Doa` is our lethal weapon

Posting
There are 2 types of posting, short posting and long posting.. Short posting as it's name implies is short in duration and not necessarily done in hospital.. The period is about 4 weeks.. One can call it as walk-through posting because it is very easy to pass.. If you fail the post, then you will be the first in USiM history.. Nevertheless, please try to score, because this is the chance to get A- or even A.. You will have to pray a lot to score A in long posting exam.. Oh, if you fail, you will have to re-sit for the exam during the end semester holiday

Now is the important part of all.. Long posting.. This posting is done in both Temerloh and Ampang Hospitals.. The duration is 8-9 weeks.. In the first week, you will be bombarded by lectures.. Then, you will have about 3-4 weeks in either Ampang Hospital or Temerloh hospital.. Then, those from Temerloh will go to Ampang and the other way round.. There will be seminar week too where the students will be presenting any topic related to the posting.. Usually the topics are given earlier for you to prepare.. The final week of the posting, is the examination week.. Let see how the exam is conducted..

Menara Telekom from Glenview Villa, Ampang (17th floor)

Examination
This part might be confusing, but as time goes by, you will understand better.. The examination is divided into 2 parts.. The first part is written exam (theory) and the second part is the clinical exam.. Let me tell you about the written exam (theory) first.. The good news is, 40% of your marks come from the log book, seminars, case write up, attendance and attitude. Therefore, the exam only carries 60% of your total mark.. So, be a good student, come early, do case write up properly and present your seminar with style.. At least you already have 30%..

Clinical exam

Smile also a remedy

This is the thrilling part.. 3 factors may contribute to your marks.. The patient, the examiner and you yourselves.. If the 3 conditions are good, the probability of passing is higher.. That is why we must always pray and ask Allah to make everything smooth.. The clinical exam comes with 2 parts.. Short case and the long case.. The short case is something similar with what had been taught by the doctors in the clinical lab.. Long case is also the same but you have to ask history to get the diagnosis.. I am not going to touch about the technical aspect here, because it will take one whole week to explain it..

The least mark you can get is 45, but if you are excellent enough you might get 55 which is the highest you can get.. Passing mark is 50.. So for both exam, short case and long case, you must get at least 100 to pass.. If you get 49 or 48, in either one, you must get 51 or 52 respectively in the other exam for you to pass.. But if you get 47 and below, there is no chance for you to pass the exam although you get 55 in the other exam.. 99 is fail, but one might pass the exam if he / she has a very good attitude, comes to the lectures, completed the log book and whatever that resemble him / her as a good student..

Precaution.!! I hope I am not wrong about the rule that I am going to tell you after this.. Because it keeps changing year by year.. Hopefully I am updated about this.. You have 4 long/major posting at year 4.. But you only can afford to fail 1.. If you fail 2, then you have to repeat the whole year again with the juniors.. The good news about the new regulation is, if you fail 1 long posting, you don't have to take supplement at the end of the year as we did.. (new policy to reduce the exam rate) So, remember.! Please pass all the exam.! OR if you want to fail, please fail only 1 long posting.. So, choose which posting you want to fail wisely..

What to read.?
It is a long holidays, having done everything you want to do, why don't you use the free time to study.. The list given might not complete, but at least you can refresh your pathology and other subjects as well.. Remember 4 things in anatomy > origin, insertion, nerve supply and action.. In clinical years you have to remember 4 things as well.. The Disease properties ( your pathology), History taking and examinations, Investigation and finally Treatment..

Medical posting

Surgical posting

Work together and make sure everybody success

I think, I will talk no more.. Hope you guys can become a good student doctor and be an excellent doctor in the future.. Remember..! we are nowhere without Islam.. Assalamualaikum

Assalamualaikum. Emm okay, with all the apparatus and equipments needed with you, now you can enter the hospital with smile and confident.. And if anybody ask you where you are from, please answer it with 'proud', "I am from USiM." Some of them might know you. or at least they know USiM.. But dont expect everybody know us.. On your first day, in the ward, the group leader must introduce the team to sister in charge.. Then she will brings you around and talks and talks.. Its dull and boring.. Some of them might get in your nerves.. Be relax, they just doing their jobs.. The nurses are trained like a robot that follow the program.. So, just follow what they say because we are nothing in the ward.. Be humble and never show that you are smarter than other people although you might be smarter than some of the housemen.. (especially those from ------- and ------)

If some of your friends left behind, dont just laugh at them

Okay what are we going to do in the wards.? First and foremost is the ward rounds.. We also have teaching (whether in seminar room or at the bedside).. These 2 will involve the lecturers and the  hospital 's specialists.. But there are things to do on your own such as history taking and physical examination.. Apart from that we also have to do some ward works in order to complete the log book.. I know you will not understand how its work.. But let me try to blow the clouds and dust from your imagination..

Make sure one whole batch pass the exam.. Its beyond logic but nothing is impossible

Ward round..

What is what round.? This is the session where the HOs, MOs, and the specialists come to see the patients at their own bed.. They will discuss regarding the management of the patient among themselves and with the patient.. Dont expect they will have time to entertain you.. But, if you are alert with what they are talking about, you will find it helpful.. So please remember this is as an informal teaching by them.. Please grab the chance and dont miss it.. Some of them might be asking questions and please answer them.. Try to impress them, who knows they will be your examiner..

