My Week At Medical School - Friday

The more observant among you will notice that it is in fact Saturday today, not Friday. Needless to say I was very tired last night and had my lovely boyf to snuggle up to so I completely forgot about writing the last instalment of my week at med school.

Anyway, lets pretend it's still Friday....

7.30: Get up. A little earlier than I would normally considering the train I have to get, but it means I can have a vague attempt at tidying a bit before the boy arrives. I fail miserably at the whole tidying thing because I get distracted by yesterdays metro which is still in my bag. I love sudoku.

9.10: Get on the train and actually get a seat. This is total amazingness, especially as I'm wearing heels as opposed to my hush puppies.

9.40: Have the usual gossip about the night before over a cup of tea. Not much to say today as I just kept falling asleep last night. Ironically every time I woke up there was an advert on telly about people with narclepsy.

10.03: Get onto the wards and stalk the very busy SHO during her ward round. Sensing our need to actually do something useful she sent us off to get lots of bloods. Unfortunately these were off people who seemingly had no blood. Thank goodness for the elective student who managed after multiple attempts to get some blood out of these people. Worryingly they were covered in huge bruises where she'd taken blood before.

12.15: Skived off for lunch. I had a rather yummy stew thing. It even had carrots in. Unfortunately it was probably cat and carrot stew or something as it didn't really resemble or taste like anything I'd ever had before. Oh well. Cheap and tasty so I can't complain.

13.30 On the train again to go to a more central train station to get to my GP placement.

14.30: Very almost left my bag with lots of work in it at a coffee shop in the train station. Thankfully I rescued it. However I did get a lecture from the coffee shop lady. Although I only left it for about 60 seconds she insisted on lecturing me about how she wasn't a left luggage facility and that she should charge me £3 like they do. Now, realistically... I'd left it for a minute, I came running back in all flustered and was so thankful that she found it. Was the lecture really neccessary? No.

15.45: Arrived at my GP placement. I saw frolicing dear along the way to the surgery from the train station. That's how far from London we were!!

The GP was really dull. He didn't seem to know anything about any of the stuff we've been learning at hospital. Now I can understand him not having specialist knowledge but I'd think that he should at least be able to explain something like atrial fibrillation. I was not impressed. He then gave us a lecture about taking our time with histories. He recommended half an hour. If we did that in the hospital we'd be shot or the patients would die of old age before we'd finished.

He didn't even know what murmur he was listening for when he rolled the patient on to their left. I was stunned. Surely if you're going to demonstrate something you'd at least want to look up why you did certain things so you could tell the students.

However he did seem like a really nice man, and with both patients we saw he really listened to them which obviously is very important. So not all bad.

18.30: Finished at the GP in the middle of nowhere and trekked back to the train station. Between changing trains and waiting around for connecting trains the journey took me almost exactly 2 hours. I did get the chance for a gossip on the phone while I waited. My niece has broken her nose. Apparently they can't do anything about it for 10 days?! Any tips on how to help relieve the pain and help it to set straight?

20.30: Lovely boyfriend picked me up from the train station and off home I went to cook dinner and have cuddles. Perfect end to a long and busy day!

Lily xXx

My Week At Medical School - Thursday

9.00: Hurray! A proper lie-in. Finally get up at 9 and still have lots of time to get ready. This is pretty much the case every Thursday of this rotation which is nice.

11.00: Arrive at uni for my special study module seminar. As I've picked a non-scientific topic, which interests me greatly, this seminar is no great chore. In fact I really look forward to this. Even the fact that it take a couple of hours a week preparation doesn't put me off at all.

13.00: Grab a coffee and a nibble for lunch. Catch up on all the gossip with my clinical partner who was in the hospital this morning. It's amazing how much can happen in the few hours that I'm not there.

13.30: Off to an ENT outpatients clinic. These have an awful reputation. A couple of weeks ago the ENT doctors actually made two of my friends cry. I was so nervous when I arrived and convinced I'd hate it. The second I walked into the outpatients department I felt at home. The receoptionist was lovely, the nurse was so helpful and really friendly and most importantly the doctor I was sitting with wasn't a complete monster. In fact he was one of the nicest people I've had teach me since I started at uni. We didn't see that many patients but those we did he really involved me in the consultation and let me examine everyone. He then also went through lots of sign up skills he didn't have to because we had the extra time. Now I only have 7 sign-up skills left to get, which is less than 2 a week. I think that might be manageable. I have this huge fear about getting to the last week and having to cram everything in. Hopefully tomorrow I may be able to get another sign off as I have a GP placement in the afternoon/evening.

