Monday, April 30, 2007

My Date With Patsy

Remember that Experimental Psychology practical I told you about in my last post? Well today we turned up at class, and lying on the table in front of me was this handout:


This, of course, refers to PATSy, the patient simulator website that UK medical students are no doubt familiar with. We at Cambridge, however, are a bit slow in our training (and by slow I mean THREE FRIGGIN' YEARS without learning what to do when someone faints cold in the middle of a roomful of medics with about fifty first-aid kits lying around rusting happily --Editor) and so this was my first exposure to this wonderfully-named resource.

And so by the time the professor interrupted his opening lecture to scream at me "What the hell is so funny, wisearse?!" I had already been sniggering insanely in the front row for about ten minutes.

What's the first thing YOU would've thought of upon reading something like that?

Cartoon adapted from one by Jerry King, who oddly enough was also a medic.

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been sniggering insanely since reading your blogpost. Snigger.

I did notice this though:

© All PATSy data is subject to copyright and may not be reproduced in any format.
This site is hosted by The University of Edinburgh, UK.
Please email help@patsy.ac.uk with any problems or comments


Cambridge are using University of Edinburgh material? Tut tut, their standards must be dropping. Using material produced by such an inferior school, how dare they!?

Anonymous said...

And I thought you were getting a GF... Have you ever thought of yourself as gay?

zoo said...

You sit in the FRONT row?

hmm.

:)

Dan said...

"What's the first thing YOU would've thought of upon reading something like that?"

a patient simulator website. what else.

Tayaki said...

to add to what "anonymous" said, schools steal other schools' stuff all the time, why be original? (yet when it comes to forgetting to cite information on your short answer final exam, they are COMPLETELY on your ass). i recently found out that Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine steals University College Dublin's anatomy online tutorials...And American veterinary schools always thought they were better than those abroad, pffft. :)

Ms-Ellisa said...

Hey anon 11:43 - if you don't like Cambridge, and you DO get accepted, then just don't go. Don't pressure yourself man/girl/whatever...
Leave a spot open for us who think different...

SeaSpray said...

Hi AM-I love that cartoon!

I actually posted a comment on your last post as I was all excited for you having met that woman. Then Another blogger commented on your photo shop abilities and so I deleted it before posting. I can be so naive sometimes. (she says sheepishly) Would've been cool though. :)

SeaSpray said...

Margaret Mountford in your Epiphany post. :)

Anonymous said...

Hey anon 11:43 - if you don't like Cambridge, and you DO get accepted, then just don't go. Don't pressure yourself man/girl/whatever...
Leave a spot open for us who think different...


Uh.... huh?????????

The Little Medic said...

haha, what the hell is PATsy?
I've never heard of it, but no surprise there.

Anonymous said...

i agree with anon 5:44

Anonymous said...

Me too

The Angry Medic said...

Whoa whoa calm down people! It's a simple misunderstanding (and I think I know at least one of these anonymouses. Anonymice. Whatever.)

Sniggering Anonymous: Hahaha I know! Tsk tsk. These professors are getting lazy. They need spanking. Any volunteers?

Then again, it IS part of the National Grid For Learning, so I suppose tons of universities must use it. Lots of the research shown on PATSy does go on here, but it'd take too much time to make our own videos, methinks. I've certainly seen it on at least one other medic's blog.

(Not...that I've been stalking other medics or anything, you know.)

EL: OOH LOOK WHO'S TALKING :)

And Patsy is a girl's name!

Zoo: oh don't you start with me, dear :) I only sit there because the girls'd get to me if I wasn't right where the prof could see me. not that I pay attention or anything, you know.

Dan: what else indeed?

Lis: I know! These professors send out tons of harsh stern scary emails warning against plagiarism, and then in the same keyboard stroke steal material from other sites. Ah, the double standards of humanity :)

I like your blog, btw. Thanks for dropping by! I like vets. The ones here stick their dog skeletons in the window and frighten the bejeebers out of anyone walking past.

The Angry Medic said...

Ms Ellisa: No, dear, Anon 1 wasn't being serious, he was merely being sarcastic. I think I know who he is, and he has a caustic wit. And awww, I'm sure you could get into Cambridge anytime you wanted (don't know why you'd want to though). Just remember to use an eyelash-curler :)

SeaSpray: Nonononono dear, you misunderstand! Dr Deb was referring to the photoshopping of the Angry Medic head onto my shoulders. I really DID see Margaret Mountford, honest! No, really!

WTF Anonymous: Sarcasm, man, sarcasm! So hard to get across in print. Guess it's true what they say, 70% of communication is body language :)

Me-Too Anonymous: See above!

