Entry 10

Okay, I know it has been quite a while since I have written. It's not because I haven't had anything of interest to write, rather I have been pretty slack. I kept thinking it's about time I wrote again but just haven't got around to it. So where to start. I guess I'll work backwards. Last week I went back to Palmy just for the week. That was quite odd. "Home" didn't quite feel like home anymore, but in saying that there was a sense of familiarity, which of course comes with living in a place all for so long. I haven't been away for that long but already little things have changed. Walking into my mother's house for the first time felt strange. I still have my own room set up just as I left it but it just didn't feel the same as it once did. I suppose this feeling is only going to become more pronounced as time goes on. It was nice seeing people I've missed. More than nice.

Before last week I had been doing some tutoring. The first lot of tutorials I gave were for second year medical students on "Best Interests," looking at how to decide (and who should decide) what is in a patient's best interest. It was pretty interesting. We looked at the case of Liam Williams-Holloway, a little boy who died of cancer in the late 90s. His parents wanted to give him an alternative therapy as opposed to chemotherapy. Long story short the courts got involved and his parents took him into hiding. He didn't get the care he required and he died. There are many ethical questions surrounding this case and it's good to get the student's exposed to this sort of thinking early on. Right now some of them are stuck in the "this is right, that is wrong" mindset, and that medicine is always black and white. The case they get to look at in this bioethics course show them that there will be various cases where the right thing to do is not obvious and that they will be forced to weigh up the options and alternatives and it might come down to simply picking the best option rather than the good or right one.

What else have I been doing? Hmmm, well I attended a PhD induction day. That was pretty interesting. It was good to find out that the vast majority of PhD candidates at Otago Uni do pass either with minor alterations (typos, grammatical errors, etc) to their thesis or with minimal changes being needed. That was somewhat comforting. That was probably the thing that stuck out most to me during the whole induction. I also attended the Vice-Chancellor's Garden Party, which was not so much a 'garden party' as it was 'in-door-because-the-weather's-so-bad party.' It was held at Abbey College, which is the postgraduate residence. It was okay. There was a band, which was good, but it was loud given we were in a room that wasn't especially large, this made it difficult to hear somebody speaking loudly into your ear. There were also groups who tended to stick to themselves. I suppose it would have been ideal for someone quite boisterous, who could mingle well. I must admit to be rather reserved in those sorts of situations. I met a couple of people. A group of us then went over to the student lounge at the university. We sat at a table that had the game Mouse Trap in a box, so of course we couldn't resist. Whoever devised that game must have been a genius, and those who can set it up in less than say 10mins likewise. We had two PhD candidates and two Masters students and crikey did we have difficulty, ah the shame. Granted we didn't actually look at the instructions. I had better luck after reading through them (probably the best place to start really!). It was fun putting it together though; we did discover a vital piece was broken though, so we didn't actually get to play. So if you ever wondered what PhD students do with their free time, some of them put together games probably even five year olds could do in no time (perhaps it was just a case of too many cooks...hmmm let me go with that excuse).

So the Garden Party and induction was probably a few weeks ago now and I'm not too sure if there was anything really interesting to report before that.

This week has started well, only it was an early morning yesterday with the second lot of tutorials beginning at 9am. This time we are discussing whether or not surgeons should be able to remove healthy limbs. If anyone has seen Grey's Anatomy this might be quite familiar. Raises many many ethical questions!!! It's also something that gets the students talking, which is fantastic. It's definitely easy to see a difference between medical students, who are accustomed to having all of the answers, and philosophy students, who are accustomed to either having no answer or too many answers. Med students are less likely to engage in fiery debates whereas philosophy students are only too eager, generally speaking of course. I'm getting used to it though, and it makes for a great tutorial when they do open up to the possibilitites and the ethical issues.

Okay, well I think that's all for now.