Hello faithful readers!
I have noticed that many still comment on this website rather than the new one. Checking both sites for comments is twice the work for me, and this site is no longer maintained. Therefore, it will no longer be possible to comment on this website. Please use new.greek.doctor and comment there instead.
Hello again dear readers!
As work on new.greek.doctor continues, it is getting closer and closer to replacing current greek.doctor completely. Most pages have been copied to the new.greek.doctor, and many of them have been rewritten completely. For this reason, please use new.greek.doctor for those courses that have been copied over already. Also, I won’t make error correction or improvements to this greek.doctor anymore.
new.greek.doctor has a new function too, where it auto-generates PDFs of subjects! Go check it out on new.greek.doctor
Nikolas
Hello friends!
Today is this project’s sixth anniversary. If this website was a human it should’ve been able to “bounce ball”, “copy triangle”, and “comfort those in distress”. I thought I’d commemorate this by giving you an update.
Match 1st 2024, only a few days ago, I started specialisation in a speciality which I don’t know how to translate from Norwegian, but I believe it is similar to “emergency medicine” in other countries (akutt- og mottaksmedisin in Norwegian). Up until that date, I was a LIS1, which is an obligatory rotational practice every doctor in Norway must complete before starting specialisation proper. I’m very excited!
I still work on greek.doctor, at least once weekly, by rewriting and copying topics to a new platform on a new website, aptly called new.greek.doctor. You will recognise this platform, called mediawiki, as being the same platform Wikipedia is using. This platform is much better suited for this project than the platform this page is using (WordPress), which is actually a platform for blogs. If only I’d known that from the start so I wouldn’t have to transfer everything now.
Copying pages from here to there is time-consuming (I started doing that more than 18 months ago!) and there is still a long way to go, mostly because I cannot resist rewriting topics when copying them because writing topics is much more fun than copying old topics and ignoring how I know I can do a better job writing them now than when I originally wrote them.
There are many advantages to the new platform. My favorite one is that I can have a “main” or “master” page for a certain disease or subject (like heart failure), and I can then make the topics which are related to that subject extract the parts of that subject which are relevant for the exam in that course (for heart failure that would be pathophysiology, pathology, cardiology, clinical biochemistry, etc.). This allows what I write to be more “centralised” and more easily updatable and reusable across courses, and so that students will recognise material I write from previous courses. It’s also more satisfying for me than to write about the same thing in 5 different topics (probably the most important reason I’m doing this).
I’m also planning to implement a long-awaited feature which generates a pdf file of all the pages for one course, to ease offline use. The pdf will be updated automatically daily or weekly. I could technically implement this on old.greek.doctor (that’s what this will be called from now on) but I won’t bother with that when I’m moving platforms anyway.
Other advantages include:
Because of my full-time work I won’t have a lot of time to dedicate to greek. I’ve also started (paid work) to write for the Great Norwegian Encyclopedia (store norske leksikon), which also takes time. But, greek.doctor is important to me, so I’ll take the time to work on it still. But don’t remain on the edge of your seats waiting for me to finish the migration.
If anyone would pay me to work on greek full time so I wouldn’t have to work clinically, I’d rewrite every single topic and write notes for all subjects I haven’t already written about. If not, there aren’t enough hours in the day to get that done. If anyone is interested, hit me up on email for business inquiries.
The new page is up and running and can be used, but not all topics can be found there yet. Many topics there have been completely rewritten or improved though, which may be of use. Try it!
Until next blog post!
Please help my friend Anna for her thesis by answering this questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/d/e/1FAIpQLSdisols-oZ-98UFt_nG56RHz8BuHRMkUs2cFe77nnsB5FJQvA/viewform?usp=send_form&pli=1
It takes 10-20 minutes to complete. Thank you!
Edit: Her work is now finished. Thank you to everyone who participated.
A professor at the university of Pécs is conducting a countrywide study, investigating international medical students’ well-being and mental health. The survey is accredited and anonymous.
They have asked for my help in bringing this survey to medical students in Hungary. Please take 12-18 minutes of your time to fill out this survey:
https://forms.gle/dmuv2kVZNjMJrteu9
Spoiler alert: It’s not good.
