Mystery of the Missing House Officers

Anna gave some amazing advice in my comments for getting the most out of clinics. On the back of this advice myself and a couple of colleagues set off to become super-dooper 3rd years.

Those on a different rotation found this advice amazing. Practically the Holy Grail of studenty tips. They found an amazing FY1 willing to help them learn how to take blood, observe their history sign offs, explain things they didn't understand and help them put together Grand Round presentations. However I came across a little problem. The department I'm with has no FY1s, it also has no FY2s... in fact it only has registrars. Confused I asked why. Specialist nurses I was told. Fantastic I thought. I'll just go and see if a specialist nurse can help. Unfortunately lack of house officers means that the specialist nurses are extremely busy. Too busy to babysit medical students. The registrars are also far too busy to babysit us. Drat.

I've spent today trying to find ways to overcome this.

1. I found some technicians who are willing to show me how to do some tests.
2. Admin at uni say they are organising a course with phlebotomy. Clearly this will be of much value.
3. I am going to try and nab an FY1 from someone else's department that is vaguely similar to mine. This does not mean actual kidnap. I just want to borrow them.

Needless to say I feel like I've wasted today trying to organise things but not getting anything done. I'm also getting worried about the lack of work I'm doing at home. Any tips on studying once in clinical years? I just can't seem to get motivated.

I'm also starting to think about my elective now. More accurately I'm starting to panic, I realise I have almost 2 years to go but it's such an expensive thing. I should probably start trying to budget for it so I know how much to save.

So much to do so little time and even less motivation.

Lily xXx