus is amazing. I’ll have to find some pictures online and take some myself to show you. For now, I found this link, which shows a 360’ view of the centre of campus: http://www.uq.edu.au/about/images/great-court.mov (click and hold your mouse on the picture to move the view). There are trees everywhere, a lake, and it’s on the shore of the Brisbane River. The med school hosted all the internationals last week. The brought in a hilarious guy to give us a taste of Australian culture. It was themed “It’s not wrong, its just different”. For example, they don’t drive on the wrong side of the road, just a different one. Or eating spaghetti for breakfast, its not wrong, just different. The res I’m staying actually serves spaghetti for breakfast, which I ate before that talk and thought it was weird the whole time. And they put vegemite on toast, which might actually be wrong. I’ve been eating it every so often, but it can get tough! And today was the first day of orientation. Today, was exciting but got tedious. It consisted mostly of introductions and brief overviews and welcomming all the students to a special club! Here are some fast facts about the school. There are 37 000 students from 117 countries! It is a billion dollar operation. They receive 70% of the research funding in Queensland. And are getting additional money to setup more clinical schools in south east Queensland. The med school seems to put Canadian schools to shame. There are 421 first year students in med this year. 61 are from Canada – more than the Northern School of med accepted this year. They are continually finding more places for students AND winning awards as one of the best med schools in Aus. Including an award for best anatomy department, something that other schools seem to think is taught most effectively in small numbers. I don’t start any anatomy for a few months so they haven’t gone into much detail about how it will work. My first real lecture is tommorow in histology. Sounds boring already....just kidding. This week is filled with a few lectures, more intros and some fun. The med society (aka the student union/council, etc) is hosting a big BBQ on Thursday and various games and sessions on Friday. As well, they rented out the on campus bar for one of their 4 yearly parties. We were advised to consume a fair number of beverages now, before we have to actually get work in. But I’m sure it’s mostly just milk and cookies! And then Saturday, is Australia day! Which I hear involves another milk and cookie celebration!

The internet on campus is semi-limited. I’ll have to look into that. I’ll try and get back to all your emails! But without a house and the library not wanting me to go on hotmail, it is tricky. I can’t use skype in the library either, so that will have to wait until I get internet setup at my house. You can email me and wait (read: mom) or call me. You have to dial 011 61 405634417. Until then, the journey continues....