I’ve spent way too much time writing 21 pages about my experience with the medical university of Pécs, intended to give potential students a look into the life of a student at POTE. You’ll find it in the sidebar.
I also want other students to be able to share their opinion about the university with potential students here. The only thing I require of you is to answer the simple question of “would you recommend this university to a friend or not”. Other than that, you can write whatever you want. Both positive and negative experiences are welcome of course. If you want do to so, message me (email or messenger) with what you want posted and whether you want to be anonymous or not.
The oral state exam. The last ever exam at medical school.
It’s not known to be difficult; in fact, it’s known to be more of a formality. Virtually no one fail, and people get good grades despite being unable to answer many of their questions.
Even knowing this, the days before the exams were tough. I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t pass, but I was still very stressed. I can’t recall the last time I actually couldn’t eat for days due to stress. But hopefully this was the last time.
On the day of the written state exam (May 25th for us), all 6th year students receive a schedule for the oral state exam, showing you which day you’ll have the exam on. It’s mostly in alphabetical order, and mine was to be June 1st.
On your designated day of oral state exam, at 7:30 in the morning, a Teams group call begins with officials from the university and all the students who are to have their exams that day. There, the officials randomly draw which department each student is to have their exam at. The students must show up at that department at 8:45, and the exam begins at 9.
At 9 you will get a patient to examine. In some departments, mostly ob/gyn and psych, you’re only to take the patient history and not do any physical examination. Following this, there is a practical part where an examiner asks you questions regarding the case and asks you to show certain examinations. This differs a bit from department to department, as some departments combine this “practical examination” with the theoretical examination which comes next.
The next is the theoretical examination. In each department 4 – 5 examiners from different departments/specialities form a board which will examine you. Some of these examiners may be from other medical universities in Hungary. They’ll ask you a few questions from their own specialities, and often look at your thesis and ask you a few questions about it as well.
Some departments won’t give you your grade until everyone has finished their theoretical examination that day, while some give it right away. After you get your grade (and a small rite of passage from the examiners), you’re free of the tyranny!
The uni officials drew psychiatry department for me. I went there at 8:30. At 9 I get a patient. Many patients at the psychiatry clinic speak English, so students having their exams there usually get an English-speaking patient. Initially, they told me that there were no available English-speaking patients, and that I would have to get one who only speaks Hungarian, but that a resident would help me out, but when I got my patient, they did speak English, so I was glad. We sat down and had a nice chat for some time as I tried to take their medical history.
After I was finished, the resident comes and talks to me about the patient (not to examine me). She shows me the patient’s chart and medication list, explains their findings, and answers my questions about the patient. Then, there was nothing to do but wait for the board.
I was the second to last student to enter the room. The board consisted of prof Tamás Tenyi from psych, prof András Tárnok from paeds, prof Imre Szabó from internal medicine gastroenterology, and prof András Papp from general surgery. They ask for my thesis (but not my ID or skillbook, neither of which I didn’t have to show), and they start skimming it while prof Tenyi asks me to talk about the patient.
My patient had psychotic symptoms, so after I was done presenting the patient, he starts asking questions related to this.
Sometime around this point in time, I realise that there is a lot of tension in the room. Everyone is just staring at me, not smiling, while I mostly look at the floor. A friend of mine had the exam earlier that day with the same board, and he talked about how chill the atmosphere was and how everyone was laughing. When I realised that my exam had a totally different atmosphere, I start to get a bit anxious. Was there tension because I was doing poorly? Or do they not like me?
I think that was the questions I got from psych. He says that he’s finished, and gives the word to prof. Tárnok. He introduces himself, and says that he finds my thesis very interesting as he’s an expert on IBD.
I think he had more questions, but I can’t recall them anymore. Eventually he gives the word to prof. Szabó.
He gives the word to the final member of the board, prof. Papp.
And that was the last question. Before I leave, prof. Tárnok asks whether I’m certain that I don’t want to be a gastroenterologist. Before I can answer, prof. Papp says (in a joking, non-malicious way) “no, it’s too difficult for him”, after which everyone laughed a bit. It may sound rude, but I could tell that he didn’t mean it in a rude way. The fact that everyone laughed made me feel a bit better.
