woorabinda on my mind...

mood: languid enough.
state i'm in: rainy day reading.
tune: zero 7 & josé gonzález 'crosses'.


i don't think i'm a country person, by any stretch of the imagination, but i have really been missing the solitude of rural life lately. and missing the general mood of woorabinda. i miss the relaxing days, the 20 second walk to work in the morning, fooling around for half the day with the health workers, and being intimately in touch with some very transforming social issues that grab a community by the shirt and shake it back to its cowering in the corner. i miss the yarns the most.

i've been back in brisbane for some time now, about 6 weeks, and it's becoming painfully obvious how little solitute a set of headphones really affords. it's an escape nonetheless, to pop on some blondie or blue six and lose yourself in the patterns on the plastic mouldings of the train interior. but it's not the sort of cathartic escape possible when your town lies hours from civilisation. there is no paddock or airstrip you can wander off into, where you can scream without being heard by anything but the kangaroos and the apostlebirds.

moreover, the extreme solitude i experienced, some of it self-imposed, has left me struggling to deal with people at such close quarters. it's not that i don't want them near, but i just find myself exuding an emotional coldness which is not so characteristic. the depth of these feelings and the revelations to be found within them is a little troubling.

anyway, here's some pics from my peripatetic days...

the old duaringa butcher... not sure if the meat's so fresh



rural hazard



view from horseshoe lookout, blackdown tableland nat'l park




in a moist part of the national park



view from descent down blackdown tableland



red-winged parrots... before alighting, they were 70km/h streaks of greed, red and blue



my flatmate... mostly just kept to himself



good camouflage



big sky country... beside the airstrip



my room, and that shitty phone!



one chilly night after a few drinks at dr mary's place. this is the woorabinda health service by night, complete with obligatory grazing horses



have i got the wrong car park?



somewhere between duaringa and nowhere



some of the local kids performing



damian, a good performer, whether at a corroboree or a public meeting




with lizzie and woggie... i felt like i connected with lizzie the most, over lots of cuppas out the back, yarning about all sorts of local and not-so-local issues; while a tad tangential at times, she always had something to say worth listening to



with yasmin and uncle bill, who's radio station i frequented



hard working woorie



crazy psychologist loretta



renee with her young one, maurie and lizzie



uncle charlie, shirley, and leeann the gatekeeper of the health service... uncle charlie was a hoot



aunty pam and aunty mary... "it's friday... where's my beeeeer?"



margaret (RN), bodgy and maurie



the health service resident's adopted dog, mia. such a sweet little thing



farewell woorie...

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images: mine

touching base...

mood: uncomfortable.
state i'm in: orthopaedically bored.
tune: madonna 'swim'


i feel so enormously out-of-touch with my regular musings here. the life away from brisbane has taken it's toll.

so i'd like to make amends and get this thing kick-started again.

when you're out of touch with a friend, it gets harder and harder with each day to regain contact. there is more and more to tell them about and it just feels like such an ordeal that you don't bother... and then it gets harder still. sort of feels like that with my blog, much like a friend.

so where to start? i could start where i left off... in reality however, i left off about novemeber last year. still haven't posted any pics from suffien and my little road trip through new south wales and canberra for emma and clay's wedding. never posted a great deal in nambour. managed to post absolutely nothing when away in rockhampton and woorabinda for my rural rotation, in spite of this being one of the experiences of my life.

i guess i'll just write about what's going on now, and intersperse it with experiences from over the preceding months.

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being back in brisbane isn't too bad. true, spending virtually all of my 28 years in this city have made me a little less than excited by what it offers, but i know it could be so much worse (read rockhampton). i have some great friends here, made both pre- and post-entry to med, then there is the lovely suffien, and of course there is my family. watching my niece grow up has to be one of my favourite hobbies.


internal medicine and rural rotations are out of the way, which sees me at the royal brisbane and womens, and wesley hospitals for surgery rotation, starting with orthopaedics. i won't say too much about it, except that whilst i don't mind orthopaedics, orthopaedic surgeons, for the most part, are a whole different story.

more to come...

still in nambour...

mood: cloudy.
state i'm in: a little unwell... strep pneumoniae anyone?
tune: none... just the hum of computers in NGH library.


yes, still in nambour, but alas, my sunny coast days are numbered.

exams are on thursday, and i have to say i am not really that confident about my ability to do well. a pass is likely (if based purely on odds), but much more than that seems difficult. the last two years of this thing they call and MBBS has essentially knocked most of the academic self-esteem out of me.

still, i have only fond sentiments about the overall experience here... the staff are fantastic, and will be missed... have had a great time with a great buinch of people up here... the area is a nice place to study, with beaches and hinteralnd and shops and quaint towns all within easy reach... and what pub other than the club hotel in the main street can boast such noisy crickets in their garden beds.

so onward into my final week, where i will be banned form the hospital here and left to the mercy of the oldies in caloundra for three days of practice before thursday. then, we shall drink.

