I haven't written recently. But then again, neither has Shakespeare...

I realized today that the last post I (Barb) put up was in October, and so much stuff has happened!

After coming back from Canada in July, I was posted to do a Rural term in Bowen, QLD. That's 2.5 hr drive north of Mackay, or 12.5 hr drive north of Brisbane.  It's famous for mangoes, being a WW2 airforce base, and being the set of the movie "Australia".  Rob had to stay home and mind his job and the cats. It was lonely, but also good experience- The hospital was small enough that I had duties in both the ward and emergency.  And small enough that I was a needed pair of hands and gained all sorts of experience.

 One thing that was pretty neat was that the kitchen served meals flavoured with herbs grown right outside the kitchen door!

 Another regular occurrence was emergency air-lifting patients to a bigger centre, such as Mackay to the South, or Townsville, to the North. The helipad was about 25m from my bedroom, and the odd time gave me a heart attack as it was landing at 2 in the morning.

Rob came up and I went back down to Mackay as often as possible.
Then I moved on to one of the toughest rotations in intern year: Surgery. And it WAS tough. But I was lucky enough to be part of a great junior doctor team, and we managed to get through together.

Another story that has been evolving since April is my attempt to get onto ACRRM (Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine) training for next year. Not having overcome some of my student tendencies, I put off my application until the last week. THEN I found out that as a sponsored work visa holder, I needed letters of support from every training provider (there are 19) that I wished to apply for. A scramble of emails later (I like to think of that as the collective noun for emails), I had managed to obtain only one, from QRME (Queensland Rural Medical Education). Fortunately, this was the group I was hoping to work with anyway.  I then needed to do the exams set out by AGPT, which involved situational judgement tests and multiple mini exam stations, times 8. The closest set were being held in Townsville, but would commence 2 days after I had left the country for Canada.  So I ended up in Toowoomba. This was great, as I got to see some Brisbane friends and stay with my good friend Anna while there.  Exams were done....flight to Edmonton undertaken. While in Edmonton, I got an email from AGPT asking for more paperwork, which was still in Mackay... and a transcript from UQ. This is where things got troublesome. UQ normally has an online request format for transcripts. However the server was down, and they were not accepting calls or emails with requests. By the time they repaired the problem and responded, they missed my needed deadline....and so my application was scrapped, and I needed to begin again the following April, from scratch, including repeating the exams.  I was "very put out."  THEN I got an email from AGPT that they were opening up second round offers. My transcript had limped in by this point, so I was eligible to try again. Gladly!  I had a Skype interview which started off with "We thought you'd be in the first round of offers??!!" So I was pretty confident I might get a spot. And in a few days received my acceptance!! So thrilled that God turned this set of events into something good!  I still have one hospital based year to complete to get all the ACRRM prerequisites, and Mackay Base Hospital has renewed my contract for the coming year.  So there is comfort in knowing where we will be for at least one more year.

Now I am based at Proserpine Hospital, fulfilling my Emergency Medicine term. It's interesting and broad based, with good support and consultants who are eager to teach. I also have 2 medical students following me around, so the cycle continues....

Christmas decorating

So Christmas is now less than a month away.  Christmas music is beginning to be played in the shops and the decorations are coming out. It amuses me that Australians try to do the Winter Wonderland when it is 30°C outside.  They do also have more 'native' Christmas decorations with Kookaburras and Eucalyptus leaves.

 

 

Thanksgiving in Australia, Take 5

Hard to believe, but this will be my 5th (Rob's 4th) Canadian Thanksgiving in Australia.  Turkey has become somewhat more common in QLD since my first attempt to put on a dinner. The first turkey had to be ordered 6 weeks in advance, and cost $75.00 for a 15 lb bird.  This year's turkey will be about $35.00 for the same, ordered a week in advance. Some of the other things that can't be had in Oz: Cranberry sauce or fresh/frozen cranberries are scarce, except around Christmas. And canned pumpkin cannot be gotten at all, except for ocanada.com.au, at $12.50 per can. But the Thanksgiving show must go on! So I've learned a few tricks over the years:

  I have found a recipe for making it from dried cranberries which is awesome, courtesy of chowhound:


dried cranberry sauce for thanksgiving:
1 1/2 cups dried craisins
3/4 cup water or preferably cranberry juice or pomegranate cran mix
1/3 cup sugar
dried orange peel, real, orange
1/4 tsp salt
peel, orange marmalade, or orange juice instead of water
add all ingredients and boil lightly until the cranberries plump up. then add 2 tbl of cornstarch to 4 tbl of water and add it slowly while at a slow simmer till it is thick and of the right consistency.

My family's pumpkin pie recipe is amazing, and I have tweaked it to work with a pumpkin that has to be cut, peeled, boiled and mashed:

 Pumpkin Pie

Cut up and peel and cube a pumpkin or part thereof. Boil or steam until soft. Mash or run through a food processor.
Now, for every 2 cups of mashed pumpkin, add:

3/4 cup sugar
1-2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp dried ginger, nutmeg and allspice
1/2 tsp salt
a whiff of cloves and chili powder (optional)

Mix this into the pumpkin.
At this point, you can freeze the filling.




Or you can keep going and add:
2 eggs
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup of skim milk powder (the original recipe calls for 1 cup milk, but boiled pumpkin has too much water, so the result is soggy if you don't use powder)

Mix together and pour into a prepared 9" pie tin. Bake at 400oF (200oC) for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325oF (160oC) until a knife comes out clean.


This year we are expecting about 18-20 people for dinner tomorrow. It should be heaps of fun!

News for September and October

Baby Kangaroo (click for more pics)

  We are now on the Sunday of a three day holiday weekend.  Monday is Labour Day, it was moved from May to spread out the public holidays more evenly over the year.  Yesterday we were heading into town to go to the butcher.  We were looking for a turkey for our regular Thanksgiving party next weekend.  As we were crossing the bridge we saw some people rafting on the river and a gathering at part on River Street.  We decided to take a look.  While there we saw a booth for the wild animal rescue society.  They had baby kangaroos, wallabies and possums.  One of the local art galleries was also wrapped in knitting. After the park we did get to the butcher, and did get a turkey for Thanksgiving next weekend.

Eungella at night (more pics)

  A couple of weeks back we went camping at Eungella National Park.  We tried an experiment.  We put a queen sized air mattress in the back of my work van (a VW Caddy).  It worked quite well except that when we left Mackay it was 27 degrees C, but overnight it got down to 7C.  We did not pack enough blankets for such temperatures.  Nearly froze by morning. While there we did get a fleeting glimpse at a platypus, saw several turtles and of course, bush turkeys.  In the morning the clouds were below the height of the range, so we got to see a cloud covered Pioneer Valley and beautiful sunlit clouds.  (Pictures are here)

  

Training in Sydney

  This week I am down in Sydney for a week long training course.  I an being trained in the Konica Minolta C6000/C7000/C70hc.  These are the big production machines you seen in copy shops and printing companies.  The course is going quite well, but my brain is starting to get full.
  This is also Barb's first week back in Mackay after here six weeks in Bowen (about 3 hours drive north).  Starting next week we will actually get to live in the same town for 9 weeks in a row.  After that she is back up to Proserpine (1.75 hrs north).  Luckily next year she will be in Mackay for the whole year.

Canada Pictures are now up

Only 2 and a half weeks after returning, I've finally photos from our trip to Canada uploaded to the website.  They are now on the website.

This is a picture of Barb & I at Morraine Lake near Lake Louise in the Alberta Rockies.