Me-Three Anonymous: See above above!

Anonymous said...

Being so superior and all though, I didn't think the great and wonderful Cambridge would have used other schools' material at all.

Anonymous said...

Ha! I say lets scrap the bitchfighting and all snigger insanely instead.

And yes Angry you spotted me correctly. Was it my caustic wit or my signature use of italics to quote?

Snigger.

The Angry Medic said...

Disgruntled Anonymous: "Great and wonderful"?

Nonono, good man, you've got us mixed up with Oxford. Cambridge is quite humble actually. I don't see what's so big about it. It IS a nice place to learn at and great for research, but I don't see any justification for being superior.

Phoenix: aHA!

Totally with you on the sniggering insanely thing. Especially when PATSy is involved.

Nah, a lot of other people use italics to quote (though it was a clue) but only you have such a caustic wit.

(The lack of perverted references almost threw me off though.)

*bada-BING*

Anonymous said...

Everyone rips everyone else off!

Anonymous said...

Woa... there is so much life to a blog... ur... ur amazing... man... dahsyat...

Ms-Ellisa said...

'kay 'kay... maybe I "attacked" the wrong person but I hate it when people "pretend" that big uni's are not as good just because they couldn't get in. You get an awful lot of that where I come from and it rang many bells... - It was a good post, by the way angry.
Love the cartoon pic.
..

Ms-Ellisa said...

I know I've been unfair - my apologies to Phoinix... :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi Angry,

I, too, love the cartoon....lol! I read your article on Medscape...excellent, so well written, I am very impressed and that's great that you got so many comments.

So....is that the "real" you in the picture? Sigh. Now I don't know which "one" of you I have a bigger crush on (blushing with the "schoolgirl giggle"). : )

Take good care and thanks for the comments about Va

Best, tracy

Anonymous said...

I know I've been unfair - my apologies to Phoinix... :-)

No need for an apology, I think your comment was more of a misinterpretation of my humour than 'unfair' to anyone.

I didn't perceive any 'attack' in your comment, I basically had no clue what you were on about.

So... lets all just snigger insanely instead, yeah?

Snigger

Anonymous said...

Ms-Elissa, what the fuck are you on about? Do you know anything about Pheonix or are you just making a twat of yourself for the fun of it?

Anonymous said...

Yeah I'm interested to know where Ms Elissa is studying and why she took such offense at Phoenix's joke?

Ms-Ellisa said...

Well I study in a Place where you have to hit over 95% precent in all 9 subjects on your senior year in high school to even have a SHOT at the 7 medical schools and you have to finish in the top 750 of your year in the whole country to get in Medical school, in fact in the top 300 to be allowed in my medical school. The exams travel across country to be corrected by strangers, so that everybody can get what they deserve, and the tests are prepared overnight and sent immediately to all schools, which are guarded by police outside. No interviews, no personal contact.
On top of that you get a lot of pitty by every other person who didn't get what they wanted, and all you hear from people your age is how messed up your life will be and how miserably you will live. But all of them wished for medical school 3 months before. So don't be too hard on me for misunderstanding 'anonymous'" comment. I totally had another thing in mind.
Anyway, I apologised, and I didn't speak ill of anybody's school. If anything I supported the host ;-)
The creature Phoinix was "invented" in my country and I'm happy to see someone using it as a nickname :-)

*sniggers happily*

Anonymous said...

p-i-t-y

Anonymous said...

p-h-o-e-n-i-x

Dan said...

hey mr angry medic, totally off topic, but check out kuhan's blog... i think he's found himself a girlfriend

Bo... said...

I will confess that I was a habitual sniggerer in nursing school. In fact, I was in constant trouble with the nuns for it. One time a nun actually threw me out of class for breaking out into a full-blown laughing fit after arguing with her about something---not because I had argued with her, but because one of my buddies had whispered behind me that "a nun arguing with Bo about such-and-such is like bringing a flyswatter to a gunfight". (Which is what caused me to break out into the full-blown laughing fit...)

Dan said...

oh dear... i think i can guess what the topic was...

Syar said...

Funny, I was just at my other Hot Doctor's page and he'ss been chruning out weird acronyms and phrases to memorize. You medics do have a way with the alphabet.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. How'd you find me, btw?

Tunku Halim said...

