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G'day, thought it was about time for an update as we have not written much since getting to Tasmania, land of the Devil....
Just to re-cap, we've been here now nearly three weeks (shhhh, don't tell the medical school...) having been round the south-east bit of the mainland spending all our money. But we met Karl Kennedy so it was all worth it. We flew to Hobart, Tasmania's capital city, which isn't very big, and found that there was nowhere to stay as there was a wooden boat festival on. They have a lot of festivals here, yesterday was Launceston Cup Day, so we had a day off, in two weeks its '8 hour day' (?) which is a public holiday, and we just missed Australia day before we got to Oz. They even have Easter Tuesday off, which no one can explain, but they grumble as they also used to have Easter Wednesday off...... anyway, we came up to Launceston (pronouned lawn-cest-ton, which is confusing for those of us in the southwest, especially as it was named after Launceston, pronouced lawns-ten, in Cornwall) and settled into our rather basic accomodation, last refurbished (and possibly cleaned) c.1970. It's only 2pounds a night, and it has a bed, desk, wardrobe, some draws and a window that won't open properly (coz i broke it, don't tell anyone.......), so does the job, but our rooms are opposite the toilets so we get to hear everything. also, our idea to live in with the locals and get the feel of the place was put to one side when we found we're living with a load of people from Malaysia, and a v.scary women originally from Scotland!! But it's a nice city, with a massive gorge in the middle of it where you can swim and sunbathe, and the weather has been SWEET. Don't think it's been less than 25C any day we've been here.
In hospital we've done two weeks of general medicine, which was very laid back. In the morning they would have a handover meeting from the previous day/night where ALL the medical consultants would meet for an hour at 8am and and give their two cents to each case, which was a really efficient way to get info for each patient, but perhaps a bit of an expensive use of consultant resources! Then we'd do the ward round with Jay-Sen the reg, which took up most of the morning, with some clinics and stuff thrown in for fun. It seems the students here are very much observers, rather than hands on, do the job, get involved, which has been frustrating at times. This week we started emergency medicine, which has been more interesting. The head of the department is an interesting character - he has a big beard, wears a bow-tie, is the only doc to wear a white coat - and has a photo of himself in said attire on the wall behind where he sits at hos desk - fantastic! We've made friends with a reg from England who left when he was a junior doctor as the hours were so bad (thank you for fixing that europe!) and he's been getting us involved, but still not very hands on so far - the beardy guy said we might be able to put in cannulas as long as we're supervised! how do the students cope with their first jobs next year?
We've been away one weekend - Wineglass bay, which was very pretty, and Port Arthur, where the convicts' convicts were sent for very minor crimes (e.g stole a coat....). Last weekend we did the sunbathing/swimming thing which was very nice. Next 'weekend' we are walking the overland track - a 5/6 day walk through some proper wilderness, all to put the medical environment in context for our project of course....
right, i'm off to put another shrimp on the barbie (i actually had barbecued shrimp for lunch at the hospital one day from the cafeteria - how cool is that!) so won't keep you any longer. keep the messages coming, we love every single one of them, thanks!
Danny and Katie xxxx
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