Merry Christmas

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (Jn. 3:16)

God - The greatest lover

So loved - The greatest degree

The world - The greatest number

That He gave - The greatest act

His only begotten Son - The greatest gift

That whosoever - The greatest invitation

Believeth - The greatest simplicity

In Him - The greatest person

Should not perish - The greatest deliverance

But - The greatest difference

Have - The greatest certainty

Everlasting life - The greatest possession

Author unknown

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, with the true love, joy and peace that only Jesus can give.

On Yesterday...

The first three hurdles of the 4th year steeplechase were over yesterday! Hopefully, I didn't drop any of the hurdles along the way. It's not so much the forensics and public health that are worrying me. But, over the past few months, my predecessors have been giving me the impression that passing orthopaedics is pretty much like defeating the impossible...

And yesterday I discovered why! It was a Bitch exam if I may say! As tradition I suppose (with tradition being 1/3 of a class doomed to fail). I just hope I won't be part of that statistic. Come to think of it, I don't really want ANYONE to be part of that statistic.

Otherwise, the rest of the day was OK. Had a Media meeting to discuss Xmas issue of Sphygmo and Murmur magazine, chatted with friends, went out and did not get back home till 2am this morning. And there are more blog worthy events coming up NEXT weekend (nope, sorry not this weekend), with one of such events being MMSA Health Fest at Valletta. I'll divulge details regarding that later on.

Sphygmo is Out!

For all medical students of the past, present and (perhaps) future...

The first-ever online edition of Sphygmo is out!

I suggest visiting http://issuu.com/sphygmommsa/docs/sphygmo to read and download!

Now, back to my books!

This Little Paradise of Mine

Exam fever is keeping me away from blogging, as I've said time and time again for the past x amount of blog posts. However, here is a little essay written by my 17 year-old sister during her English lessons entitled This Little Paradise of Mine. Funnily enough, she ended up writing about my little paradise. So... here you go ladies and germs...

This Little Paradise of Mine

I have you know that my life is one big roller coaster full of ups and downs, twist and turns and each minute seems to go by at the speed of light! I am a fourth year medical student, of 21. Exams never seem to far away, my 'To Do List!" seems endless, and being a member of the MMSA I do not have much free time.

However, just like anyone else, I need to rest. Sometimes I feel that I have to just get away from it all....(without getting out of the house and using up half a day in which I can easily cover two "Head and Neck" chapters. I do not go out much, and I am not what one might call a 'party animal', so I am more creative than others when it comes to my social life and this is my little paradise.

Mind you, its not much. It is only a stuffy corner, full of dusty papers on the desk which are covering the keyboard. I shall not call it my paradise because it is my computer desk, but rather it is a shuttle that takes me there.

I find my sense of well-being and tranquility in my writing.

I write about absolutely anything that comes to mind, as soon as I close my eyes, and travel in the middle of nowhere amongst the ocean of figments of my imagination. While people are down the block having a laugh over a bottle of gin, I am on the foot if the Great Wall of China, or I am a keen traveller exploring the most tropical safari. I might even be a lizard trying to find my way out of a maze in some one's backyard.

Writing helps me to think about myself, it helps me reflect on my life, which is very important as at this stage of my life, I always need to ensure that being a doctor, in the casualty ward, is what I want to do. Not that I always doubted it, au contraire, amongst my sisters I was always the surer one. I wanted to practise this profession since I was eight and I was always so passionate about it.

However, I am obviously not the same eight year old, and since one tends to get used to ideas grained into their minds, it does not occur to them that there are other options out there! And one tends to do things passively and the fire inside will slowly fade away.

My writing keeps the flame burning, reminds me who I really am and oozes me with self- confidence and with a fresh point of view with which I see my life, and the life of others... as a precious gift which one should treat fairly.

(OK... you can clap now... or even better comment.)

Orthopaedics, Forensics and Public Health

Seeing the rate at which I'm blogging, posts seem to be dwindling down to one post a month. I doubt this scenario will change much for the time being. As I was privileged to observe from my predecessors, 4th year is the year where you constantly have to keep on your toes. It's not proving to be too bad so far. And for when it does, I do have a safety valve mechanism that will help preserve my sanity when exam pressure exceeds the preset limits. I'm helping out the Media Team within MMSA to having a smash hit newsletter Sphygmo. I'm the editor this year; which explains where some of my writing efforts are going.


The rest is all being seeped out into writing decent Epidemiology and Public Health notes so that I'll be able to write decent essays when the exam comes on the 26th of next month. Apart from that, there's also Orthopaedics and Forensic Medicine to study.


