Tuesday 31 March 2009

Worry for Nothing

The mock OSCE. I was petrified. Suddenly my nerves got a whole lot worse when I was asked to go and see a patient with the evil Dr who hates me and can always pick holes in my examination...

Surprisingly I did it fine. I didn't miss anything. In fact I think the words "That examination was very good..." left Dr Evil's lips at the end. Success.

Although I was dreading having him examine me I think it's worked out well because I've managed to prove to him that I can actually do a pretty good examination.

Otherwise the OSCE was pretty laid back. We went around to see patients and examined them OSCE style as opposed to proper patients. We also took a history off an F1 and did some explaining to another junior doctor. It was pretty good to have a go at it all without too much pressure, proving that we should be able to pass the real thing without too much strain.

On an unrelated note I'm getting a fancy new phone on Thursday. Ooooooh. It's an Xda Ignito. It looks very fancy. Unfortunately I'm changing my number again, which is always a bit of an effort. Thankfully with a mixture of unlimited texts and being able to keep in touch with people via the internet I shouldn't get in too much of a pickle with it.

Lily xXx

Monday 30 March 2009

We're All the Same

Proof that most of us on our course think exactly the same. Everyone I've talked to so far this week is dying for this rotation to be over no matter what rotation subject they're in. Everyone also has the strange excitement I have with starting the new rotation. Even if it's tinged with dread because in my case it's the hardest rotation yet.

Feeling quite pleased that my next rotation is all in central London even if the hospital I'm at doesn't have the most patients in the topics i'll be covering.

Mock OSCE tomorrow and I'm bricking it. One of the doctors HATES me. To make it worse he has an input in my final mark for this rotation. Even though I know my examination stuff I get so nervous with him I'm bound to bugger up. Meh.

Lily xXx

Sunday 29 March 2009

Final Countdown...

I realise I'm making a lot of the end of this rotation, but I actually can't wait. 5 days to go and that's it.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my consultant to discuss how well I've done, Tuesday I have a mock exam, Wednesday I have ward teaching and cannulation teaching, Thursday I have an assessed presentation and the group curry and then Friday it's all over!! Woo.

I do have to pack all my stuff back into a suitcase though. That should be interesting.

I also need to get a move on with my knitting. Madsadgirl asked how far I've got. Not much further than I was a fortnight ago. A mixture of sinusitis and loads of work has held me up. Thankfully I have the easter holidays to get back on track with it and finish it. I've bought a book on knitting socks too, so after this jumper I'm going to try to knit some socks. It takes 4 needles... that's extreme knitting!

Lily xXx

Friday 27 March 2009

Actually Doing Some Work

The title of this post will shock most of you. Yes. You better believe it. I have actually done some work. This has been a pretty useful week. I mean productive. I've spent 10 minutes trying to think of the word productive which means one of two things. Either I've fried my brain from doing so much work or the cocodamol I've just taken might actually be kicking in.

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know I've finally got all my sign ups. Including the male external genitalia ones. It's amazing what you can learn with a pair of rubber testicles. I can now tell you how I would identify a testicular tumour, a hydrocoele, a haematocoele, a varicocoele, a torted testicle and a scrotal hernia. I am now the queen of testicles.

I also have already prepared my presentation for next Thursday. It is extreme preparation compared to what I'm normally like, but I don't want to ruin my last week on placement freaking out about this presentation.

Scarily next week I have a mock OSCE that I need to prepare for. It doesn't count for anything but it would be nice to do well as that will boost my confidence for the real thing at the end of April.

Lily xXx

Thursday 26 March 2009

Close to the Finish

Those of you who have been reading my blog for the past couple of months will know that I'm finding this rotation a little tougher than the last. It's not the content, but more the frustration of not being in my own flat. Thankfully I'm almost at the end now. Less than a fortnight to go. Hurrah!

Worryingly I still don't have all my sign-ups. The examination of the male genitalia is proving more and more difficult to obtain. As a group we had almost convinced a doctor to go through the theory on a plastic model and sign us off, but mysteriously we have been emailed that his teaching tomorrow is cancelled. Nooooo. It makes it a little stressful to be trying to get this done in the last week. On top of this we have loads of things going on in the last week. On Tuesday we have a mock OSCE exam and on Thursday an assessed presentation for our Special Study Modules.

I wouldn't be too worried about the mock OSCE if I wasn't convinced that the doctor examining the examination station hated me. He thinks I'm awful. To make it worse I'm sure I'll get all flustered knowing that and start feeling the patient's head instead of their tummy or something.