I agree with PATSy, she's a real clever gal. :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Angry,

I forgot to tell you in my other comment something else really good about your article on Medscape" is that for a person like me, who admires medical students and doctoers sooo much, idealizes, nay IDOLIZES them, the article helped to remind me that perhaps your lives aren't quite the perfect picture I have of you all in my mind. Anywhere near correct? I need a reminder every now and then that "doctors are people too" and just because I admire them so, doesn't mean their lives are perfect and problem-free. I am not sure where all this admiration comes from...maybe because I have been fortunate, blessed with some very kind, excellent physicans in my life, maybe it's because I can't even imagin how you all do it, all the work and studying, etc...I have an Internest now who is amazing, a very good doctor, very kind and understanding, especially of the "scars from the tough times" (can I write that here...?), I am lucky to have him, for the time I do. I imagine you being like him. Sorry for the looooong ramble.

Thanks, Angry, you rock!
Take care, tracy

Mother Jones RN said...

Darn, when I first saw the title of your post, I thought you met a nice girl and that you went out on a date.

You crack me up!

MJ

Mother Jones RN said...

p.s

If you ever come to the U.S., there are lots of nurses here that would love to got with you. I'll fix you up!

MJ

The Angry Medic said...

Alright, alright, break it up, folks. Ms Ellisa didn't mean any harm, and being from abroad might not have understood the situation here. Besides, Phoenix (and I, for that matter) didn't see anything offensive in that, so stop tearing the poor girl apart.

March 20: Aww thanks man. You're alive! I've been over to your place quite a bit. And you've obviously scored yourself some fans of the fairer sex too, hubba hubba. Update more frequently, you bum. And tell us a bit about your personal life, not just spout academic essays at us.

Ms Ellisa: Aww, you poor thing. Don't worry, no one's offended at you. I once jokingly teased Phoenix on his blog too, and got some very angry anonymouses yelling profanities at me who made it very clear that they had no idea who I was or how close Phoenix and I were. (Actually, Phoenix seems to have a lot of anonymous defenders who pop up whenever someone so much as whispers a word against him. He must be really popular. It's like being king of feudal Germany.) They were probably just having a bad day (or it was that time of month).

And whoa. I didn't know things were so hard in Greece. I really respect people who come up in a system like that. Here's wishing you the best of luck! (easy for me to say when I'm 3 weeks away from failing my exams)

Phoenix: Agreed.

*sniggers insanely*

Pissy Anonymouses: p-e-d-a-n-t-s

Bohemian: LOL! I can imagine very well, actually, that arguing like you is like tidying the bed on the Titanic. Bet you turned the school into something out of Sister Act, didn'tcha? :)

Syar: Dear, we have worse, worse acronyms. Your (other) hot doctor's already qualified and using only the tame ones. Some of the ones I could give you would make you blush :)

But I'm not gonna mention any, cos you're underaged. Run along and play now :)

Tracy: Awww, you're too kind with your praise, ma'am. Many doctors would be flattered that you think so highly of them, but yes, I can safely tell you we're all too human, and make many mistakes throughout our careers. (Some of us even start messing up during med school. But hey, at least the professors can't say I wasn't starting early.) And yep, you can say whatever you want on my blog. And that Medscape pic is horribly outdated. I look much more handsome now. No, really. Honest.

In response to your lavish praise, I called my old friend The Queen up and sent her to Virginia to spend some time with you guys. Be nice to her now :)

Momma Jones: Awww that's so sweet! I'm holding you to that, you know. After I exhaust all the probabilities on CambridgeRomance.com, MedicDate.com, and ReallyDesperateLovers.com, I'll be hotfooting it over there and turning my life into a Mills & Boon medical romance novel :)

Anonymous said...

I'm glad that's sorted! Seriously MsEllisa, there are some nutters about, you'll just have to avoid them. Angry and I are nutters of the good variety however.

I have been defended by anonymi a couple of times, haven't I? I'd like to know where the heck they were when I had my "you're so gay" troll attack not too long ago! I wonder how many lurkers there are who check out our blogs regularly - I'm still getting a few hundred hits a day and I haven't posted anything for 10 or 11 days. Weirdos.

Cathy said...

You are so funny. Every time I come here you give me a laugh. Good luck to you and take care!

Anonymous said...

cathy: oh, you can also go to his room, and he will give you a VERY good laugh!

The Angry Medic said...

Phoenix: You're being stalked, Phoenix old buddy. Better get that handsome picture of you off your blog. I suspect it's Little Medic, he's in Cambridge this weekend, and I've seen someone suspiciously stalking around Jesus College...

Cathy: Aww that's so sweet. My humour usually just gives people constipation. You're my new best friend :)

Horny Anonymous: What the...?

David said...

We at Glasgow have never ever been told about PATSy.......but then the course is a FOFO course (F*** Off & Find Out)