Carbon footprints in the sand

This blog is so psycho, from angst to Idol to silly videos and back. Multipersonality disorder much!

I just realised what a hectic year there is ahead. Here's the plan:

• Oct 21 - Nov 16: last week of lectures, exam cramming & exams ie. hermitude for 4 weeks
  
• Nov 17 - 25: 1 week clear, maybe go to Melbourne or mini road trip
  
• Nov 26 - 30: Year 3 prep week
• Dec 1 - 7: 1 week clear
  
• Dec 8 - 30: possible trip to the Motherland via Malaysia via Gold Coast (budget Air Asia wot) with the steps... awkward galore.
  
• Dec 31 - Jan 23: 3.5 weeks clear, visit Melb if I don't go in Nov.
  
• Jan 24 - Feb 7: do the Dr Quinn John Flynn thang in Airlie Beach
• Feb 8 - 10: 3 days to prepare for Year 3 and move back into sharehouse
  
• Feb 11 - June 29: kill self in what's said to be the hardest academic semester to date (derm, opthalm, the REST OF MED that we haven't learnt yet) - with 2 weeks' midsem hols in April
• June 30 - Jul 13: midyear 2 week break, probably go to Melbourne and show Kezface around Syd
  
• Jul 14 - 20: GP week in some random rural town
• Jul 21 - Sept 7: jump into the deep end in first ever clinical term in Armidale for 7 weeks. Total 2.5-3 months of rurality.
• Sept 8 - 28: 3 weeks midsem holidays, prepare for Health Equity Selective
  
• Sept 29 - Oct 24: thrown into deep end again for HES in Mauritius? Vanuatu? Northern Territory? Mexico, Malawi?! Must get this organised soon.
  

Come to think of it, the last year has been Melb, Syd, Newie (lather rinse repeat) + Albury + Brisvegas, Gold Coast + Tahiti, NY, Niagara, Toronto, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec City, Boston, DC. The mind boggles. I've gotta plant a tree or something.

In fact why shouldn't I spit up some HES thoughts here and get ideas from the gallery. Criteria are:

1. Clinically challenging. HES isn't officially a clinical placement, but it's 8 weeks and there's only so much observation of health systems you can do! Don't just want to bum around on a beach all day either, which some people have done. But also don't want to go to a place where the only tools you have are...I dunno, a handsaw and sewing kit. Cos that would be a teensy bit scary.
   
2. Mind-blowing ie. somewhere out of my comfort zone, with a totally different perspective ie. somewhere un(der)developed. As with #1 I'm not sure how I'd cope - a mollycoddled burban girl alone! At this point backpacking Europe would already be challenging, let alone Malawi. But mebbe it'd do me good to go somewhere that scares me pantsless.
   
3. Something that makes the most of the "one chance to do whatever the hell you want to" aspect of HES. I imagine that the rest of my career will be pretty conservative - if I'm cautious now, I'll only be more reluctant to do something batshit after graduation with the added pressure of repaying my bond and HECS and mortgage and whatever grownups have to worry about. HES is different from travel cos you get to see the non-touristy side of things. With NT, this is our only real chance to go in the course. I'm ruling out VN cos my great-uncle has plenty of contacts there and I could go any time.
   
4. Reasonable rouble-wise. NT is government-funded, so far above the others. Vanuatu is cheapo, a hop skip jump from Syd. Mauritius is ok since there are often Air Mauritius deals. Latin America is the most rouble-unfriendly due to airfares. Pacific Islands or Asia would be alright.
   
5. Safe. The guy who talked to us about Peru got pulmonary oedema from altitude....errr. No rape, shooting, or flesh-eating bug infections either. That'd be nice.
   
6. Language. One of the reasons why Latin America was on the top of the list. Love Romance languages, always wanted to learn Spanish properly and when else am I going to? But as the calendar above shows, when am I going to have the time to cram Spanish beforehand? My one semester of Span 101 won't hack it. Another steep learning curve in addition to the meducation I have to survive. Ay caramba. Though my housemate is going to Madagascar with 8 hours of French under her belt! So anyway, some country that speaks English, French, or something easy to pick up, like pidgin. That sort of rules out Asia.
   

Ahhh tis exciting, so many possibilities. I think #1-#3 are the most important, though roubles and safety are preconditions. Educational, mindblowing, one-off.

So much to blog, such crap technology

First setback- it's a no on my proposal from DoHA.

There are no plans to alter the current arrangements in the John Flynn Scholarship Scheme. As per my last email, your feedback is appreciated and has been noted.

And this is all the reply I am to expect? I might wonder why, with so little effort at civility, I am rejected! I don't want appreciation but action, you nitwit. Bureaucrats, pah. Hehe. Well, this was only the opening salvo, hardly expected success. Next step is to get some bigger allies to throw their weight behind the idea and bang the pot at a MP or several.