The good thing about the teaching tomorrow being cancelled is that I now know I have a free day. I can put this to good use, trying to get my presentation done and perhaps trotting off to do some examinations in preparation for next week.

Unfortuantely being up this late I'm not sure how early I'll be up. I made the mistake of napping this afternoon to make up for a broken night's sleep and now I'm worried that I'll be up half the night. I guess if I can't sleep I could start the presentation properly now, but blog browsing seems like a much more attractive way to spend the early hours of the morning.

Lily xXx

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Weekend Antics

I realise this is a little beyond the weekend but I had such a nice weekend that I thought I would share it with you guys.

Friday night was spent travelling up to London and generally just chilling out in the flat. This was because I had to get up relatively early on Saturday morning. One of my best friends was back from spending 7 or so months travelling the world. As a joint welcome back and birthday celebration we decided to go to The Boxwood Cafe, which is one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. Now before you all worry that I spent my whole student loan on one lunch it was actually quite cheap. For £25 we got an amazing 3 course menu. It started with lovely warm bread and butter or tarmasalata. Lucky for me everyone else hates the stuff so I got all the taramasalata to myself. Yum yum yum. We then all got a "complimentary starter" of a little cup of cauliflower, apple and walnut soap. Delcious. I then had a cured ham salad, a lovely tasty mutton pie with the best savoy cabbage I have ever tasted and finished off with a sticky date pudding and proper homemade custard. Mmmmm.

As the weather was gorgeous the boyfriend and I then decided to have a stroll through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was so romantic. We held hands and just strolled for an hour or two being generally very mushy. The perfect way to spend an afternoon. Before we got the train home we popped into a pub to watch the last 10 mins of the rugby and have a little drink. On the way out I demanded that we went to M&S. The boyfriend rightly said that we have loads of food at home, but still I insisted that I wanted to go even though I wasn't sure why. It must have been a crazy female sixth sense because standing outside the shop was a friend from Wales who'd just been to visit London for the day. What a coincidence!!

That evening the boyfriend and I had some pasta for dinner and lots more romantic mushy cuddling.

I was dreading Sunday. Mother's Day. Certainly not my favourite day of the year. I went with my Dad to leave my Mum some flowers. Lovely purple and yellow tulips. I even managed not to cry. It was a huge effort and involved putting on lots of eye make-up before going out as a deterrent to just bursting into tears. Even though I felt pretty down I decided to go out with the boyfriend and his family for Mother's Day lunch, which was certainly the best thing to do. I had a really nice time and another yummy lunch too.

Overall what I expected to be a really miserable and upsetting weekend turned out to be one of the best weekends that I have had all year.

Lily xXx

Monday 23 March 2009

Nightmares

Does anyone have a good solution for stopping nightmares?

I've suffered from nightmares for years and years. It's pretty normal for me to have 3 or 4 nightmares a week at least. In the few weeks run up to Christmas it had gone down to about 1 a week and I thought I'd solved all my problems, but yet again it's getting silly.

In the past 2 weeks I haven't had one night without a nightmare and for the 6 weeks before that I'd started having them pretty frequently again. In fact my nightmare on Saturday night was so bad that I made the boy get out of bed and turn all the lights in the flat on while I just sat in bed panicking and crying. Thankfully the nightmares the last couple of nights haven't been that bad. The main problem is not how I feel immediately afterwards, but how tired it makes me in the long run.

I've tried not eating hours before bed, cutting out dairy products, cutting out caffeine. None of this has made a difference. Does anyone have any nightmare stopping tips? For the next week I'm going to try timing when my nightmares are and if there's a pattern setting the alarm for 20mins or so before to see if briefly waking up sorts me out.

Lily xXx

Friday 20 March 2009

Clicking Into Place

Now that I'm feeling a little less run down, I've had a really enjoyable week. In fact I've had a couple of really great outpatient clinics I got to attend. They were with two totally different consultants, covering two very different aspects of medicine, but I really loved them both. Outpatients can be boring. It can end up with me as the student sitting at the back of the room in silence as the doctor talks to the patient. This is repeated for 3 hours until a little part of me dies inside. Thankfully this wasn't the case this week.

