After all that

Gosh, it's been aaaaages! Sorry about that.

In case you haven't worked it out, yes, after all the trials and tribulations of the past four years, I've finished uni and I'm now officially Doctor KT. What the what??

I completed the last part of med school from mid-January to early March. It's called Pre-Internship (PRINT), and basically we're supposed to do all the things an intern does, without being paid for it. The term went for seven weeks, plus one week of Dermatology (the less said about that, the better). I was placed on the Haematology ward, and I loved it!

All the staff were fantastic; from the ward clerk to the nurses to the allied health regulars to the doctors, they made me feel like part of the team. I got to do plenty of procedures and help out with the other (more boring) parts of the job, like calling for consults, organising scans, and writing discharge summaries. My resident and registrar were awesome, and by the end of my term we had a great rhythm going for ward rounds and jobs post-rounds. They were very encouraging of me and made me feel like I was going to be OK at this job after all.

The only bummer about the rotation was the other PRINT student allocated to the same ward. I've known him and have unfortunately spent a lot of time with him over the past four years, and he was insufferable during this term. Without going into details, he was an arrogant, incompetent tool. And he has no insight, so he had no idea how much everyone on the ward couldn't stand him. (Huge irony = he wants to be a psychiatrist). The other staff tried to draw me into bitching about him, but I tried to stay professional and let them rant to me without ranting back at them (believe me, once I started ranting, it was hard to stop!). The good thing was that he made me look amazing in comparison.

So while I was at the hospital every day, during the evenings I was packing up my house, planning and booking my overseas holiday, and working (of course).

I moved out in the last week of February, stored my stuff in a friend's garage, and stayed with some other friends for my last week of uni. Those friends offered to throw a massive party for me on my last day. It was brilliant! Even though it rained, we had a great time. My friends were so excited for me; it was quite overwhelming. I kept saying, "It's not a big deal, it's just a job", but I guess I've given up a lot to get to this point, and my friends recognise that. I have great friends. :)

Now I'm on my 7-week overseas holiday. Here's the itinerary:

• London (staying with my sister and her husband)


• Berlin (travelling alone until I get to Paris)


• St Petersburg


• Krakow (including Auschwitz)


• Budapest


• Prague


• Ljubljana and Lake Bled (Slovenia)


• Paris (meeting my Mum, sister, and brother-in-law for Easter)


• Northern France (driving for a week with my sister)


• Paris (alone again, for a week in an apartment)


• London (staying with my sister and brother-in-law again)


• Sydney!

This post is coming to you from St Petersburg, which is beautiful and covered in snow! I'm hoping to get a chance to do a few blog posts about my travels over the next few weeks. Yay to free internet in hotels, not to mention free wireless in cafés and airports!

I get back to Sydney at the end of April, and then I need to find somewhere to live in Wollongong during May, and then start work in early June. Very exciting!

Once I start work, I'm not sure what I'll do with this blog. I'll have to see how motivated I am to keep posting...