what the heck is a “p value?”

Tuesday’s exam wasn’t fun. It was less than fun. It was pretty much the depths of pathetic if i’m being asked. Tuesday saw me trapped like a pickled onion in a small, airless room for 2 hours whilst attempting to complete the most horrendous exam in history.

It just wasn’t kosher, none of it and I’m pretty much halfway to writing a letter of complaint to the course convenor, the head of health and behavioural sciences and the supposed "lecturer" of the subject. Why? Well this wasn’t your typical, average, run-of-the-mill subject. It was a wholly online unit which meant that there was no campus lectures, tutorials or assistance given. In fact there didn’t seem to be anyone to ask if there were questions. It made me wonder WHY on earth they would offer ONE solitary subject as an online component especially when that subject involved mathematics, statistics, research design and everything else that isn’t "easy to grasp." As I plodded through the various topics (10 in total) and then subsequently tackled the "end of topic tests," I kept thinking that it just wasn’t right. I shot off several emails to the person who was supposed to be the "person to ask," the "all knowledgeable one," but got nothing in reply. My inbox stayed stoicly empty. Hmph. I had several study sessions… studied as much as possible but I guess you could say it was difficult because we just didn’t know what was going on. I’m not the only one that struggles with the interpretation of these terms… many many people just found the whole concept odd and impractical (especially in relation to nursing!) If people want to get into research they generally do a post-grad in something researchy… I, on the otherhand, just want to be a nurse. Period.

So of course, taking all this into consideration, you can just imagine how far my face fell during the initial 15 minutes of reading with all the flipping questions. Sometimes I am grateful for things like multiple choice because there were more than a few questions that I just didn’t get. Typically speaking with muli choice questions, you can usually rule out two completely wrong answers almost immediately. That leaves you with a rough 50% chance of getting that question right. Not on this test… they were all so backwards and stupid that I can only give myself a 25% chance at correct answers. I mean, there were a few questions I knew definately… but truthfully… the rest were all a major cock up. I’m not going to sweat it though, this exam will be marked on the curve and I know there are PLENTY of students out there as completely confused as me… if I do happen to fail this exam then I still have a chance of passing the unit because my grades for the individual topic teats were reasonable and my exam received a good mark… If I fail this unit I will wait until 3rd year to take it again… but it will be kicking and screaming… I am none-too-happy about the content or the rationale behind this subject because I don’t think it is reasonable or necessary. Give me a unit of Pharmacology which is far more suited to the profession.

Onto other things. My mother broke her ankle and cracked several ribs. She went looking for an anti-hystamine at 3am on Sunday night and slipped down the stairs. She then waited until 9am to call me to ask if I could take her to the doctors because she was in excrutiating pain. I went over there, found that someone had (rather crudely) wrapped mum’s foot in a sling (apparently the emergency crepe bandage could not be found), that she had not had any paracetamol and decided that although it looked more like a soft tissue injury, that I would take her to the hospital for x-rays. 4 ice-packs, 2 coffees, a sandwich and many many complaints from my mother and we were finally seen. Despite my mum HAVING private health insurance, she insisted we go to the local public hospital (I warned her waiting times would be MUCH longer) instead of the accident and emergency of the private hospital. I sat with her for about 2 hours at which time she was escourted through to the cubicle area for assessment. I think we must have told about 5 different nurses and 3 different doctors what happened (even I knew the story word by word at the end). The man in the cubicle nest to us sounded like the grim reaper was close by and we were there at the same time that a local woman (in the area) was being assessed because she had severed the leg of her 18 mth old son (an apparent psychotic episode). Luckily she was safely ensconed in the psychiatric unit (the little boy was taken the the Royal Childrens Hospital where his leg was surgically reattached in an 8 and a half hour operation)…. ANYWAY, I eventually had to leave (because of my study session for the exam the next day), but mum called me and told me that she had indeed fractured her ankle (although it wasn’t a full break otherwise she would have had to have it pinned in place) and cracked 2 ribs. Poor mum, she doesn’t cope with immobility too well and has been a little bit teary for the past couple of days. I’ve been wearing a few different hats the last few days, that of: morning tea brigade, nursemaid, pillow plumper, sandwichhand, master barrista and physio. Thankfully i’m finished uni so that I don’t feel too rushed off my feet. It’s really quite insane.

I’m off to spend some time with my little family now… *sigh*

Vee