If you come early to the hospital, (7.30a.m) you might follow HOs round.. This is not really a ward round, because they just review their patient before present it to the MOs.. Then come the MOs to do round.. The HOs will present the patient to the MOs.. Then a little bit of management is discussed among them.. Finally the specialists will come to review the patient.. I will consider it as the formal round.. If you miss the other 2 rounds before is forgivable.. But the round with specialists is compulsory.. The time for MOs and specialists round might varies according to the ward setting..

Please expose yourselves during rounds, they will impress with you.. We are not to showoff our knowledge, but we try to be with them.. Who knows they will be your examiners during exam.. You also might ask question if you have any doubt..

Ward work..

What is ward work.? Actually its more on doing procedure.. Usually after ward rounds, there will be a lot of opportunities to do procedure such as venopuncture, taking arterial blood gas and many more.. Some of the procedures can be done by the student doctors.. If not, we can assist the staff to do the procedures.. The minimal we can do is to watch.. But if you know how to befriend with the doctors, you can do something that ordinary student doctors cant do.. A hero from my batch (you can guest who) had done abdominal taps twice.. He even had became a HOs when he assisted a doctor doing caesarean section.. At that night all on-call HOs were busy because there were so many patients in critical situation.. All the procedures must be recorded in the log book.. The logbook comprise of 10 marks.. The most important thing is to get the doctor's signature.. This is the easiest task and usually we will wait until the end of the posting and ask the HOs to sign the logbook..

Teaching..

What is teaching.? I dont have to tell you about teaching.. It is so easy to understand.. If you dont understand, then you can go back to year 1..

History Taking and Physical Examination..

What is history taking.? It is an art for all student doctors and doctors in the world to get the diagnosis.. It  is also a way for you to get rapport and trust from the patient.. I cant tell you how to do it here because it is too long.. You may ask any seniors around and they will teach you how to do it.. This is an art, so, it needs a lot of practices and experiences apart from talent.. If there is a time to do da'wah.. This is the perfect time..  Some of the diseases have it own set of questions..You can get the script from your seniors..

What is physical examination.? In a simple word, it is what you learn at the lab with those mannequins.. If you dont remember, you will learn it by time.. You can use the recommended text book for physical examinations as your reference.. Or u But please you can watch them in the youtube.. But be sure that they use the correct format because some of them are too detail and others are too short.. Dont do it roughly, because dolls or dummies are not the same with the real human.. They are sick persons, we have to respect and pity them..

Okay, I will stop here.. I will continue if I get new idea.. huhu

Assalamualaikum. Emm as the time never wait for us, we continue our life.. But we might forget the past because we keep enjoying ourselves.. We also tend to forget the future and hereafter.. Oh no.. After a very long time I never post anything in my humble blog, the mind became rusty to think what to write and what to post.. Preparation, study, and bla.. bla.. I think I still in the facilitator mode after a very enjoyable moment at Tanjung Rhu.. For the year 4 students, probably there were some topics that we missed out during the camp.. So, here I have probably the easiest and the cheapest way to tell a little bit about the clinical years considering I have a lot of time to kill in this Cuti-Cuti Malaysia.. This is actually the edited version of what i have wrote to the current year 5 students..

Never sleep whenever lecturers delivering their lecture

Okay, this guide is free for all but, is targeted for the 4th year student-to-be.. But one must remember that the guide is crafted by experienced.. One might not agree with this, but for me its okay.. But please dont chase me with parang or forceps later.. So proceed with caution.. Most of the photos were taken at the Tanjung Rhu camp.. 

USiM Clinical years consist of 3 years.. The most important part is the Surgical and Medicine.. It is because, they are the first and second posting that all 4th year student will encounter.. As usual, there are 2 main groups.. One for the medical and the other is surgical.. What so special about USiM is we have 2 teaching hospitals.. Therefore, both surgical and medical groups are further divide into 2.. One in Ampang and the other is placed in Temerloh.. Now we see the group is getting smaller.. In both hospitals, we have few medical and surgical wards.. Therefore, the group in Ampang and Temerloh will be divided according to the wards.. So, we will see that, in a ward there will be about 7 student doctors.. Simple right.?

But things will get more complicated, as we also have a stiff competition from other medical school.. In Temerloh, we might have to share the wards with some of the UIAM student doctors.. In Ampang there is a private medical school by the name of UNITAR if I am not mistaken also putting their students too.. So dont get shock when u can see there will be a lot more people with white coat than the patients.. Just smile and be friendly with anyone because when we work, we will never afford to choose with whom we will work with..

Okay, let us see what is needed in the wards.. First attitude and second knowledge.. But we are not to talk about it now, just wait for the next posts.. The third is apparatus.. How to dress.? To enter the hospital, you must bring your USiM matrix card, white coat and shoes.. Never wear slippers.. The guard may stop you  from entering the ward if you don't bring your matrix card..

To be a good student doctor, please always bring your pens, notebook, stethoscope, pen torch, measuring tape, tendon hammer and text book with you.. You will always need them during history taking and physical examination.. You can get it all at Kamal Bookstore, UM bookstore, Unipress or others.. Depends on your budget..

After coming back to Australia, there might be financial problem for some of you, although you might work at Pizza Hut for two months after that.. But for those who are not working, let us plan the budget first.. One strategy is to get as many 'duit raya' as you can and please top up your phone credit to ask for your scholar..

So, total budget will be around 500+.. But if you use your wisdom, you might spend less.. Morale of the story, JPA gives you money to spend for your study.. Good Luck.. End of part 1..