Letter From Tasmania

Pic of Japanese section of Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

G'day mates.. Jeremy here. Thought i'd talk a little about life in Tasmania (feel bad that i havn't posted anything here in more than 12 months.. hehe..).

Let's go to the beginning. 4 M205-ians are here (Kang Ler, Joanne, Fatin, & myself) with Yuni from M1. Getting started over here was pretty much a rough ride. IMU and UniTas don't exactly coordinate things very well. We were given the wrong dates for commencement of term and the offer letter was late. There was confusion on which year (3rd or 4th) we were to join. Preparations were hurried and chaotic. We all came to Hobart (the main city here) at different times (3 of us came very very late) and ended up living in varying places.

Pic of the clinical school. It's connected to the hospital at the back.

Classes were going to be interesting. For the first term, we spent 2 days a week doing Neuro/CNS (the horror...) and the other 3 days were spent doing our rotations (which were mostly classes though...). Neuro exams here were way more tough than in IMU. Funnily enough, i passed this one and not IMU's. Dissection was a good change in learning anatomy though... For 2nd term, we aren't doing Neuro anymore... we're doing like a quick run thru of different stuff... Medico-legal, Forensics, Immuno, etc.... and nearer the end of the year, we get selectives (No Hx of Med... thank goodness).

Exciting medical stuff you say? Well... i enjoyed surgery. I got to assist in a below-knee amputation and an appendicectomy.. Got to go around the Emergency Dept in scrubs too... Okay that's not really exciting but i thought it's cool. I got my own patient to talk to and examine (and there's this cute nurse.. haha.. not kidding tho). I recently got back from a Rural GP Posting. That was really good. I had always thought i'd be practising in a rural area sometime in the future, but the difference now is that i'm more likely to stay here than to go back to Malaysia (Malaysians can sigh in relief).

The pic below is me with the GP.

Life here isn't as bad as people say it is. True that Hobart is quiet and practically a ghost town by 5-6pm.. and it's cold most of the time (hasn't reached 0 degrees yet, tho it's winter). There isn't a lot to do if you are a city boy/girl. If you're used to being in KL, then coming down here would take a bit of adjusting. There's only one or 2 malls and they're only 2 or 3 stories high.

Pic of Elizabeth Street Mall. Okay... not a good pic... It's all i got :P

Nightlife? There's a couple of clubs around but none of us IMU peeps go (though i went twice just for the experience and free beer).

Cinema? I havn't been there yet.. So i've missed all the movies this year (Damnit.. i wanna watch Batman).

What is there to do here? Well... they call this "The Natural State" for a reason... and it's not only because of the Tassy Devils (which are dying at a remarkable rate, thanks to cancer). There are lots of places to go for the scenary, bushwalking, and hiking. Lots of national parks to go to. I'm hoping the 3 years here will be enough for me to cover the state. Port Arthur is a good place to go too. It's historical for being the settlement for convicts transferred from Europe (the British i guess). They maintain/restore quite a few places there, though much of the big buildings are empty.

If anyone wants to come here for a holiday, i wouldn't mind playing tour guide :) Driving around here is pretty alright. You get to avoid animals (live and dead) when you're travelling out of town.

P.s. Pics/posts on my travelling around Tas are on my blog.. too lazy to repost it here.