The Promise of Spring

I didn't know what the date was until I was adding milk to my tea this morning. I looked at the 'best before' date... I strolled to my room to finalise the presentations I had to give today. It's the first day of September. Yes, Father's day is on the weekend, then his birthday in a couple of weeks and mine at the end of the month. More importantly, exams two weeks from now, then four weeks from now. It was obvious everyone was stressed because even the most optimistic people were having second thoughts, people who aren't around were suddenly around.

The tragedy was we all had other things in the short term to do before we could start studying formally. There are still so many forms that need to be looked at, criteria to be met and signatures to be received for minor victories of (temporary) knowledge retention. If only it actually helped as much as the Faculty had hoped.

These presentations I had to prepare had taken me about ten hours over the past few weeks, which is a lot given that the expectations are constant attendance and revision. The problem is they decided to group people into pairs and give them Neonatology (i.e. NICU) topics. My friend and I received five topics, which was the most any pair received. No complaints, but obviously the workload was demanding and the topics were quite large.

I got the two 'big' topics: Chronic Lung Disease (i.e. Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia) & Intraventricular Haemorrhage (IVH) and my colleague had to cover Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA), Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) & Periventricular Leukomalacia (PVL). And seriously, her topics weren't small. I would say she was generous to take up three. I owe her a favour.

My biggest issue was fear. Public speaking is usually my strength and that allows me to deliver a talk to a large crowd. But the intimidation factor goes through the roof when the audience are my colleagues in my year studying the same topics as I am. Their questions are fantastic and often very appropriate, despite being beyond our required level of knowledge (if there are such limits in place).

Today was the big day and I presented my topics alongside my colleague. We met the night before to go through each other's slides and give feedback, but we ended up watching an interesting English documentary about a 50-odd-year-old man with Neurofibromatosis and a 21-year-old lady who routinely had botox and spent two hours of every morning applying facial make-up. It was a very interesting contrast. He went to his maxillo-facial surgeon for follow-up after 27 essential surgeries and she went to her cosmetic surgeon for botox injections. They accompanied each other and their reactions to one another were so interesting. Though obviously, it was a very saddening contrast. Each diseases were debilitating in their own way.

But I digress. My colleague openly admitted she was a lousy public speaker and her nerves made things very difficult for her. I wish I could help but there was nothing I could do except offer to alternate our presentations so she had a chance to relax between presentations.

We both received great feedback and to receive such an applause was so satisfying after so much effort. Nothing could dull my day after that.

I spent the afternoon in the Colposcopy clinic and that was quite good, seeing some patients for biopsy and others for follow-up. At the end, I saw one of my friends, FV, and we decided to have dinner in the staff cafeteria. Next thing I know we're studying vigorously, asking each other questions for about 2 hours. I decided to study on Friday and drive back to my parents' place and FV lived a couple of post codes away. So in the car, we listened to lectures, went through O&G questions and quizzed each other over and over. We learnt so much and for once, we both felt motivated to learn even more, clarify points and work through the physiology.

We ended up going to a cafe until they forced us out at 2230, going through more and more questions. It was brilliant. In fact, we both decided to meet tomorrow morning to keep this up. As long as we keep the ball rolling, we're going to accumulate enough hope to keep our heads above the water and perhaps even be 'Satisfactory' according to the Faculty.

I Accept your Challenge.