2nd
August
2008
Ok time for me to knuckle down and get started studying, before I get too far behind. This is challenging for me in a number of ways :
- never done serious university study whilst working full time and having a family before
- never studied externally before - seems harder to find out just exactly what I am required to do. There has been little information forthcoming from the uni thus far
- it’s over 8 years since I’ve been at Uni and the technological landscape has changed considerably. Over the course of my 6 year medical degree in the 90s the internet gradually emerged from being completely non-existent to being a useful, but still quite peripheral, adjunct to our studies. Few students had laptops and they were rarely seen in class.
So in view of the third point especially, does anyone have any advice for me? I sat down this morning to start reading and taking some notes and then wondered if I should actually be putting these notes into my laptop instead of my awful handwriting. Should I be using a simple word processor (eg Word, Pages etc) or is there other software out there which is better suited to study and note taking?? (only Mac software please!)
Of course before I can start I have a crying baby to put to bed, and then I’ll have to prise the boys away from playing games on my MacBook Pro so I can use it (in the next few months I’ll be getting a MacBook Air for study/travel purposes hopefully which will eliminate that issue - so tempted just to order it right now…) Anyway better go - Mia is getting louder - but I’d love to hear anyone’s tips…
Tags : Mac, study, University
Categories : Computers, Mac, Personal, Technology, University |
18th
June
2008
It’s been over 8 years since I’ve been at Uni, and over 5 years since I’ve done any serious study ( that was for my surgical training) - I’ve done my Obstetrics and GP qualifications in the last 6 years but I wouldn’t rate them as being too strenuous.
Well today I received an email confirming that I have been accepted into Uni next semester (starting July - August). I will be studying part time towards a Masters degree in Public health & tropical medicine (MPH&TM) at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland. For non-Aussies, Townsville is a city in the
tropics up on the far north east coast of Australia. It’s diagonally opposite Perth on the map 3391 kilometres away (as a rough guide imagine the distance from LA to Washington DC in the United States). Mostly I’ll be studying at home but will probably have to go over there once or twice a semester for short stints. I guess if you have to travel anywhere for study, a tropical city on the Great Barrier Reef is not a bad choice 
As for the degree itself the Master of Public Health & Tropical Medicine covers a range of units relating to medicine in the tropics and the developing world. This will help me on future medical missions like my trips to Uganda over the last couple of years to actually have a more solid knowledge base behind me (instead on just winging it!). Also it means I will be qualified to move more into the field of Travel Medicine as part of general practice here in Australia. If I ever get tired of regular GP work and my obstetrics I could go and work full time in a travel clinic. Short of that it’s definitely an area of practice that I want to build and expand as time goes on. Thirdly this degree would be a useful qualification if I was to ever move into more serious or full time international medical, relief or humanitarian type work. From what I hear it’s actually quite difficult to get jobs with the big aid organisations so if I ever went in that direction this degree would be valuable.
Also it looks like I might be able to get 12 points credit towards the course by virtue of having had over 5 years professional medical experience, which would cut a third off the degree. I wasn’t necessarily expecting that so it will be a big bonus if it works out that way.
Very exciting stuff. I can’t believe I’m so keen to get back to study again. After a 6 year medical degree and another 6 years of postgrad study in surgery, obstetrics, and general practice, I thought it would be a long time before I ventured into medical academia again. But I’m looking forward to it. The only question mark is how I’m going to fit this into my already busy life.
Tags : james cook, Missions, study, townsville, Tropical Medicine, uni
Categories : Medicine, Personal, Tropical Medicine, University |
