Haju's Page for Medical Students

This page is intended as a study resource for UNSW medical students. Anyone with any notes they would like to share is more than welcome to email me and I will see about putting them up here - or helping the person set up their own site. I find studying medicine is difficult and would like to share what ever meager resources I have.

This site is sponsored by Falcon Sight Optometry Practice, Crows Nest. Falcon Sight is an independent optometry practice dedicated to providing friendly and professional eye care. Check out their current special offers. In addition, Falcon Sight has kindly agreed to offer medical students using this site a FREE 30 minute tutorial on use of a slit lamp or use of an ophthalmoscope with any purchase of glasses or contact lenses. This offer is subject to the availability of the optometrist and is by appointment only.

Notes on this site are for the most part compiled by Lucy Ding and are designed for use with the program QandA. Just in case you were wondering, the word QandA is derived from the term 'Question and Answer'. QandA is a very simple DOS program for asking questions. Anyone can write the exam files using a simple text editor like notepad or edit and test themselves using QandA. Some exam files are provided on this website.

Contents

• About QandA
• Download QandA
• How To Use QandA
• How to Write Exam Files For QandA
• Prewritten QandA Files
• Third Year Clinical Studies Notes
• Fourth Year Pathology Manual Objectives
• Fourth Year Short Answer Past Papers
• Other UNSW Medical Student Resources

QandA

• Will print the questions one at a time to the screen.
• Will prompt you for the answer.
• Will try to match your answer against the stored exam file answer.
• Will give you the opportunity to check if you are correct if have worded your answer differently (compared to the stored answer).
• Will give you a running update on your progress. (How many questions answered, how many correct)
• Will allow you to shuffle the question order before you take the exam.
• Is small enough to fit easily on a disk along with exam files.
• Gives instructions on its use in a grey text bar at the bottom of the program window.

Downloading QandA

This file contains the QandA program and a sample exam. Download QandA now.

How to Use QandA

QandA runs in the DOS environment. This means if you use Win95 or Win98 like most people, you need to use the DOS prompt. Once you are in the DOS prompt, all you have to do is type in qanda then your exam file name. Here is an example of what it might look like:

C:\qanda>qanda sample.txt

If you want to shuffle the questions, you just use the switch -s, like so:

C:\qanda>qanda -s sample.txt

How to Write Exam Files

Say you have three pieces of information you want to learn.

• Gregory McIntyre wrote QandA
• Lucy has a stuffed bear named Barnabus
• The 12 cranial nerves are in order; Olfactory, Optic, Occulomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibulocochlear, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Accessory, Hypoglossal.

Then all you have to do is open a blank text file in a text editor like notepad, and convert the facts into questions and answers. The exam files might look like this:

Q:
Who wrote QandA?
A:
Gregory McIntyre

Q:
Does Lucy own (a) A pink plastic flamingo named Gavin, (b) A walrus named Lenon or (c) A stuffed bear named Barnabus?
A:
c

Q:
Name the cranial nerves in reverse order (from XII to I).
A:
Hypoglossal, Accessory, Vagus, Glossopharyngeal, Vestibulocochlear, Facial, Abducens, Trigeminal, Trochlear, Occulomotor, Optic, Olfactory

It is important when writing your exam files to make sure every question is preceeded by Q: and left on it's own line (capital q, colon, enter). QandA recognises those three symbols together as a code to mean "everything thing after this is a question until I reach an answer code." Hence it is similarly important to ensure that each answer is preceeded by A:[Enter]

Lucy's QandA Files

Here are listed some of the QandA files I have compiled. I apologise for the somewhat erratic coverage of subject matter and the numerous mistakes you will undoubtedly find.

Third Year Clinical Studies Notes

Last year when I was in third year, my clinical studies group formed what Catherine Ashes deemed our 'Syndicate' and tried to write out some of those annoying yellow book objectives. I put them up on this website so that all the group members could get to them.

I guess it's about the same time of year now for the current third years. I'm sure none of the other group members would mind the following year using our notes.

Just remember, don't take these notes as gospel. There may be typos and what not. In fact some of our group members (most likely me) may just be plain wrong about things.

Also these notes are compiled from various source text books and we don't take any credit for writing the material ourselves. Although I'm not sure how well the sources are referenced. I think you can assume most of the information came from Robbins Pathological Basis of Disease.

The Notes.

Fourth Year Pathology Manual Objectives

This site is sponsored by Falcon Sight Optometry Practice, Crows Nest. Falcon Sight is an independent optometry practice dedicated to providing friendly and professional eye care. Check out their current special offers. In addition, Falcon Sight has kindly agreed to offer medical students using this site a FREE 30 minute tutorial on use of a slit lamp or use of an ophthalmoscope with any purchase of glasses or contact lenses. This offer is subject to the availability of the optometrist and is by appointment only.

They said it couldn't be done! But lo, one man would not be dissuaded. One man kept the dream alive in his heart. He clung to that dream though all around thought him mad. That man was Anand Rajan. That dream was an electronic repository of the completed path manual objectives.

Led by their visionary leader, fourteen brave souls battled with text books and late nights to produce this great work. Now you, you fortunates who come after, may benefit from the fruits of their labour.

*Related to but not directly answering this pathology objective.
+There has been a correction of the synovial fluid contents table in this document (14/11/02).

This site is sponsored by Falcon Sight Optometry Practice, Crows Nest. Falcon Sight is an independent optometry practice dedicated to providing friendly and professional eye care. Check out their current special offers. In addition, Falcon Sight has kindly agreed to offer medical students using this site a FREE 30 minute tutorial on use of a slit lamp or use of an ophthalmoscope with any purchase of glasses or contact lenses. This offer is subject to the availability of the optometrist and is by appointment only.

Year 4 Short Answer Questions

Sometimes when students leave their exams they try to remember as many of the questions they had as possible, and to write them down. Some of my friends sent me these papers. I have no idea if they are accurate or even useful, but resources are there to be shared, so here they are.

• 2003 Paper
• 2002 Paper
• 2001 Paper
• 1998 Paper
• 1997 Paper
• One student's attempt to answer a written paper

I studied 4th year med in 2002. For me to keep this resource useful, I need people in subsequent years to email me the questions from their year.

So if you found this resource useful, be nice and write down the questions from your exam immediately after you leave the exam hall. Then email me. I will be very happy and put them up on this website.

UNSW Medical Student Resources

I have found these pages extremely useful in studying medicine at UNSW.

Michael Tam's Medical Students Retreat

Features comprehensive, well laid out, anatomy notes.

Tang's Quirky Homepage

Contains some excellent notes for various subjects. Just go to the 'Notes Section'.

Someone recently emailed me as Medsoc IT Officer with a students notes page. I can't put it up on the medsoc server yet but I can link it here right away.

MEDI TIDBITS

I have never used these notes but they appear to be for 2nd through to 5th year.