New Year's resolutions…

The start of a new year is always filled with hope and ambitious plans for the year ahead. For myself my new year’s resolutions were to continue to maintain a good work/life balance so I had time to exercise and look after myself and I also wanted to work consistently throughout the year so I could avoid the exam panic that I experienced in my second year. Two weeks in and my first specialist clinical placement (SCP) is creating problems for both my resolutions!

My first SCP is in General Practice. I was lucky to get my top choice of practice which means I can cycle or walk to my placement, this helps with my new years resolution to keep active, however the days in GP are very long so the work/life balance is a bit skewed at the moment. I really enjoyed our GP placements in second year, so was looking forward to it this year. Now that we are 3^rdyear students we are expected to be able to complete the whole consultation (including management) for most cases. This was really scary at first, but even just two weeks in I can see how much I have improved. In my first week I wasn’t even sure of my examination findings and would let the GP take over for the management part of the consultation but now I am happy reporting my findings and saying what I think, safe in the knowledge that the GP will correct me if I’m completely wrong!

I’m also really enjoying the variety that comes with GP. Not only do you see medical conditions affecting all the different systems of the body but there is also a big range in terms of severity. It’s certainly not just coughs and colds! I also enjoy getting to know patients better, something we are encouraged to do in GP. The social aspects of the history are very important in GP, the job a person does may affect their illness or pain management and their situation at home may have a bigger impact on their mental health than any medication we can give. As a GP you need to understand the patient and their illness in the context of their life, something that is often forgotten in other specialities.

One skill in particular that is very important in GP which I still need to develop, is learning that it is ok to do nothing. It’s sometimes much harder to listen to a history from a patient who has been really unwell with a terrible cough and who is short of breath and tell them that they don’t have a chest infection and just need rest and paracetamol, than it is to hand out a prescription. During medical school I’ve been trained to recognise signs of illness and what to do when I find them, but saying to a patient that you don’t think anything is wrong and being confident in that decision is a skill in itself. Knowing when to do nothing and stopping unnecessary medications are a huge part of a GP’s workload. We have visited local care homes with our GP tutors and most of the visit has been crossing off unnecessary medications which might actually be doing more harm than good. All Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath which says “Do no harm”, I now understand that “Do no harm” isn’t just about treating disease, it’s knowing when not to treat, and that is actually much harder.

Joanne

Luke Pemberton : 16 Jan 2017 15:25 |  Tags: Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem