Month of realization

May is coming to an end and I am officially a 4th year student now. We had 2 final written exam papers and an OSCE to close out this amazing 3rd year. Looking back at these 4 months, I am quite happy with what I achieved although I could have done way better. Lets focus on academics first before we explore other parts of my life.

Academics have been a constant roller coaster for me. Everything I think I know enough, out comes more things to further bamboozle me. Surgery rotation was fairly straight forward for me. The signs are there, diagnose based on history and signs, straightforward. Pain here, should be this this this., pain there with this characteristics, lessen the chance of some ddx. It was a really tiring rotation for me though, 5 BSTs each week. Plus, the first rotation was when everyone at home was still hyped to leave the house at 6.30am to avoid the 'jam' at Jalan Gottlieb.which I soon find out its not that bad and you just add like a good 5 minutes to your trip lol. Plus, all this can be skipped if you go through Jalan Burma there. Owh well, you learn things anyway. I got a OK result (personal standards) of 60 for Surgery long case which I was happy with. After all that business, it was really weird going to family medicine which comprises of almost nothing.. You really don't need to do alot of stuff. There is just a house visit, and reading about cases you see in the GP or KK. This light workload infected me as I began to slack and really do nothing much. I just kinda slacked off alot. Did well for the case review with Dr.Chean and I really have to thank her as she was so nice!!! However, I did screw up on my video taking assessment. I didn't get to close the session as 5 minutes just passed by like that, plus the patient's (actress) speech speed did not help at all lol. After that, it was back to clerking in wards and aiming for them 10 cases for Medicine. I realized I lost abit of my history taking skills and examination skills. So I tried taking it seriously. That only lasted for a week. I burned out. I honestly did. There were loads of factors to that, but that's another story. Basically, I kinda lost touch with studies, tried but just had no mood, had really really frequent mood swings, plus was starting to feel abit anti-social. I just didn't wanna talk to anyone, just wanna think by myself, which is exactly what I will do when I get home for this month. I really need to orientate myself before the next semester to prevent another meltdown. In the end, I didn't score as well as I thought I would in the long case examination - 55. Alex and Rachel did cheer me up a bit. I mean the result was average. Basically, you met everything, but no exceeds. I guess I would have been fine with the result if I didn't stay with absolute geniuses. One of them scored 70 and another got 75. I was really unhappy that day. I clerked, presented with confidence, only to find out the diagnosis was based on a single sign that I did not pick up hence, the diagnosis was way off. Although, since I'm here at this topic, would like to thank Prof.Yeow as well, cause without her I wouldn't have learned so much, just you know, sad it had to happen during a long case examination. Final examinations were fine for surgery but terrible for medicine. By that time, I was yearning for it to be over already that I couldn't really focus. Slept for the first third of the exam and then realize I only know half the paper LOL. Yeah, but that final paper was only 5 marks for the final year anyway, so I didn't really care about it that much. It just shows how much I still need to know. Basically, I could have worked harder for this semester and I know that, but more will be explained on the next few segments.

Next, and probably the most important, psychologically. This aspect was where I realized the most things while I was having my burnout. Firstly, I'm pretty sure everyone notices this. I am quite an emotional person. My emotions can run free and are easily influenced by everyone around me. If I don't like someone, I show it, and I bet that person can feel it. It's like the most obvious thing in the world lol. So yeah, during this past month, I realized I get way too worked up on how people around me act. I get influenced way too easily. I realized that I need to stop sulking or complaining about how people act. I need to accept people for who they are, and not sulk about them. Even if I were to sulk, its better to tell them up front about it then keep everything in me. Although I know sometimes its a lost cause, so there really isn't any point in telling them. I know I'm not the easiest person to be friends with as well due to my constant mood swings and sometimes-overly-harsh-comments. Let's not forget my ego which I'm still still learning to keep check off lol. This is exactly why I say I still need to work on my social skills. I can hurt people with my words very easily without knowing it. So, still learning hehe. Also, the rise of depression cases are kinda taking a toll on me i guess. I myself have no problem with depression, but its more of the friends around me. Everyone seems to be getting hit quite hard. 2 things I've noticed about it is the incidence on women are like way way up there compared to guys, and family plays a big role in depression. For the women stat, I really don't know why but thats just the way it is, at least that's whats happening around me. Family wise, I just kinda think some people weren't meant to have a family. A family's upbringing sets the children for life. Is it the asian attitude? Is it the hard way of showing love that screws it up? I don't know. I tried talking to some of my friends and I am so grateful that they opened up to me, but they are on the verge of giving up trying to feel better. Counselling only works to a certain extent, being in medical school taught me that meds don't exactly help, and the support that they dearly need is hard to come by. Everyone is too busy with their own lives that no one stops to notice these small little cries for help. I don't blame them, we scroll through our own FB page and sometimes we dismiss all these as "attention-seekers". What if these attentions are worth giving compared to some influencers on instagram or the Internet. I'm not saying we should pay every attention we have on all these small statuses and what the internet influencers are doing are wrong, but it doesn't help to stop and talk from time to time. Just give some time for them, it won't hurt. Although, you have to be careful of it as well. I had a few moments of downness from empathizing too much with my friends. You just feel helpless like there really isn't much you can do. I would just do as much as I can as a friend, cheer them up when they need it, and leave the rest to themselves and the professionals. It just angers and surprises me that this issue is still getting so little attention. No one cares, they all say. This "depression is just a phase thing" is a thinking within the Asian community that really needs to change, like it is annoying for me. I just hope someone picks this up and it inspires anyone reading this to look out for your friends around you. I just hope to raise a lil bit of awareness around the world!

Owh, and for my relationship status, yes everything is still going well with me and Abigail! We don't skype as often as everyone thinks maybe cause the timing is really just not right, but we text each other everyday and you know, all is well! We love each other and we will see each other really soon! Love you if you are reading this Abby!! (Less than 3, (coding issues hard to put the real thing lol)

So, I shall end this post with some hope that my next semester will be much more smoother and everything can go my way xD Will wanna come home more often cause you know home is amazing and yeah, till next time peeps :)