In both clinics I got to take histories from the new patients in my own little room before the consultant saw them. Thinking about it, it's actually amazing how in the space of just two rotations, which is 6 months, how much my history taking has improved. I remember when first being told about history taking, I thought "How hard can it be? I'm good at chatting. Ask a couple of questions... easy-pip." However I was proven wrong. Suddenly we had to ask all the right questions for their symptoms, not forgetting anything, remembering family history, social history, drug history... It all seemed a bit overwhelming. I noticed this week that it really has clicked in my mind. When I was taking histories I wasn't straining myself to remember what I had to ask when someone had a tummy ache, or rectal bleeding or excessive tiredness. It all seemed to come naturally. I didn't have to worry about remembering the SOCRATES mnemonic to ask about pain, the questions just seemed to flow logically in my mind. I wonder how long it's been like this, I haven't noticed a dramatic change in my history taking until I've really thought about it, and it definitely is a whole lot more comfortable.

These outpatient clinics also gave me the opportunity to practice a bit of neuro for next term. I got to do some visual field tests and on another occasion got asked some questions about upper and lower motor neurone lesions. Neuro is really hard!!! I have a lot of learning to do for next term.

Lily xXx

Thursday 19 March 2009

Refreshingly Awake

I think I've finally got over the exhaustion I've been suffering on this placement. Due to the general noisyness of where we sleep I've been finding it hard to get more than 4 or 5 proper uninterrupted hours of sleep a night. It's really been showing. I've been cranky and probably not paying attention to stuff as much as I could.

After my St Patrick's day night out I thought this would only get worse. Didn't get to sleep until after 2 and had to be up at 8. Because of this when I finished clinics at 1 I went to sleep. I didn't properly get up until 5. I then went out to the cinema, got back at midnight and slept through until 9.30. I now feel better than I have in ages. I think, fingers crossed, I might actually now survive the rest of the rotation.

Last night at the cinema I saw Young Victoria. I loved it. I generally love period dramas and historical films (even if they aren't accurate). It was also laden with romance, just my type of film. Unfrotunately there was an almost awkward moment before the film when the boyfriend bumped into one of my ex's. It happened to be the one ex of mine that the boyfriend can't stand. Tends to make things awkward as since we havent dated for years and we get on generally well our relationship is now laid back and jokey. Thankfully no punches were thrown and there was even a strained effort from the two of them to be nice to each other. Hurrah!

This afternoon I have the last of the clinic's I have to attend this week which means after tonight it's practially the weekend. This does mean that I still have to do some work and I have various things to attend tomorrow, but nothing as demanding as a clinic. I've only got a meeting about a presentation I'm doing in a fortnight and then I get to watch someone elses grand round presentation. Geekily I really enjoy watching grand round presentations done by the others in my group. On the whole they're actually quite interesting and tend to only last about 20-30 minutes which is pretty much the extent of my concentration.

Lily xXx

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Learning Stuff

I have a little dilemma. Although I go to a lot of clinics and learn some stuff from textbooks about disease processes I need to up the amount of facts I know. If you asked me 15 causes of hepatitis I'd just look blankly after about 4. It's for this reason I'm taking some advice off a doctor and trying to get my hands on some small revision books that have lots of facts to learn, more than the theory behind the facts.

I realise that "learning lists" has gone out of fashion, but every consultant I've spoken too says that it's actually a great way to make sure you have a broad knowledge base, as long as it's not substituted for other learning.

I was wondering if anyone had tips on revision style textbooks that are great for learning lots of facts?

On that note I'm off to the pub, complete with my Irish passport to validate the fact that I can authenically celebrate St Patrick's day today. Hurrah!

Lily xXx

Monday 16 March 2009

Multiple Ouchies

I will admit that I am quite a clumsy person. Most of this is due to not properly paying attention to one thing, but trying to multitask with lots and lots of things.

My first ouchy-moment of the weekend was on Friday night, and was soley due to my clumsyness. Grating cheese. Bantering with the boyfriend. Suddenly grating hand. OUCH! It wasn't even a little grate, it was a proper full strength grate that's left 3 huge holes in my hand.

As if that wasn't bad enough I then hurt myself again. Went to Canary Wharf for lunch and a bit of a walk around. It's really nice going there with the boyfriend as he used to work there, building some of the amazing skyscrapers. So we walked around looking at the buildings, with me learning things I never thought I'd know about construction. It was much more interesting than it sounds and because it was a Saturday it was also lovely and quiet. Somehow on the DLR home I managed to twist my already useless hip and had to hobble home from the train station. DLR trains are just not as sturdy as underground ones!!

