So as a bit of background to this blog, my name is David Hooper and I'm a junior doctor usually based in South Australia. I'm a basic trainee in emergency medicine and I'm intending to sit my primary exams on February 15th 2013.
For those of you not in the know, it's 240 multiple choice questions across anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and pathology run over two days. If you pass that, you're invited to a viva voce....kinda like the job interview from hell. All of the equivalent exams in every field of medicine are pretty soul destroying with most needing around 500-1000 hours of study and having failure rates around 50-80% (hence the reason your friendly local doctor is often not very friendly).
So I've packed my worldly possessions into a bag, kissed my wife and kids goodbye and flown to Gove in North Eastern Ahrnem Land for 90 days of rural/remote medicine and study. This town will graciously host me and teach me, in return I will provide medical care to their community and study like my life depends upon it. This blog will provide respite from study (aka therapeutic procrastination) as well as a repository for all the cool stuff I learn, see and do. If you've made it here by accident, it's not too late to turn back. If you're reading through interest, cheers bro!
Things I know today that I didn't know yesterday:
1- The weaker a drug bonds to it's receptor, the more specific it tends to be
2- Xenon can be used as an anesthetic under pressure (hate to think how that deep sea diving experiment ended....)
3- Half of drugs are chiral
4- The positive enantiomer of ketamine does all the good stuff while the negative does all the bad stuff....but it's still sold as a racemic.....like religion....
5- The active enatiomer of carvedilol is beta adrenoreceptor selective; but both enatiomers have equipotency at the alpha adrenoreceptor
6- The Gove Fire Department responds expeditiously to cooking stir fry in my apartment....sorry bout that!
109 days to go
239 questions
