Of Saturday morning OSCEs and Chinatown

Yesterday, we had yet another mock OSCE for IMU students, courtesy of the Adelaide Uni and Queen Elizabeth Hospital staff. Although I'm not too fond of trudging to hospital on Saturdays (buses come less frequently on weekends), it was really good of them or organize these 'IMU specials' for us. Throughout these months we've had lots of extra tutorials and stuff which I'd say has been a great help to us.

Anyway, the mock OSCE comprised of 4 stations: 1 clinical examination, 2 histories and 1 (supposedly) data interpretation. I started at Station 4, which I thought was going to be either ECGs of serum biochemistry or blood gases or some X-rays. Mana tahu....

*ting~ling~liigg* (the OSCE bell like ice-cream bell only. Still better than the horrible buzzer back in CSU Bukit Jalil.)

I hurried in, was going to go straight to the station, sit down and answer some data interpretation questions. Then suddenly there was this lady with a marking sheet there and she asks me to wait outside the station for one minute of question reading time. Wait... why is there an examiner for this station?? *stares at sign outside the station* Oh crap...

"You are in a cafe when suddenly someone collapses bla bla bla.... what do you do?"

I peeked over the curtains and saw a mannequin on the floor.

Crap crap crap. CPR!! That was so unexpected!!

Good thing we had a little refresher course on CPR during the first half of our Medical Home Unit Posting. If not, I'd have freaked out there and then. Still I didn't know that CPR could come out in the OSCE. And as I discovered after I completed the station (had time to chat with the examiner), you can't fake your compressions or rescue breaths at all. The mannequin is hooked up to this panel and certain spots will light up when you compress correctly. And it can also tell the examiner the depth of your compressions. If you compress somewhere else (or compress too hard) lights in spots like the abdomen, lateral chest etc will flash. -_-"

Another unexpected station was where instead of taking a history, we had to break bad news to a patient who was found to have colon cancer + ?liver mets. The other 2 stations were good ol' physical examinations and histories. Still need lots of practice though. Still struggling to get a full respiratory exam done smoothly in 6 minutes!

After the OSCE, we headed back to the city for some lunch and grocery shopping. It had been a while since we went to Chinatown, so Ken and I had lunch and did some grocery shopping there. Was looking for a new wok. The reason why will be dealt with in a later post. Anyway, we stumbled across this dumpling restaurant. And since it's a cold, Sunday morning and I'm too bored and lazy to study now, I shall show you some pictures...

The entrance to Chinatown. Pretty standard, huh? Resembles the one in Petaling Street in a way. But the place is way cleaner la.

Yes, the place is called Dumpling King. Tried the fried pork and chicken + prawn dumplings. Not bad, actually. A little oily though. The restaurant sells noodles, rice and soup too.

Like advertising for the restaurant only. Should get some commission for this. :P:P:P

The dumplings were pretty filling (for me). Had to ta pau back half for dinner. 10 chicken + prawn dumplings for $7.80, or 15 pork dumplings for the same price. Yes... it's bloody expensive if you convert to RM, but unfortunately, this is more or less standard restaurant prices here in Australia...:(

Pork + spring onion + ginger + flour = delicious combination. :)