I managed to survive Sunday without butchering myself anymore. This made me get cocky. So today off I went to have a bite to eat at lunchtime with my Dad and the boyfriend. As it's such a beautiful day we decided to sit in the beer garden of a pub. Bad idea if you're fair haired and skinned with no suntan lotion. The way I sat means that half my face, including one eyelid is burnt and the other looks fine. The overall effect is as if someone's slapped me in the face. Disaster.

I have to try not to hurt myself anymore.

I did however have a great but mean moment earlier. I stabbed my clinical partner... OK. Sounds dramatic. I just stabbed her to show I could do BM glucose, but it was great that she let me. That's true friendship. You'll be stabbed in the finger just to help someone get a sign-up.

Lily xXx

Saturday 14 March 2009

Happy Birthday Blog

Although it doesn't seem anywhere near this long to me, it's been a year to the day since I started this blog. Hurrah!

I'd like to write something philosophical and deep for this special post but my mind is being diverted by the thought of the cupcakes I'm going ot make later for the almost-mother-in-law's birthday.

I did however decided to celebrate today and went for a lovely lunch in Canary Wharf, with a nice stroll. Unfortunately the wind made me look like a close relative of cousin it from the Adam's Family.

I'm so pleased that I've managed to keep posting for a full year and really hope that I managed to carry on for a good few more. Writing this is not only fun, but it's allowed me to find loads of other great blogs, filling up my spare time with lots of interesting little snippits to read. I'd like to thank everyone who reads the blog too, it's nice to know that I'm not just talking to myself.

Lily xXx

Thursday 12 March 2009

Another Special Medical Student

Here's another go at describing a medical student I work with. Thus far I'm describing people I like and get along with but I'm sure as I get into these character studies I'll be looking at people I'm less fond of.

Anyway for a change a male medical student. A rare breed these days as an increasing proportion of medical students are women. He's expressly asked me to write about him, either an attack of narcissism, craving for fame or genuine curiosity about what I think of him.

Luckly for this young man I actually think he's pretty sound. Scarily he is uber clever but doesn't show it off at all. He has something stupid like 5 As at Alevel and an extra A at ASlevel. He also managed to get a publication from an essay he wrote in first year. That's pretty impressive in my books.

Bizarrely he also has an obsession with Sex and the City, and shopping in Selfridges. He is what we like to call a metrosexual. He makes up for his girly obsessions with a healthy interest in football and food, the two F's of manhood.

The most amusing thing about him is the unfortunate way that the tutors seem to have labled him as a scruff. His first week on this placement he was busy recovering from what I can only imagine must have been the party of the century, causing him to sleep nearly every moment he wasn't timetabled to be in clinics. Now that he's recovered and discovered what a razor is various tutors at uni keep stopping him and asking why he's looking so smart. I'd like to think it's the stylish influence of my clinical partner and I, but I'm sure it's just a few good nights sleep and a generous selection of clothes from Selfridges.

Lily xXx

Wednesday 11 March 2009

Mooncup

For those who get a bit squeamish talking about periods and girly bits, I'd recommend you stop reading right now. I've found something so amazing that I'm going to postpone my next post about another medical student in favour of telling you all.

Before I start I'd like to point out that I am not a hippy. I'd also like to point out that the initial reaction of "ewww... that's gross" is pretty normal, but if you think about it this is a really good idea.

Yesterday I bought a mooncup. This is a little latex menstrual cup. The idea is that you pop it in instead of a tampon and it collects the blood, which you can then wash away and reuse the mooncup. Apparently menstrual cups have been around since the 1930's but never really took off. I can only imagine that this is because unlike a tampon, they don't have an applicator so you have to be pretty cool with poking around in your ladybits.

What tempted me with the mooncup was the fact that a woman uses around 10,000 tampons or towels in her life. That is not good for the environment. This also works out cheaper. About £20 for the mooncup which lasts around 10 years Vs expensive tampons every month.

When looking into it also mentioned the lack of a risk of TSS, compared to tampons and the fact it doesn't cause vaginal dryness. Now without getting too intimate many women will agree with me when I say that sex post-period can be uncomfortable if you've been using tampons. This is because they soak up any moisture indescriminately.

Anyway... I bought one, I've been wearing it for 24 hours so far and I thought I'd give you an honest review of the ups and downs.

My first experience was an embarassing one. One of the lads in my block of flats strolled into the flat to find me sterilising the mooncup in a pan of boiling water. It's a bit cringeworthy to explain, but he didn't seem too horrified (unlike my girly flatmates).

