To be or not to be... (Part 1 of 2)

As you might have seen previously, the countdown at the bottom of the page had been over for about 2 months now (and I've finally taken it down). My final struggle started in August and had ended today, but the battle continues. Simply because the results will not be out until Friday.

Thinking back, the last 2 months actually passed quite fast. But it wasn't until towards the end, that the torture really took the upper hand. I mean I'm talking about 5 years of education boiled down to this final exam, and laying down the stepping stone for the rest of my professional career. It was so much of psychological turmoil, that at times I find myself.... completely spaced out- very much in my own world, at my own time.

And then the time finally came to show them what I've learned for the last 5 years of my life and how competent I am. I'm skipping the theory papers all together, because they were stupid. I'm jumping straight into the practicals.

First day of practical- 1 Oct 2009.

Going for practical exam run by my college means getting afflicted with hours of waiting for my turn. If being quarantined in a room with other just-as-restless students was bad, not knowing when is my turn, only served to make it worse! I waited from 8am until 1.20pm before I was finally being called. Then I was given an hour to clerk the patient's history and examine him, diagnose his problem(s), decide what investigations I would like to do and plan the course of treatment.

My patient was a very friendly 58 years old uncle, who was very much trying to help me. But in his enthusiasm, he wasn't answering my questions and had elaborated the whole story about it. Now don't get me wrong. I enjoy talking to such patients. In fact, I believe I would enjoy looking after him in the wards. But not during exam, when I only get 1 hour for everything!

To top it all, he had a special combo of diseases- diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and end stage renal failure on dialysis. And because they were all very common diseases, there's a wide ground to cover, not only in the history but in the examination as well. They are basically "high- expectation" diseases all seen in this patient. I'm only speaking in terms of final exam, I'm not even going to go into what the patient has to go through everyday because of his illnesses.

When I realized by the end of the first 5 minutes how tough this case was, I took a deep breathe, calmed myself down, smiled to the uncle and persevered.

Towards the last 10 minutes, when I was writing down and organizing my thoughts, uncle was still chatting away something about when he was in the army. I really couldn't response much anymore, other than occasional, "Oh ya ke?". When he learned where my hometown was, he got all excited because he was trained there for years. And that was also when he mentioned that the previous student who examined him was from Klang. Now that caught my attention and I stopped writing. The only person from Klang, taking exam on the same day, whom I know of was none other than M!

After the presentation and the drilling from examiners, I found out that M had the same panel of examiners as well! What a coincidence!

That was the 1st day of the 2 days of practical exam.

I actually felt a burden being lifted off from my shoulders. The exhilaration of finally getting it over with is actually difficult to describe. There was also a sense of satisfaction, that I had performed considerably well.

I had a peaceful sleep that night.