I think I was in for 20 – 25 minutes. In most cases, no one gets their grade until everyone has had their theoretical part, and that was the case for my group as well. Luckily, I was the second to last student, so I only had to wait for one student to finish to get to know my grade.
I felt pretty shit before the exam, but I actually felt even more shit after it. I knew that they don’t fail anyone, but I felt like I answered wrongly on almost every question they had, and I had an unshakeable feeling that I’d failed.
After the last student finishes, they call all the students back into the room where we had the exam. Prof. Tenyi opens with a small “rite of passage” where he says that from this day on, we’re no longer students, but that the medical profession requires regular studying to stay up to date, etc etc. This made me feel pretty secure that I’d passed, but he follows it up with “however, the performances have not been equal” or something like that. He starts by reading the grades of everyone in the order they had the exam.
As soon as they say my name and “five”, I immediately burst into tears, in front of everyone. Like, proper ugly crying. The relief was immeasurable. Luckily I was the second to last student, so I only cried while they were reading the result of one more student. As soon as they finish and congratulate everyone, I turn to hug and cry in a friend of mine’s arms who also had the exam that day.
I leave the room, and outside some of my closest and bestest friends are waiting for me with lots of beautiful flowers and bouquets, and so my crying reinforces as the tears are no longer just tears of tiredness and relief, but from being super touched as well. They see me ugly crying and assume the worst (understandably), but I tell them I got a 5, and they become a bit confused as to why I’m crying so much. While outside, still crying, prof. T´´arnok comes over to shake my hand and congratulate me. Just a bit awkward.
A select few graduating students had experiences like me, where they were in for a long time and got asked some difficult questions. The vast majority had really simple, 5 – 10 minute exams with baby questions. But, the most important thing is that, no matter which of these two group you end up belonging to, you’ll pass. The oral state exam is not an exame where anyone fails, but it’s still a source of severe anxiety for many, as it’s the last of the last, and failing it would be devestating. Personally, I was super nervous and lost my appetite for almost a whole week before the exam, and it took some days after the exam for these feelings to disappear. Honestly, by having a terrible oral state exam experience, you’ll leave the university with a proper POTE exam as your last exam experience, which is kind of poetic. Full circle.
In the two weeks since the exam, the graduating students have celebrated, by dancing in a public fountain to the music of a live band (a POTE tradition), by going on a trip to lake Balaton, and by partying a lot. We’ve also rested, for the first time in 6+ years without any school-related worries. Even 2 weeks after finishing, we still have moments of realisation, where we realise that we’re actually actually finished. Our Neptun now shows our student status as “Graduated”. From now on, the adult life starts, and a big chapter of our lives is completed, for good and bad.
I’ll write a post later with what’s next for the website. Even though I’m finished, I still have plans to improve and maintain it, and I’ll definitely not take it down, as many have been worried about.
Congratulations to the graduating class of 2022!
The written state exam is May 25th. For those who are unaware, this exam consists of 180 multiple choice questions in 150 minutes, and all the questions are provided upfront on the website finalexam.hu. However, the website only allows viewing 20 questions at a time. Questions may change every year, and so documents from previous years containing all questions are likely not very useful. As such, it’s beneficial to find a method of collecting all questions into a document. Copying and pasting manually takes a lot of time, so I tried to come up with a better solution.
I don’t have a lot of experience with programming, but I knew that I know enough to program a script which automated the process. After a few days of working on it, it’s finished. The repository for the source code is here, and the code will likely continue to work in the future, and so can probably be reused in the future.
I’ve uploaded the document with all the questions to the facebook group for 6th year.
Next, I’ll try to automate the process of converting the questions to flashcards.
Edit: Flashcard conversion is done. The repository is here, and the flashcards have been uploaded to the facebook group.
Edit2: The link to the 2022 state exam questions anki is here. Note that questions may change from year to year, so it would be best if someone remade the anki every year using the tools I made (or with self-made tools).
