Exams Ahoy!

A big week this for the MMed students in Internal Medicine. Those who were successful in their written paper will be sitting for their clinical this week. The Final Years also were involved. They defended their thesis this morning and all five of them from my program made it through. Alhamdulillah. Some of them came up with pretty dicey statements however during the presentation, but were able to defend them when pressed. Well done.

I was as usual heavily involved in the exams either coordinating, invigilating or examining. I can only be specific after the exams were completed however - it was Monday today. The big issue we had today was the shift of venue. Over the years, we used the Department Conference Room for the thesis presentation. However, there were construction going on, around the department and the noise level can at times drown the conversation. We thought it would not be fair to the candidate. Therefore, we moved the venue to the Faculty, in one of their makeshift room. The room was still under construction with the furnitures and fittings were still being installed but it got the job done.

Our external examiner is a gentleman from London. A very nice chap and has been here a few times in the past either visiting or examining. He was in general happy with the presentation, but made a comment which struck a chord with me. He made it clear that there are abundance of research to be made here, especially in Tropical Medicine, putting dengue as an obvious example. Made me blush, as at the moment, even to set aside time for myself during working hours were never easy, such was the demand of my job.

I took a few photographs with my phone during the day, which I will eventually post. The candidates will have more exams in the next few days, the important ones being the long and short cases on Wednesday and Thursday. Wishing them the best of luck