Orthopaedics is going OK, although that also still needs to be tested (hopefully only once on the 28th of November). It's quite interesting so far. I just wish it was just a little tiny bit easier...

Then there's also Forensic Medicine. It is nice though, mind you, not as exciting as CSI Miami, Criminal Minds or all those other shows aired on TV. Despite this, people who decide to do pathology and become experts in this field really do have a challenge ahead of them. Lectures always give me this impression that, just like in all branches of science, there are no absolutes to anything and that sometimes, it is not always possible to expect 100% certainty from your forensic findings.

To scientific minds, this may sound obvious. Unfortunately, in court, doctors are not questioned by people with such (brinlliantly logic and reasonable) minds. Instead, they're questioned by lawyers who never seem to get to grips with the fact that science is well known for it's grey areas and that no stupid questions need to be asked to prove that point during court trails in order to try decrease the court expert's credibility.

And for those people who are thinking that I should cut lawyers some slack, I'll just let the facts speak for themselves. Here are these questions, taken from actual transcripts, and see for yourselves whether lawyers can be very stupid:


Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?
Q: Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the accident?
Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
Q: Did he kill you?
Q: How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?
Q: You were there until the time you left, is that true?


Not convinced? Take this exchange...

Q: Doctor, is it possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for pulse or breathing?
A: No.
Q: Then how can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nonetheless?
A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practising law somewhere!


Or this one (a personal favourite if I may add)

Q: So the date of conception [of the baby] was August 8th?
A: Yes
Q: And what were you doing at that time?


Personally, I rest my case!

Back from London and Off to 4th Year

Sorry for the lack of posts, but this blogger has been in London last week. Just got back Sunday early morning, only to start my 4th year this Monday.


London was nice; a good end to a very busy summer. There is a little part of me that would have liked a bit more 'recovery time' because the winter months are proving to be very hectic, with the work already starting to pile up at alarming rates. In fact, with so much on my plate at the moment, I'm just going to leave you with Bernard Levin's Quoting Shakespeare - all for the sake of not leaving you readers hanging. I first encountered this whilst at the Globe Theatre on the Southbank of London (on the opposite side of the River Thames to St Pauls Cathederal). Hope you'll enjoy this as much as I did, for it might be a while till you'll hear from me again.

If you cannot understand my argument and declare, "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare. If you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare. If you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is farther to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare. If you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied - a tower of strength - hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows - made virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play - slept not one wink - stood on ceremony - danced attendance on your lord and master - laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift - cold comfort, or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days, or lived in a fool's paradise, why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone Conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare. If you think it is high time, and that that is the long and the short of it, if you believe that the game is up, and that truth will out, even if involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have teeth set on edge at one fell swoop - without rhyme or reason, then to give the devil his due if the truth were known for surely you have a tongue in your head, you are quoting Shakespeare. Even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a doornail, if you think I am an eyesore - a laughing stock - the devil incarnate - a stony-hearted villain - bloody-minded, or a blinking idiot, then by jove - O lord- Tut, tut! - For goodness sake - what the dickens! - but me no buts - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare...

Back from Wien...

Managed to come back in one piece from Austria... the land of everything Mozart and everything Strauss. My colleague and I came back home Saturday evening.

It was an eventful trip overall; one that's a little bit difficult to describe. See, more than it being a long holiday or a “crash course in infectious diseases”, this student exchange programme managed to serve as an interesting eye opener to a lot of things. The most you readers might be able to appreciate is the fact that a lot of sightseeing was done in our free time. Vienna is as beautiful as people say it is. And hearsay that Austria is a beautiful country is all so very, very true.

We visited Vienna to the point were we exhausted our monthly travel pass (the Monatskarte) and got nauseated at the sight of Mozart and his chocolates (more often referred to by their more coarse-sounding title "Mozart balls"). We also ventured a bit outside Vienna. And once upon a Tuesday, we even crossed Austrian borders by bus and went to Budapest (in Hungary).

I did attempt to update you all throughout these 4 weeks, especially when we had our rainy days (five in all - not bad. At least not as bad as England). But the free Internet access at the hospital (AKH) never allowed me to do that. And the little Internet time I had on my hands was spent with family and a couple of friends. Nevertheless... I DID check my blog a couple of times but never found comments attached to my previous post. On seeing that I just figured... my readers can wait. They’re most probably very busy enjoying summer! So, I never felt pressured to blog.

But now that I'm back home, with my summer job at McDonald's leaving me with very little to blog about, snippets of my lovely time in Wien might eventually emerge on this blog... sometimes through pictures and sometimes through wordy stories... It all depends on how encouraging I find your comments threaded to this post!