October 03, 2018

My name is Jordan and I am a Phase 2 student at WMS!

Term started a couple of weeks ago and I’m still settling back in. After a long summer of doing (not) a lot, getting back into the swing of having teaching every day has been tough, but so far the excitement of getting stuck into more clinical placements this block has kept me going. I’ve just started the Advanced Cases 1 block, which runs for 12 weeks (until Christmas), with weeks themed around some of the most common conditions we will see as doctors. We have hospital on Mondays and lectures and cased based learning (CBL) Tuesday-Friday.

Our teaching the past few weeks has revolved around some of the most common medical conditions we will encounter when qualified doctors, and includes some recap of concepts we have worked on previously. For example, in this block so far we have covered heart failure, chronic conditions, frailty and confusion. With an aging population, these are the cases that will take up most of our time as junior and then more senior doctors . UTIs, dementia and delirium, hypertension and heart failure are some of the most common chronic conditions we will deal with, so this block provides a great preparation for this and means that we are brushed up on these common conditions before we commence full time clinical placements from January.

We have hospital teaching every Monday, where we are placed at one hospital for the duration of the block. My placement is at George Eliot hospital, and my experience so far has been great. I’ve had bedside teaching (where a senior doctor takes you to a patient and then you take the history and do an examination while they watch), which is great to develop your clinical skills and get feedback on how you can improve. I’ve also had self-directed ward learning, which is where you are assigned to a ward and you go and take part in whatever teaching you feel would be useful. So far I’ve shadowed a ward round on a gastroenterology ward, which was a great, albeit daunting, learning experience (the consultant asked us medical students to review the stool and hydration charts and report back, which seemed like a big responsibility!). When we’ve had our teaching on taking bloods, we can also offer to get involved with practising these in our self-directed learning periods, which as I have my venepuncture and blood cultures teaching next Monday, will be me soon!

I’ve studied at WMS for one year now. Before coming to medical school, I worked for two years, firstly as a graduate intern at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and for then as a dispenser in hospital pharmacy. Before that, I studied History at Birmingham University, so my path to medicine has not been the most conventional. However, I think having a different set of experiences from my peers sets me apart and gives me a different perspective on some issues. For example I have more experience of constructing arguments and arguing ethical and theoretical principles, which really helps with the VLE (Values, Law and Ethics) teaching, where there is quite often no simple answer and excellence is more to do with how you apply principles. The lesson to take away is that you don’t need to have done the conventional biomed degree to succeed as a medical student! All experience can be relevant and useful.

For me, Warwick was the natural choice. I applied to other unis, but it was really the open day that sold Warwick to me. I think its unique in being all-graduate, so you don’t have to be merged with undergraduates halfway through the course. Having worked for a few years after graduating my first degree, I am currently 25, so I’m not fresh out of undergrad. In that way, I think I wanted an environment where everyone is more career focussed and driven to be the best they can be. Warwick has a mature atmosphere that I picked up on as soon as I arrived. There is also a strong tradition of peer teaching, where you are taught all the tricks to remember the content by older students. I’m involved in organising the peer teaching for the new intake of students, so more of this will feature in future posts.

Until next time!

Jordan


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Our Med Life blogs are all written by current WMS MB ChB students. Although these students are paid to blog, we don’t tell our bloggers what to say. All these posts are their thoughts, opinions and insights. We hope these posts help you discover a little more about what life as a med student at Warwick is really like.

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