Pleasantly surprised

This semester we had two new courses added to the curriculum. I have to admit I was a bit wary because they told us they are EU-mandated courses that now need to be taught in medical schools in Europe and last year we had one of those - called Occupational Health & Safety and it was the worst, most boring and useless class ever.

The classes that were added this semester are called Intro to Medical Communication and Research Methodology.

And both had surprised me with how good they are. In Research Methodology we are doing to learn how to use awesome equipment like PCR machines and we will be learning how to extract cells from mice! The lab that the classes are in are state-of-the-art, newly built (thanks EU funding!) and I'm really excited about it.

Medical Communications was also really good. The prof is a psychologist and I really like her teaching style. Plus the things she said the course will focus on are things that I really believe are so important with regards to how doctors communicate with their patients. I really hope people pay attention to it because I think we will learn a lot. Plus, she said that this is just an introductory course but most of our communications learning will come next year in our medical psychology class which by the sounds of it, I'll really enjoy.

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In other news I have a big biochem exam next week which I'm a bit nervous about. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with biochem. On one hand, its fascinating to learn about how our body works at this level, on the other, there are just so. many. enzymes and steps in all the various pathways, that I have no idea how I'll be able to remember them all. I think I'm going to have to make some Anki cards for this one.

Plus the exam follows a weekend during which I've committed the whole of Saturday to attending a workshop on the Foundations Years Programme in the UK. As much as I really, really want to go back to Canada for my post-grad training, I need to have a reliable backup, and think the UK would be best for me. At least, this seems to be the most popular and possible track for me (from what I understand, the acceptance rate to the FY programme from my university has been close to 100% of those that apply).

But I digress. Since I'll be away almost all Saturday, I'll have to be home for Sunday so I can spend some time with the kids. Which means the time I'll be able to study will be greatly reduced.

So I'm going to do my damndest to get as much done as I can before and just use Sunday and Monday to review.

Luckily I don't have a few regularly scheduled classes today so am going to use that time to study a bit (which I really should be doing now instead of updating this blog but whatevs).