16.15: Finished outpatients because it was quiet. Tottered home nice and early. Walked from the train station as opposed to getting the bus because I had the time to kill.

17.00: Got home and chilled out. I even managed to cook some yummy tuna pasta. Before I realised what happened I had fallen asleep on the sofa though, so I haven't tidied up at all, even though the boyfriend is coming to stay tomorrow. Thankfully he loves me even though I'm incredibly untidy. I'll just have to try and shove everything under my bed.

Lily xXx

My Week At Medical School - Tuesday

6.35: Alarm goes off. Stumble out of bed.

6.36: Stub toe on the door frame. Swear loudly enough to wake up the whole block of flats and stumble into the shower. Get dressed and have breakfast as per usual.

7.18: Set off for the train station 3 minutes later than normal because I couldn't find my headphones. This disproportionately annoys me but strangely I make it to the train station 2 minutes earlier than I usually would. Clearly the stubbed toe didn't disable me.

8.15: Take my headphones out and realise ink from a pen which exploded in my bag is all over one. I know have a nice blue ear canal. Lets hope noone gets out the auriscopes today.

8.30: Lecture begins on time today. It's a surprisingly interesting lecture with loads of cool 3D echo pictures. Even more excitingly the lecturer only talks for half an hour rather than adding loads of technical mumbo jumbo we have no hope of understanding. Unfortunately lecturer number duo doesn't turn up.

9.03: Frantically scramble to the ward with the nice registrar who likes teaching in an attempt to beat any other students.

9.04: Drat. The other students beat us.

9.06: When all else fails go for a coffee to cheer up. During the coffee we chat mindless rubbish and make a new game plan for the morning. We almost go into cardiac arrest when we realise this has taken 45 mins.

10.00: Sit in the library and try to do a little more of my presentation. Unfortunately for me the library is one of the social hubs of the hospital and I end up having a good old natter to lots of people I haven't seen in ages.

12.00: Mmmmm... hummus for lunch again. Shame the bread is a bit stale.

13.00: A really informative and interesting teaching session from one of the surgical registrars. I also managed to answer a lot of the questions correctly. It's reassuring to think that deep down I'm actually starting to learn stuff.

15:00: With only a few minutes to stretch our legs, we then have another teaching session but this time with one of our consultants. He's surprisingly nice and not scary although the further we get into the rotation the more annoyed he gets when we look blankly at him. Yet again I manage to answer a fair few questions as do the others in the group so we don't look completely stupid. I'm sure I see a small smile of satisfaction on his face that we're finally absorbing the things it's taken him weeks to teach us.

16:46: Wait for the train. It's late. I'm unimpressed.

17.20: Pop to Starbucks to kill time before a 6pm meeting. Do some of the work for my special study module while sipping a gingerbread latte. It's completely not science based which is a nice change but it's been at least 5 years since I've done anything similar.

18.00: Meeting for the charity committee I'm on. Basically it's a major freak out because an event which another group were holding on our behalf has fallen through and we may have to let a lot of people down. We spend ages brainstorming ways to make the best of the situation we're in. Fingers crossed we've kind of got it sorted but my stress levels are way way way high. I've also agreed to make 250 posh raffle tickets for the 26th. Eek.

19.45: Get home. Have some pasta and jump in the shower afterwards. I always find a hot steamy shower helps me when I'm feeling really stressed out.

20.30: Crack on with my presentation for tomorrow. Things are a lot more complicated then they first seemed so I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can. I've still got a fair bit to do later on tonight but I'd guess that I'm well over half way now and I'm pretty confident about the subject which is what matters most.

The rest of this evening will be taken up by finishing my presentation (hopefully it won't take more than an hour), calling the boyf for a chat because I miss him and reading whoever's updated their blogs.

As you can tell this has been a pretty hard working boring day overall. Thankfully all the teaching I had today was really interesting as otherwise days without much patient contact can get pretty dull.