Meanwhile, such a busy day yesterday with taking the cousins a-touristing around the city all day and standing for 3 hours at Sideshow = footsore as hell! Twas hilario though. The set had a proper carnival burlesqueish atmosphere and all the acts were awesome - my ribs were sore as they should have been. We got to see Sarah Blasko, the Umbilical Brothers, Tripod, the Sandman, etc. Not bad for the price of an email! Moment of the night: hearing Paul McDermott tell one of the roadies (or whatever they're called in teeveeland) to fetch him a beer "to ease the fear" before singing, and the roadie whispering the order into his mike! He was more abrasive than I expected, though his off-record persona was pretty much like his TV self, just with more swearing. Bloody man took 3 takes of the finale song- the clapping took on a note of sarcastic exasperation at the end I think!

Rural evangelism

So, I have been touched by inspiration. Dirty thing. No, I had this simple idea months ago at the Albury rural conference, but am finally getting my ass into action. Using pot-banging skills I acquired in rather different circumstances in fact- ta Jerry, ailing bushies will thank you one day (I bloody well hope)!

First I have to explain the plethora of acronyms about to be used. I hold a Bonded Medical Place (BMP), which means that for the privilege of plonking aforementioned ass in the hallowed halls of Newie Uni med school, the government owns my soul for 5 years. I still have to pay HECS fees like everyone else and there are no scholarship cookies. It used to be that I had to work 6 years in a District of Workforce Shortage (which can be anything from outer metro to beyond Whoop Whoop) after my fellowship, or else spit out $100 000 in repayment to the government. That meant I was bonded til about age 36. Yes, THIRTY-SIX YEARS OLD. Now the contract's changing so that the bond is only 5 years AND I can do half while training as long as it isn't inner metro, which means only 2.5 years of post-fellowship servitude (so make that 32.5 years old, still within baby-making range). Hallelujah! God only knows why the government decided to be nice to us. They also put in a new BMP Support Scheme run by the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM). It involves online education modules and e-mentorship and the true carrot, conference attendance: travel, accomodation and registration for FRRRRRREEEEE! I already took advantage of conference funding to go to Albury- mainly cos it was FRRRRRREEEEE! And along the way somehow got provisionally converted to the rural cause. Sort of.

The other thing is the John Flynn Scholarship Scheme (JFSS), also run by the ACRRM. You send in an application and from those, people are interviewed for a scholarship. You basically do work experience with a rural practitioner for 2 weeks per year for 4-5 years to get a feel for medicine out bush. And get paid $500 for each week, along with FRRRRRREEEEE travel and accomodation! (sense a theme here?) I got one of these scholarships, by secret fenimine wiles or something.

Who can put 2 and 2 together? My idea is this: they should allocate some extra JFSS places for BMP students. Simple. Same tough application process, but BMP's get a slight leg up from the unwashed masses. Pros: for BMPs, there's the FRREEEEE and the $$$$$ and the mentorship and the experience. For the government, they get potential rural recruits. It's not preaching to the converted because BMP students are not absolutely bound to go bush, we have a choice to go into outer metro areas as well. And even if later BMPs are pushed to rural areas by competition, then the JFSS will have prepared them. Instead of resentful BMP doctors flung blindly into the bush, you get people with some rural know-how. BMPs are ideal targets for the JFSS because many are from city backgrounds and don't know much about rurality, although they are likelier than normal HECS students to have to work out bush. In short, fun and profit for students (who otherwise get hardly any love in this BMP deal with the devil), for the government and the taxpayer, and for the poor sick rural folk.

And how is this all to be funded? Note how both the conference attendance and JFSS involve cost of travel and accomodation. The only difference is the cost of conference registration vs cost of paying mentors and communities, who get a stipend to support John Flynn scholars. THUS. The funding for extra JFSS places can come out of the BMP Support Scheme's conference wallet and redirected to this JFSS-4-BMP thing. Conferences are cool and all, but I would bet cold cash that students would be keener to get hands-on clinical experience than sit and be lectured at for a week, even if it's in glorious Albury-town. And it's better value for the government, since the JFSS plays into their rural conscription strategy unlike conferences which have nothing to do with recruitment at all. PLUS ACRRM runs both the JFSS and BMP support!

It's bloody win-win and cost-neutral and the infrastructure is already in place! How can anyone not see the perfection of this? I've written to the NRHN's BMP rep to try and get their support since they seem a natural ally, but he's a bit cool about the idea. I suspect that he's not even that pro-rural; he just sent me this long letter about the government's Grand Rural Conspiracy which isn't even exactly relevant to the proposal. You'd think the National Rural Health Network (peak body of university rural health clubs) would be all over this, n'est-ce pas. I mean I myself am not fully rah-rah-rah "gimme a R! gimme a U! etc" rural evangelist but I am all fired up about this because imho it is elegant and so freaking obvious. I've also contacted the ACRRM and Department of Health and AMSA peoples and plan to send word out to fellow BMPs to get support, via the BMP newsletter run by the department. I have a mind to bang the pot at the Health Minister Himself and his Labor counterpart; it is an election year after all. This had better work! I will lose faith in reason and democracy if it doesn't. I mean apart from the West Wing.