Down to the gorey details. Even the small size looks huge. Thankfully it's folded as it goes in but it's still a bit of a squeeze, I've found that after a bit of practice I have the right angle so everything's a bit easier. Once it's in it's completely comfortable. It has a little stalk that you can trim if it sticks out so there's no chaffage, and then it's just as unnoticeable as a tampon.

Getting the damn thing out was a little difficult. The easiest way is by assuming a rather unladylike squat and bearing down a little, this pushes the base of the cup to within reach. It's then important to squeeze it to break the seal and then gently pull it out. I thought my little cup of gunk would go everywhere, but it's surprisingly easy to keep under control, although I do find it a tad uncomfortable to put in and out. I'm hoping this is just due to lack of practice.

The grossest bit by far is emptying the cup, but as I'm not at all squeamish a little cup of blood does not really bother me. I can however see how this could bother some people.

After being taken out all it needs is a rinse and then it can be popped back in.

Amazingly, due to its fairly large capacity, even thought I have a heavy flow there was no leakage... not even overnight. This may be beginners luck, but reading forums about it, it seems like most people who try the mooncup get on really well with it. Because it's silicone you can also pop it in before your actual period starts. If you're like me this is great because I know that I always start my peroid on a monday, but the time of the day is never the same. Thus it takes away the risk of being caught short.

If it keeps on working this well I'm definitely sticking with my mooncup for life!

Lily xXx

P.S I apologise for the huge amount of overshare

Tuesday 10 March 2009

A Special Medical Student

Being stuck for what to write today a couple of my friends who know about this blog suggested I wrote about them. Thinking about it this is a great idea. Rather than always writing about myself, giving people an idea of some other medical students is probably a good idea. Especially for people who are thinking about applying to medical school, clearly it will be a relief to know not all medics are like me. However for others it might not be a relief that people like us will be doctors in the not to distant future.

I'll start by writing about my clinical partner.

Like me she's done medicine straight from school, and she intercalated last year... but in something indefinitely cooler than the subject I intercalated in. In fact it's so random most people would never even guess that a medical school would offer it.

I met this girl on my first day of uni. We were living in the same flat in halls and since then we've been pretty good friends.

Unlike me she has a vague idea what she wants to do when she's a "grown up". She wants to be an anaesthetist. This is probably because she can spell better than I can. It's a really hard word to spell. In fact I may have spelt it wrong myself, but I tried.

Like me she is a "power woman". This is how one of the lads in our firm described us. Clearly we're starting to intimidate, they just don't realise it's all banter.

Our problem is that we're quite apathetic. We like to just sit around a lot and go into town when we could be aimlessly wandering around A and E hoping that someone will let us take some bloods. She also has a strange obsession with Sex and the City. I much prefer Gossip Girl, but shhhhh, don't tell anyone.

Lily xXx

Monday 9 March 2009

Knuckling Down

I've decided with 4 weeks of this placement left that this week I am really going to knuckle down. This started with me getting two sign ups today. I reckon if I can do that today then it is more than possible for me to get at least another 2 this week, thus taking some of the pressure off for the last weeks.

I guess I also need to take my mind off of other things. I had a bit of a row with the boy this weekend over some text messages on his phone. Yes I shouldn't have been looking, I know that, but then in the same sense he shouldn't have been sending them. I still love him loads so at this moment in time, as they weren't that bad I'd rather just forget it all happened, but it's still on my mind. It just hurts that it seems like recently he's been taking me more and more for granted. Hopefully the explosion I had over the weekend will have rectified this problem.

Anyway I need to go and get some work done now so I can go to bed feeling like I've really achieved something today.

Lily xXx

Friday 6 March 2009

Cranky Pants

I'm in a foul mood today due to the fact I had about 3 hours sleep. I'm quite a light sleeper so anyone talking in the corridoor wakes me up and once I've woken up, that's it. I usually can't get back to sleep.

To add to my bad mood I've found out that the awful student on my firm that I mentioned a few posts ago is bitching about me. More exactly about my examination technique. In our ward sessions we have to each do an abdo examination. I always end up volunteering to go first which means that invariably I'll forget something. Usually something that's not actually in the textbook I have for examinations (checking for divarifcation of recti) or examining the neck. To be fair I realise that before I get examined I need to make sure I don't forget to examine the neck when I do an abdo exam but I'm not too worried about it at the moment. As the people in the group go on they get steadily better. This is no doubt because once you've watched it twice you've had a chance to revise.