Lily xXx

My Week At Medical School - Monday.

Since I put my email address up I've had a couple of emails asking me what it's actually like being a medical student and the kind of things I get up to. Rather than trying to sum it all up in a post, as I think I'd fail miserably at getting everything across properly, I've decided to actually write a little factual diary of what I get upto this week...

Monday

6.35 : My alarm goes on. It's still dark outside and actually freezing. I jump out of bed and run into the shower to try and warm up. I load up on a big bowl of bran flakes. As a random aside I put sugar on all my cereal... is that weird? I don't know anyone else who does.

7.15 : I trudge off to get the train to go to the hospital.

8.05 : At the hospital. 25 minutes early, but the stupid trains mean that I'm either 25 minutes early or 2 late. The latter is not an option. Pour a cup of coffee down my throat in a feeble attempt to wake up.

8.30 : 2 hours of lectures. I die a little inside. This morning we have two particularly dry lecturers who both seem to zoom through their topics too fast to make notes. Thankfully one of the topics has been covered by my firm head pretty well. I spend most of the lecture rubbing my nose in a frantic effort to stop it actually freezing off my face. All that keeps me concious is period pains... woe is me.

10.30 : Now we get to the good stuff. Actual "doing stuff" in the hospital. This morning I spend 20 minutes trying to track down a registrar to make sure someone is teaching my group this afternoon. Seems like wasted time but it's better to spend 20 minutes organising the teaching than leaving it too late and getting none at all.

10.50 : Down to one of the wards to have a look and see if any interesting patients have turned up. Use the computer system to look at patient notes for a patient I'm presenting at a Grand Round later in the week. Fortunately it's good news... my patient was refusing treatment, but changed his mind this weekend and is now on the mend. Hurrah!

11.50 : Quick dash to get an overpriced cappucino. I like mixing sweetner in the froth so I have really sweet froth and really bitter coffee. Mmmmm. I also nibble on a nutrigrain bar... it's been ages since breakfast and I always seem to be hungry.

12.00 : Possibly the highlight of my week (and this is not sarcasm), radiology teaching. The registrar is amazing and explains things so well. Is it geeky that I spent the whole session actually having to sit on my hands and bite my lip shut so I didn't scream out all the answers when it wasn't my turn? I love it. We saw some amazing things today that I hope I'll never forget. Who knew that one of the pre-antibiotic treatments for TB was putting little ball things in the lung?! Well... probably lots of you, but I didn't. Great little fact.

13.15 : Mmmmm... Hummus, bread, sugarsnap peas and cherry tomatos. A lunch fit for kings, or even medical students.

14.00 : More teaching. Another really nice reg but a little more random. Learnt lots about emergency diagnosis and treatment of a patient who presents with shortness of breath. Hopefully I'll remember it. Chances are I won't. Unfortunately this reg was insanely busy so had to cut their teaching session short.

15.30 : On the train home. Resisting the urge to have a nap.

16.15 : Get in the front door. Do the most important task of the evening. Put the kettle on. Have a cup of tea. Mmmm. Tea.

16.17 : Procrastinate a bit. Make sure the electricity and gas people use my actual meter readings as unlike the woman who lived here before I don't have all my lights on all the time and run the heating at 35 degrees. Daft lady.

16.40 : Try to start the powerpoint for my presentation on Wednesday. Do all the easy bits and give up.

17.30 : Do some work I have to do based on a clinical scenario. Totally underestimate the amount of time I need. They usually take about half an hour. This was mammoth... about the size of 4 normal ones. Needless to say it took ages but I'm pleased I've done it a week in advance. Not the most interesting of topics but it's helped me revise lots of stuff from preclinical years which is really important.

19.10 : Cook some lovely pasta with pancetta, blue cheese, mushroom and spinach sauce. Is it just me or does time actually slow down while your waiting for pasta to cook? It took ages. I almost died of starvation.

20.10 : Sit down and write my blog.

I still have a fair bit of work to do tonight. I'll probably do another half hour at least on my presentation and had originally hoped to get some reading done too, but I'm not sure that'll be possible. I guess this is karma for not really doing any work in the first few weeks. Fingers crossed I'll get to go to bed by 11 or I'll fall asleep on my laptop.

Lily xXx