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Snazzle- the school mascot/7 month joey



in her pouch, trying to give me a lick. By the way, when going into the pouch she goes head first and then moves around so only her head sticks out- typical "Roo" behavior according to the guy raising her.




this pic shows how close the mountains/tablelands are to the coral sea. Forgot to post it yesterday.

Spent a day with the second year med students precepting a small group session on how to go a lower extremity motor and sensor exam. Also discussed a project with someone at the medical school. Found out some differences in Australia and US medical school systems listed below. So we know how med school and residency works in the US. I think I already addressed med school in Australia- either they are similar to the US or they go straight from high school to med school and have a 5 year program. Med schools here are similar to the UK model- e.g. you have a med school which might send medical students to several hospitals. As a result they also have a "clinical school" on the hospital site. They do report to the medical school, but the relationship is quite different than UHB and Downstate.

Residency in Australia is different. First you apply for internship and resident medical officer (junior RMO). These are broad years with both medical, surgical and emergency terms. During your pgy-2 (rmo) year you apply for your specialty and to be a registrar which can be another 3 years for general practice, peds or emergency medicine. Surgery is longer. The residency years are in hospitals are are run on a state/territory level. You can apply to multiple states- e.g. NSW and Queensland. The individual colleges (e.g. emergency medicine, peds, etc) have more say in the registrar years. Even though registrars teach med students, they only report to the hospital and do not have anything to do with the medical school.

And met the med's school unofficial mascot- one of the employees there volunteers at a rescue for Australian wildlife. They also allow petting at this place (these animals will not be released). So a mother kangaroo (already stays in captivity) got pneumonia. Often mother roos will kick a joey out if it is sick (due to energy requirements). So this joey was 1 month old- they saved it and raised it in an artifical pouch. It is now seven months. Since it will always stay in this reserve habitat and be surrounded by homo sapiens he allows it to be touched and fed by other humans- assuming you are calm. See pics.

For further info: this is a young female Red Kangaroo. Male red's get really large- as tall as 6ft and 120kg. females are smaller and also have some grey fur. Got a chance to touch the tendon on the rear legs, its really tightly stretched which allows for their hopping. Other kangaroos are the eastern grey, western grey and the tree.