So I had my internal medicine final at 1st department on the 21st. A notice on Neptun told us to meet at the “Clinical and Educational office” in the B wing of the 2nd floor (room B227) at 8:00, and to bring our 8 case reports and certificate of finishing the practice. When we arrived, they took photocopies of the case reports and certificate, and gave us a paper which we were to bring to the practical part of the exam. We were told to wait outside, and eventually prof. Gabriella Pár comes and gets us and gives a patient each. We were two students per room, each with their separate patient. She tells us that she’ll be back to ask what we’d found in 30 minutes.
I introduce myself to the patient and begin taking the anamnesis and performing the physical examination. After me and the other student finish with each of our patients, we leave the room and wait for the professor in the hallway while we collect our thoughts on the patient. While waiting, my patient comes out of the room and offers both of us some tea ❤️.
Eventually, after maybe an hour, the professor arrives. She asks me what I’d found, and I begin presenting my findings. My patient had arrived to the hospital due to abdominal pain which occured after eating. She stops me and begins asking questions.
This is something I wouldn’t have learned unless a friend of mine had gotten the same question and warned me about it, so I looked it up in the lecture.
I’ve always thought that one beer was one unit, and I’m pretty sure it said on the lecture that one unit is 10 g.
I percuss the border of the liver.
That’s a problem I’d never considered or heard of before, but I figured that the only way it can disappear is if air gets between the abdominal wall and the liver.
I was kind of confused, because I know of no internal medicine-related treatment of GI perforation. Could there be an endoscopic procedure? No, there can’t be. It has to be…
And that was the last of the question on the practical part. She writes a 5 on the paper from earlier, and signs and stamps it (of course). She tells me that my examiner will be prof. Alizadeh and that the theoretical part will take part in the science building in room B001, and that he’s impatient and that I have to hurry there, so I thank my patient and rush over there.
After rushing over there, I found like 10 students waiting outside the room. They’d also been told to hurry, just to have to wait when they got there. One person already finished their theoretical exam but didn’t get their grade because the examiners had told them that no one will get their grades until all 11 students have finished their theoretical examination. So I sit down to wait. After the 9 students before me have finished, it’s my turn. I go into the room, sit down in front of prof. Alizadeh of haematology and (I think) prof. Tótsimon of cardiology. In my fluster I tell them “good afternoon” even though it was like 10:30. As I sit down, Alizadeh leaves the room, presumably to go to the toilet. Prof. Tótsimon begins the questioning in his absence.
I try to think but I can’t recall it.
This is something I imagined could be a question, so I’d prepared for it. I close my eyes and try to visualise the mnemonic. To my own surprise, I recite it correctly.
At this point prof. Alizadeh returns to the room. Prof Tótsimon quickly explains him in Hungarian what we’ve talked about so far. Prof. Alizadeh continues:
I was not prepared for such a pharma question. I remember studying it in pharma but I hadn’t looked at it since. We spend some time in silence as I try to dig deep into my memory for the information, but I can’t recall it.
The hint made some gears turn in my head.
At first, I’m like, what. I’m pretty up to date on cardiology, but I can’t recall any new drugs for that indication. I know that SGLT2 inhibitors were recently indicated for heart failure as well. Could that be what he meant? But that’s not related to atherosclerosis.
Okay, but then it has to be them, right?
I knew it.
For the next part, I believe they gave me a hint which put me on the right track to the answer, but I can’t recall what the hint was. It might’ve been the first letter, “P”.
After waiting for the 11th student to finish their exam, everyone went back into the room one at a time to get their grades. As I enter when it’s my turn, the examiners are already on their way out, so I think they kind of forget about me. As they walk past me, they tell me that I got “excellent” and congratulated me.
And that was it! That was my last ever exam at POTE. Now only state exams remain. I was surprised to be asked such an amount of pharma questions, but anyway.
So I had my neurology final yesterday. The exam was to begin at 10:30 (which sucks, I prefer having early exams). I was waiting outside the neurology department (one floor up from psychiatry) with the other students. According to Neptun, our examiner was to be prof. Janszky.
It’s 10:30. A doctor comes and guides us to the department’s “library”, quotation marks because there were zero books in there..
She asks who of us had reflex hammers, which only I and a few other students had brought (but I’d forgotten my lab coat, so we were even). Those of us who had forgotten to bring lab coats were given disposable isolation gowns, and those who’d forgotten to bring a reflex hammer were either lent one or told to borrow from those who had one.
