Stand up, speak out

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. Nothing really exciting has been happening, other than blood & onc lectures, and we all know how riveting those are.

We came to our half-way point for our clinical interviewing sessions yesterday. I was slightly nervous going into it because the previous week we had emailed the course coordinator about one of our facilitators. You see, we were having some "issues" with this one person. That person (who shall be now be known as Dr. N) had this problem of speaking much too often and too long about...well...nothing. Like literally, he would have these 20 minute soliloquies on a subject that had nothing to do with anything anyone was talking about. And to make things worse, it made no sense whatsoever seeing as he used giganto words nobody has ever heard of.

Dr. N

"...blah, blah, blah...consequently, the corollary of aforementioned haematuria manifests itself as intolerance directed towards...blah, blah, blah..."

Stuff to self

[doodling ECG axis]

What is going on here? I didn't know Shakespeare was still alive.

Rest of Stuff's group

[looking dazed and lost]

Wha?

Another thing was that he was always talking about how he counsels patients on dialysis, etc, etc. I mean, that's fine, tell us about your job. But don't tell the same story every week man! Especially when we're talking about, I don't know, birth control? Blood Tranfusions? Common cold? Like, seriously? But the worse thing was that he often said some very offensive and discriminatory statements. So as a group, we went to the course coordinator to give some constructive criticism. She said she would speak to him. So you can see why I would be a little apprehensive going in yesterday. How would Dr. N react? Did we just commit academic suicide? Luckily, it seemed to go over well. Dr. N asked us if there were any changes we wanted to make, and we basically said we wanted it to be interactive, and for there to be more opportunities for us to speak. Lo and behold, it worked! It was the best session we had so far. Another example that speaking up when you think something is wrong or should be changed is really important.

On another note, Truffles has gone on a trip for a research conference far, far away. It's all very grown-up. If you're reading this Truffles, we missed you in class today! Good luck with your presentation, you'll do great. And don't worry, I didn't fall asleep in class today! Woohoo! I took some very extensive notes for you. And cramberry tried to tape the lecture but the doc was speaking very softly, so I'm not sure it'll record very well (it was AAA guy). See you next week. You better come back tanned, haha.