nambour week 2

mood: excited about tomorrow.
state i'm in: damaging the dalton.
tune: bryan ferry 'time on my hands'.

nambour viewed from the west

a few things are starting to take shape as the second week of my internal medicine rotation comes to an end. most importantly for the short term, i think i am gaining an understanding of what is required by my assessors. but even more exciting than that, i am starting to feel as if i have some worth within the medical team. i have made a couple of contributions to patient management (21-hydroxylase adrenal antibodies may yet prove to be my coup d'etat of the rotation), and am slowly coming to grips with form after form and reams of progress notes to be filled out. i feel i am making some encouraging headway.

however, nothing hardens my resolve to become a doctor more than the tremendous power of the relationship between doctor and patient. when a patient or one of their kin shakes your hand, and thanks you, or expresses their faith and hopes in you... well, it is very difficult to describe the power of that connection. there is such an enormous gravity beholden to the plans we make for and with our patients.

this is not a rant about how much power a doctor might have, and how intoxicating such power might be - i would hate it to be viewed as such.

what i would like to express is the immense pride i am filled with in myself, in my profession and those affiliated with it, including the patients themselves, for embarking together on the endeavour to reach a common goal - that goal being the most satisfying outcome for the patient. so often this runs in the face of our own naïvety or the challenging nature of many of the patients and their circumstances, but there is never an instance when we have nothing to offer, even if it is merely genuine compassion. it is such an awesome feat to witness at such close quarters.

storm front rolling over alexandra headland

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images: mine

g'day

mood: calm.
state i'm in: where's the cheese?
tune: mylo 'zenophile'.


this video reel of bloopers from 'come and get it' just surfaced earlier this month. who'd have thought peter russell-clark would have had such a potty-mouth...

nambour week 1

mood: a little down...
state i'm in: such a pleasant place to not be on holidays.
tune: tori amos 'cornflake girl'.


i took today off, which means my first week in nambour was over prematurely… just a three day week to start with.

whilst seeing a patient yesterday, a man in the next bed arrested, which must be the most exciting thing that has happened thus far. i have not seen such a cataclysmic convergence of medical staff before in my short career, from a nurse tapping me on the shoulder to help, to her then realising I was a lowly student, then grabbing the intern to check the patient, then there were a dozen then twenty or more hospital staff members standing around observing this man’s chest being compressed to a third depth, or assist in handing something requested by the resuscitation team. i just stood idly by and watched.

other than that, my first week has taught me that really i have few answers. i cannot answer my supervisors with certainty of my correctness, and i cannot answer many of the patients’ queries due to concerns of not saying what the reg or consultant would say. i cannot do the job as good as anyone else can, so it makes doing any job at all tough.

nevertheless, i am willing to persist for now, in spite of my mother’s warning me to beware of the noravirus infection in nambour general, pressing on hoping to one day become competent in something.

the most i can say for now is that my efforts in my first week have been a quite self-deprecating endeavour.

at least life on the sunny coast is pretty good - beach nearby, friendly locals, and a comfy house to live in with a couple of good roommates. not all complaints up here.

halfway

mood: cheery, no more work...
state i'm in: mashin' it up one time!
tune: jay-j & mark grant feat. latrice barnett 'love is'.


reaching halfway through any course is a bit of a milestone; halfway through med is all the more significant in so far as that it heralds an end to primarily academic study and ushers in one's years of clinical training - we are now truly 'doctors-in-training'. this makes me glad, although i do have almost as strong a feelings of apprehension as excitement. but really, there is only usefulness to be found in entertaining one set of thoughts.

the following excerpt from a work by writer bruce durbin sort of captures the mood, and the picture immediately below certainly seizes a moment spent celebrating it... godspeed!




have you ever crossed a river? no, not using a bridge, but rather venturing into the rushing current using only your legs? as you step into the flowing water, the current will attempt to carry you downstream. the rocks, made smooth by countless centuries of rushing water, are slippery and your footing is uncertain.

as you look down into the rushing water, while you're standing still, the movement of the water, sweeping around your legs, invites you to follow the flowing water downstream. you become entranced with the flowing water. the water's movement forms multiple patterns as it moves effortlessly over rocks. you try to see into the deep pools of darkened water. all around you, there is the motion of the flowing water.

as you move further across the river, you reach a point where it is as dangerous to return to the shore from which you abandoned, as it is to continue on your journey to the other side.

as you stand still in the moving water considering which way to venture, the water rushes on. in order to start your journey from the middle of the river to one bank or the other, you must re-start the precarious journey. the current has not subsided and will attempt to carry you downstream. the rocks remain smooth and slippery. your footing will still be uncertain.

you have ventured into a flowing river. now, the question forms in your mind:

"how long can i remain in the current of a rushing river, contemplating which way to venture?"

excluding the possibility that the water will be miraculously stopped upstream from you, ceasing the flow of the water and creating dry land, you will be forced to either attempt to reach the far shore or the shore that you left.

staying in the middle of the river is not an option.

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image: paula hade