It’s 10:46. The doctor gives each of us a patient to examine, and tells us that we should perform a full neurological examination, and after 20 minutes, she’d return and ask what we’d found and ask a few questions.
So we do the examinations on our patients, and then we wait. The wait turns out to be more like one hour. (She had to examine four students before me, which is why it took so long.)
When she finally returns, it’s 11:38. She begins by asking me what I’d found. She then asks a few theoretical questions:
And that was it for the practical part. I didn’t answer all questions perfectly, but more or less, so I got 5 in the end. It took five minutes.
She tells me to go back to the library to draw topics. It’s 11:45, lunch time. I draw my three topics:
My B topic was great, C was okay, and A was not the best. I sit down to write my topics, but there are three students before me, plus the student who was currently having the exam. I knew it was going to be a long day, but I hadn’t brought food.
Time passes, but feels like it’s standing still. Each student’s exam takes like 20 minutes. The exam is happening in another room, so we have no idea how it’s going with the examinees. Hunger grows stronger and stronger. I look at the other students, and they ask me what the time is, as I had my watch. “12:30”, I say, and one student rubs their belly to signal that they’re really hungry. I know, I know. I am too.
I’m hungry, restless, and anxious as we’re sitting there waiting. Nothing is happening in the room; everyone’s is just waiting. The doctor watching over us is droodling on a piece of paper. I look outside the window, hoping to find something interesting to look at to pass the time, but the view consists of an opposing wall with flaking paint. My akathisia is getting to strong; I have to move. I get up and start walking back and fourth in the room. My watch counts 1149 steps as I keep walking to pass the time and ease my anxiety.
Finally, the last student before me returns from her exam. I look at my watch; it’s now 13:03. She walks me to prof. Janszky’s office. A nice office. The doctor who examined my practical part is present as the co-examiner. I sit down in a comfy chair, and he tell me that I can start with whichever topic I would like. Nice.
I began by mentioning everything I’d written down, except the part about Lambert-Eaton. I wasn’t sure if I should mention the treatment, but I did anyway and he didn’t correct me or stop me.
He asks me whether there are any other antibodies associated with MG. I forget about anti-MuSK so I mention the anti-VDCC antibodies, but he replies that they’re associated with Lambert-Eaton and not MG. I draw a complete blank on the anti-MuSK. After a while, he gives me the answer, and tells me to go to the next topic.
I begin with who needs a CT and who don’t. It’s probably not actually a part of the topic, but I found it interesting so I wanted to include it anyway. I open with “So I’m Norwegian, so I’ve looked at the Scandinavian guidelines” they laugh a bit and say something like “maybe they’re better”.
After explaining that, I begin by talking about how we only can treat secondary injuries and not primary, etc. etc. At some point he stops me to ask about the types of TBI. He begins with commotion (which I think is a Hungarian term for concussion), and asks me to list the others. I explain contusion, ICH, SAH, SDH, and EDH, and say that if there’s a haematoma we can drain it and if there’s bleeding in the intraventricular space, we can use a shunt. He agrees. Afterward I continue with the supportive treatments I’d listed for oedema, vasospasm, etc.
He asks me what the lucid interval is, and I answer. He asks me why we examine the eyes in TBI, and I say it’s because anisocoria could be present. He asks why anisocoria occurs, and I say herniation of the cerebral peduncles, to which he replies that it’s wrong, it’s rather uncal herniation. “In case of anisocoria, which pupil is on the side of the injury?”, to which I reply “the larger pupil”. He agrees.
He asks what another finding may be on the eyes in case of TBI. “Fixed pupil, when there’s no reaction to light”, I respond. He asks which nerve is affected in this case, and I say occulomotor. He signals for me to proceed to the last topic.
I begin by listing what I’d written down. I don’t get further than the IBM point until he interrupts me and tells me that we’re finished and that it’s a 5. Yay! The exam took 7 – 8 minutes.
On my way out, they ask me for the three envelopes each of my topics were inside when I drew them. I had forgotten them in the library, so I had to go and get them. Awkward!
I look at my watch. It’s 13:13.
Time for lunch.