Cravings and Addiction

Deary me. The lack of a good/private internet connection at this placement is driving me insane. Thank goodness I'm back home for the weekend. The fact we don't have internet in our rooms, nor Wi-Fi anywhere in the hospital means that it's pretty hard to blog and remain anonymous. Hence the lack of posts.

The lack of internet has shown me how addicted I am to blogging and reading blogs. I've actually been getting internet cravings. Last night I even had a nightmare that through some strange event I could never access the internet again... nooooooo!

Anyway, more interesting is my first week. By day one we were clerking patients. Everyone is so friendly at the new non-London hospital and goes out of their way to help us. On Tuesday a consultant spent over an hour with us showing us examination techniques on patients. Virtually unheard of by people on placement in London.

On Thursday I was in theatre and did my first rectal exam. Embarassingly I took the glove off too quickly and flicked pooey KY onto the wall much to the consultants amusement. We also saw a HUGE hernia. Like the whole of someones guts in their scrotum. It was insane.

I also got my exam results back. I passed! Woo!!! The station I was pretty confident about I got 77 on, and the one I was worried I may have failed I got 65 on, both pretty respectable marks.

Today I also did an assessed Grand Round, which went surprisingly well considering I knew very little about the subject. Thankfully the consultant didn't ask me anything about liver function tests because I just haven't had a chance to learn the reasons why things can be derranged.

I have so much work to do for next week. It seems that on this rotation there is a lot more to learn as it covers a much wider and more complex assortment of topics. We're also going on a firm outing next week. I think because there are only 20 of us, miles away from home, everyone's being really social. It helps that everyone is genuinely nice too.

For now I'm going to enjoy my evening with the boyfriend. Order a takeaway, curl up on the sofa and have a whole weeks worth of missed attention and cuddles.

Lily xXx

Presentation Panic

Argh. I have my first Grand Round presentation tomorrow and I haven't even finished the powerpoint yet!

Thankfully this is just a trial run, but having never seen a Grand Round presentation before I'm not quite sure what I'm doing. To make it worse I really don't have much of a clue about the patient I'm presenting. It's hard to present a case in the second week of clinics when we know so little.

The procrastination is not entirely my fault. I had a really long day today. By the time I'd got in and had dinner it was already 9pm. Then my phone started ringing. I had a nice girly catch up with a girly mate. As soon as I put the phone down from that I had a chat with my Dad and then after that I had a nice long talk with the boyfriend. Excitingly he may come down tomorrow evening which would be totally amazing. Even more excitingly my placement after Xmas is much much closer to him, so seeing him in the week will be even more possible.

I really need to get more proactive in clinics. Although I'm the most vocal member of my group, as a group we don't seem to get much done. I'd really like to find a junior doctor to watch them do examinations and get them to teach me blood taking, but the wards I'm on seem to scare all the junior doctors away. Tomorrow afternoon and Thursday afternoon I shall be going on a doctor hunt...

Lily xXx