On Tuesday, a friend and I were stuck in Newcastle, and were rather bored.  Having been to get some lunch, and having whacked seemingly thousands of moles on Holey Moley on the nearest iPlus Point, we decided to conduct a highly unscientific experiment. 

Over the course of a couple of weeks, we’d noticed that people on the Tyne and Wear Metro look, almost without exception, unhappy.  We determined to walk through the city smiling at people, to see how many would smile back.  After about two-and-a-half hours of experimentation, we had counted five smiles.  And some of those were questionable.

So: Why don’t the people of Newcastle smile?

It could, of course, be that two people suddenly smiling at you whilst walking along is more than a little unnerving, but that’s a boring explanation, and I want to think a little deeper.  It sounds a perfect challenge for the people of the interweb – and where better to challenge them than the all-new Yahoo Answers?

Expect an update in three days’ time (I’ll bump the post up, too).

The Results: 17th September 2006
The definitive answer, according to the Yahoo community, is

Sorry, which Newcastle Upon Tyne is this then?? It is a far cry from the Newcastle that I love!! The people there are lovely and have a fab sense of humour. I work in Longbenton, Newcastle Upon Tyne and I love my job to bits!!! Maybe they sensed that you and your friend didn’t like their beloved City!!!

That’s a little unfortunate, becuase it implies I don’t like Newcastle which couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a great city, with great people, and that’s why I was surprised enough to make the post in the first place. But hey ho.

Other notable contributions included these gems:

Because they are always drunk on Newcastle Beer.

They are depressed and you would be too if you had to live there.

Take a look in the mirror. I have never found this.

Don’t ever conduct your survey were I live they would probably thump you first then ask you why you smiled next

It’s called stress, anxiety, and all the other things that make up life in 21st century England, its wiped the smile off our faces.

Coz you should be in the Aussie Newcastle. Even with their problems with unemployment and what not, they still have a great football team (rugby league) and one of the prettiest women ever to win a beauty pagent (Jennifer Hawkins Miss Universe 2004).

Lots of food for thought, and most of all lots of fun.

Thanks to all who contributed.

The day before my fourth year begins, here’s some less than inspirational, but still highly recommended reading from GP blogger, Dr John Crippen: Should Sammy go to medical school?  The comments are well worth flicking through, too.

A health select committee report out today says that the current system of NHS charges should be revamped. They’re talking about phone costs, eye tests, prescriptions, dental care, and – crucially – car park charges.

The current proposal is that people who have to attend hospital daily for treatment should get free parking. Not wanting to sound selfish here, I have to ask: What about me?

I’m a medical student. I go to the hospital every day, pay over £1,000 per year for the privelege, and often spent late nights there effectively working for the hospital for free. And yet I have to pay over £2 per day for car parking charges. Over the course of the last few months, that’s £343.20*.

Now, it might be argued that, hey, I’m young and fit, I can park away from the hospital car park. Well, no, not really, because not only does that drive local residents absolutely mad, and it’s potentially dangerous to go walking round these very quiet, poorly lit areas at 10pm.

*In fact it isn’t, because I don’t park there. Understandably.

Just a bit of closure. It’s important that you pronounce ‘closure’ in a psuedo-psyhiatrist voice with some accompanying hand motion when you read that. Go back and do it.

The good news is that I got ‘satisfactory’ grades in all three strands, which is most satisfactory as my final grades from Durham. So after today’s end-of-year ceremony, I now have the whole summer off before starting up with the University of Newcastle for ‘Phase II’ of the course at the end of August. Time for a rest, I think.

It’s another of those slightly incongruous bits of personal news that slip in here from time to time… Much like last year, my recent exams have not culminated in me having to attend a viva. That’s good news, which fell into my inbox a little under an hour ago. Talk about fresh, breaking news. Yippee.

Since Mr Blair feels that HE Funding is in crisis, can anybody tell me why funding should not be directed away from the following degrees (seen in today’s Indy UCAS Extra supplement), and towards degrees which directly lead to essential public service provision: Knowledge representation; Ornamental fish; Tree protection; Vibration. Why is taxpayers money being directed towards people who want to have a degree in ornametal fish, of all things? I’ve tried to find more about this particular degree, but Manchester Metropolitan University appear to have chosen not to list it in their online prospectus. So if there is any value, they’re not allowing me to see it.

Today was my final exam of the week: the MCQ/TF/EMI.

This exam consists of three parts: a multiple choice section, which consists of sixty questions with five answer options; a true/false section, which consists of forty true/false questions; and an EMI section, which consists (essentially) of eighty multiple choice questions with up to thirteen answer options.

It didn’t go brilliantly today, and neither did it go terribly. So it’s just a case of being relieved that it’s over, and then waiting to find out whether or not I have a viva, and then there’s just results day to worry about…

Today was my third of four exams: the Non-Clinical OSCE.

This exam contains two parts: An anatomy spot test, which consists of sixty thirty-second questions relating to pinned structures in cadavers, and six five-minute structured questions on anything and everything else. The five-minuters weren’t so bad, with quite a few of them being straightforward enough – and there was no equivalent to the bus timetable question! But the anatomy spotter was horrendous – despite doing a huge amount of anatomy revision, I still didn’t feel confident on almost any of the questions. Having said that, I usually feel that way, though it was, perhaps, a little worse today. It’s difficult to judge.

Tomorrow I have the day off; my next exam is Friday afternoon, for the MCQ/TF/EMI paper.

Today was my second exam: the Clinical OSCPE.

This exam is all about doing things with patients. As usual, there were three stations with a patient at each, and each with a time limit of five minutes. On the first patient, I was required to test eye movements and answer lots of questions about nerve supplies to the eye muscles, and explain why certain movements might be hindered. The second patient was playing a pregnant lady, to who I had to give lifestyle advice. With the third patient, I had to elicit different arm reflexes, and explain various things about them, such as the range of results possible from a reflex test and the causes of these results.

Overall, I think I did okay. There are obviously things that I could have done better looking back, but that’s to be expected when you’ve had hours to digest what you were asked to do, but I certainly feel more confident about this particular exam than I did last year. However, like last time, I’m dreading tomorrow’s Non-Clinical OSCE the most… check back tomorrow to see how it goes!

Today, I had my first exam: the DIPSE paper.

This essentially consists of the traditional short-answer exam questions. At almost fifty pages, it’s certainly one of the longest exams I’ve ever done, and ended up taking the full three hours available. There were quite a few questions on which I had little idea, but on the whole I think I probably scored above the pass mark, so I’m quite happy. To summarise: Not fantastic, not terrible.

Tomorrow: Clinical OSCPEs.