He however will go last, is very rough with the patient, takes ages and is really unsystematic. Even after he's watched it being carried out 3 or 4 times. At least once I've watched it I remember what to do, and I actually notice how the patient is reacting. And even when I miss things I'm still systematic, I don't just jump backwards and forwards throughout the whole examination.

I think it's a prime example of those in glass houses should not throw stones. I'm well aware that my examination technique is far from perfect, but that's why I'm a student. Because I'm learning. If we were all perfect at examinations from day 1 then we wouldn't be taught it. But we're not, so we are taught it.

In the mood I'm in right now I want to tell him exactly what I think of him. Unfortunately this would mean dropping a friend in it as that's who he was bitching to. However in the mood I'm in today I'm not sure I can hold back. I'm usually really passive but I think now is one of those moments where he needs someone to knock him off his high horse and put him back in his place with the rest of us.

Lily xXx

Thursday 5 March 2009

Looking in From the Other Side

Yesterday I had an eye opening afternoon. A look at the NHS from a patients perspective. More scarily from a parent's perspective.

My boyfriend's niece who's 28 weeks old hasn't been too well recently. She has had vomitting and diahorrea for 4 days, has hardly had any bottles over those 4 days and practically stopped eating solids 3 weeks ago. On top of this she's had a snotty nose and has been wheezy since Novemeber and no matter what the doctor gives her it won't go away.

Anyway she's not been feeding, and as over 7 weeks she only put on one ounce in weight the GP told her Mum to take her to the hospital. As I had the afternoon off I volunteered to come and keep her company. What a nightmare.

The doctor (who kept us waiting for ages after telling us he'd be over in 5 minutes), turned up, hardly examined the baby and then decided he needed to find a more senior doctor... who would also be only 5 minutes. So well over an hour later a reg came along and then after that a consultant. Turns out it was most probably only viral and she was starting to pick up so realistically she wasn't that ill, so it's not the waiting that was the bother, its the fact that rather than telling us we'd be waiting some time everyone kept saying 5 minutes.

The other bother was that until the consultant came along noone could properly explain anything to the baby's mum or myself. In fact the SHO and the reg pretty much made the baby's Mum seem like she was just being neurotic and told her they'd keep the baby in overnight if she was that worried, but then started having a go at her for asking to be discharaged when she said "Well if you're only doing it to reassure me then I'll just take her home..." Very confusing.

The Consultant however was a brilliant example of how communications skills work. She was smiley and friendly. She explained everything from how WBCs show there is infection to how two different types neutrophils and lymphocytes can sugggest whether or not its bacteria which needs antibiotics or a viral infection that also needs time. She then also took the time to properly reassure mum. She sat there and told her that she'd done a brilliant job, that being slightly over cautious with a baby is the right way to be and that she shouldn't feel as if she was wasting time. She then also asked if mum had any questions. Up to this point not one other doctor had asked this. It meant she had a chance to ask about how long it would take for feeding to get back to normal and what signs she should watch out for just in case the baby got dehydrated. Overall it meant that the baby's mum left the hospital happy that her baby was on the mend without wasting NHS resources having her in overnight when she was clearly well past the worst of what was a stomach bug.

It really showed me how important communicating with patients is. Fingers crossed I'll end up more like the consultant who took the time to explain things and less like the SHO and reg who just barked orders at the patient.

Lily xXx

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Sign Up Action Plan

Almost 2/3 of the way through this rotation. Hurrah!

I've started to work out a plan to make sure I get all my sign ups before I finish this rotation. That means at least 2 sign ups a week. Today I got 1 so that's one left for the rest of this week. It's surprisingly hard to get people to be willing to take the time to show us how to do certain things. My next mission is to get someone to show me hwo to do a subcut injection. Annoyingly everyone gets given their clexane about 6pm. 6pm is dinner time... or at least it's cooking so I can have dinner before I die of starvationg time. I guess I'll have to have some tummy rumbles one day in the near future to get it done.

Bizarrely the hospital seemed empty today. The emergency centre actually had no patients what so ever in it at 9.30 this morning and all the wards were half empty. The sunshine yesterday must have made everyone feel better.

I can't believe how lazy I've become over the last year. I've pretty much done no work this academic year. I really need to work out how and what I need to learn before written exams. I also need to learn some neuro stuff for my next rotation. The brain has never been my forte.

On a completely different note I really fancy some noodles right now. Particularly a really nice pad thai or perhaps some amai udon from Wagamama. Mmmmm. I just seem to be hungry all of the time at the moment. I must have a worm.

Lily xXx