Thursday, May 7, 2015

CPPP case presentation 2

I realised that I never made noise about my first case presentation for my CPPP (Clinical Pharmacist Preparatory Programme) which happened about a month ago. It went pretty badly and I was left tired after it that I could not be bothered to blog. Haha.. I still managed to pass although the last statement in the feedback was: "managed to just pass". Well a pass is a pass so I am still happy.

I just finished the second case presentation this afternoon and I am thankful to God. I feel confident that I did much better than the first one. My strategy to choose a shittier case for the first one and a better case for the second case worked! Haha.. I mean the examiners would expect that an improvement so might as well I chose something that I did badly first and then did something which I think I could managed better for the second case and hence an improvement. Lol.. Of course the biggest credit goes to God. The main reason that I did better today was many questions were predicted correctly by me and thus I was more or less prepared with the answers. For the first case, I missed on too many things and these were the things picked up by the examiners. I did not so obviously I was not prepared and thus I just shook head and smiled for most of the time.

Doing this kind of oral examination is really nerve-wrecking. "Smoking" answer is almost impossible unless you have a poker face. The moment I showed some hesitation with my answers, the examiners would rephrase the question in a way that made me wonder if my answer was correct.. even when my answer was correct in the first place. Same thing for application question when I had to think on the spot. Most of the times, there is no right or wrong answer. But the way the examiner asks, it sounds as if there is a correct answer. Actually the purpose to test my reasoning.

Of course things did not go as smoothly as expected. I nearly died from the first question today. I was asked about vaccinations! Jeez.. I put the vaccination slides just out of "formality". Guideline recommends it so I recommend it. Even when I managed to make up some answers "Erm... even for normal healthy people, these vaccinations are recommended, of course they are even more important for elderly people who are not as healthy as younger people. Elderly should avoid getting sick altogether", the follow-up questions on Hepatitis B vaccinations killed me. I had to give up somewhere because even if I could think and answer, eventually the question would end up with the treatment which I totally had no idea because I did not read that at all. The other memorable question today was the mechanism of action of Rivaroxaban. I was too nervous and I answered: direct anti factor Xa inhibitor. Obviously they knew I studied quite hard and get everything mixed up. Sensing something not right, I rephrased it to: anti factor Xa inhibitor. Hmm.. still does not make sense with an 'anti' and an 'inhibitor'. Final answer: anti factor Xa. Lol.

The ultimate challenge comes in 1 month time for the final exam: to clerk a case within 1 hour and then to present. I am already dying preparing for case presentations when I can specifically prepare to study those topics related to the case. For the final exam, I will need to literally know everything under the sun. God help me!!

The other good news is that the person who stole my money was finally evicted yesterday. Yay!! Life is much better now as I do not need to live in fear and having to lock my room everytime I leave my room. My landlord asks me to take over his room. I am quite reluctant because I am just lazy for a change. Bleah.. I need to think of a way to rearrange my items again. I don't know if that room is similar size, bigger, or smaller than my current one.

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