2.26.2010

have i been living in a cave? amateur thoughts on doctor-blogger phenomena.

i am certainly HAVE been living in a cave, somewhere in the middle of the amazon forest where human and animals live together in perfect harmony.
or not.

The first time i heard of that word, doctor-blogger, seems vaguely unfamiliar. Like, why would you label a doctor as a blogger or vice versa because it is truly an obvious opposite. You obtain the label "doctor" through YEARS AND YEARS of hardworks and drama and tears and blood.. while in just a FEW clicks u can already declare yourself as a blogger. Why do these 2 labels can even be next to each other in a phrase, is still a mystery to me..

but im hardly one to judge..
cause to my surprise, doctor-bloggers are already making their own little community!

one of the first doctor-bloggers that i found was Dr. Deddy Andaka. He has been blogging since the year of 2001...YES 2001! I was prolly still a stupid 4th grade elementary pupil that knew nothing but Sunday-cartoon and coco crunch cereal, but this yet-to-be-doctor man had started his own little path, into cyber existence.
If you're curious about what his blog is all about, u can go straight to his blog by clickin on THIS.

There are many MORE doctor-bloggers that exist in the cyber world like Dr.Sutarsa, who specializes in literature and youth with their problems. Or try Dr.Eka Kusmawan, there are many useful articles about surgery in his blog, no surprise, he is a surgeon himself.

ANYWAY DO U GET MY POINT?

I have studied medical quite LONG enough (i say 6 months as a "quite LONG enough") to know how blogs and other non-journal-related-sites are NOT RELIABLE ENOUGH to be a reliable source that can help us in our study as a medical student! And of course, up until the moment i write this article, the likes of HighWire or BMJ are still the sites of our choice as the trustful information source. but OH HELL CURSE the bureaucracy of those sites. WHY DO we HAVE TO PAY SOME EXTRA $$$$ TO GET A DECENT JOURNALS, only god knows!

1 question arises in my mind "Do doctors write their blog based on evidences or just a mere accumulation of their own opinions ?"
And that question will ignite another question "Do they do it just for fun or is there any other hidden purposes?"

and the $64million question is "can we, medical students, USE some of the contents in your blog for our own references that is relevant in our study?"
oh please answer that!

part of me would like to trust some of the blogs because what i have in mind is that "well they are doctors, i suppose they write everything based on evidences rite?" Well thats an obvious SELFISH part of me of course. The other part of me would just stick to journal sites.
The reason i would rather choose doctors blog than other journal sites is that a blog is just more accessible than journal sites, in which some of them demands a quite sum of money for us to be able to take a peek at their confusing journals. Well MAYBE, just MAYBE our beloved doctors would like to take their blog to the next level and be more reliable...
just MAYBE, ok? no pressure doc!

but then again, who am i to judge? who am i to control someone's blog?
DIDN'T I STATED CLEARLY ENOUGH IN THE TITLE THAT THIS IS JUST AN AMATEUR THOUGHTS THAT I FORMULATE?
so, please, no offense!
but for those doctors who have started and still survived, I VALUE YOU DOCS SO MUCH. KEEP MOTIVATING ME!

OUCH!

i KNOW. i have been utterly busy this whole 6 months. That is why i am not going to apologize to anyone regarding my long long absence. anyway what do u expect me to be other than busy, eh? i was in my first term of medical, i was still getting accustomed to the hectic schedules of a med students and it was pretty hard for me to shift my old-high-school-oh-tomorrow's-exam-lets-study-overnight habit into a okay-it's-2-weeks-before-exam-now-lets-read-the-references one. but then no one ever said that changing a habit is as easy as flipping your goddamn palm. NO ONE!

so habit DOES change afterall.

anyway.
i just received my GPA result for this term. lala. at first i was like, er okay whatever it will be will be, i did my best, bla bla bla and so the self reassurance goes on and on. But when the 'transkrip nilai' was actually in My own hand, like i'm actually holding it, and looking at the marks, i went like DAMN I COULD'VE DONE BETTER DAMN DAMN. i could not control myself. I saw a BIG FAT STUPID 'C' just lay there innocently. I wish i could erase a printed paper. But i couldn't. Then i tried to find the 'brightside' out of the thing. well my GPA's a 3pointers, 3,78 to be exact. And it was okay i guess, u know, it is quite high and satisfying to me already.
IM NOT JOKING okay? u can see it right here,
and then a fact struck me. So the 'C' thing was an OSCE exam in which i was actually failing. So if i get a remed and the 'C' turns into an 'A' then my GPA will be..... a 4?
oh god no.
and the bad news is i KNOW that my remed is going to be an 'A' cause it's already an 'A' even when i failed.
I really don't know if i'm supposed to be happy or sad. But the of course i'm going to be HAPPY like hell yeah i got a 4 tats HUGE whoa wohoo party. but that just it.
to me getting a 4 is a BIG RESPONSIBILITY. It's like having 2 big heavy STONES tied on my shoulder, carrying them everywhere i go. It is quite a BURDEN for me. People will think "man this kid got a 4 he must be a darn genius" HELLO IM NOT GENIUS. u guys can take out my brain and put it next to Einstein's or Rizky's and the difference will be OBVIOUS. Simply put, it means that i CANNOT let myself stray away next term. Like i have to focus and do my real best so that i can maintain my GPA a forever-4, cause if i don't..... im going to jump off a cliff covered in agony and sorrow.
well, goodluck for me, cause i REALLY REALLY need it.