The Broad Church of the CMP Block

It’s hard to believe, but we have passed the halfway point in our Specialist Clinical Placement (SCP) blocks, although I wouldn’t yet say that the end is in sight yet! Our fifth, and current, block is called “Care of the Medical Patient” (CMP) and is the block with the broadest focus yet. The purpose of this block seems to be to cover the general-medicine topics that we don’t see in a lot of our other blocks. For instance, we’ve already had blocks covering musculoskeletal health, paediatrics and obstetrics & gynaecology, all of which are very focused in nature. This block is much broader in approach, and the hospital where we are working has done a very good job of distributing us very widely across multiple disciplines.

What I’m really liking about this block is that we are exposed to a lot of topics in more detail than we ever were in Core Clinical Education (the latter two-thirds of Phase II). It’s great, and I’m really glad that (finally) so much of my work in Phase II seems to be bearing fruit. For instance, we are getting focused haematology teaching for the first time – so we are learning about lymphomas and leukaemias, factor deficiencies and all sorts of stuff that we briefly skimmed over last year. And the best part is that now we get to go to clinics and see patients in the flesh who live with these conditions. I learn best when there is an actual human being with whom I can associate a particular condition. It just helps tremendously when I can picture a patient in my mind to recall presentation, examination and treatment. As a case in point, I feel much more comfortable with lymphomas and leukaemias than I did before starting this block.

For my first placement in the first CCE block of Phase II, I spent about ten weeks on a respiratory ward at a local hospital. At this point, I had been a medical student for about fifteen months. It seems so very long ago now! This was probably my favourite placement, and I really felt at home in this learning environment. I was lucky enough to spend another day in a respiratory ward again just this past week, and it reminded me of how much I liked it. The presentations were fairly common (exacerbations of COPD, advanced pneumonia, bronchial carcinoma, etc.) but it was great to come back to a respiratory setting with a lot more experience under my belt. I felt much more comfortable working with the doctors and nurses and also felt much more comfortable understanding which investigations were being done and way. I hope to see more respiratory medicine in the future.

I have also spent some time observing neurology clinics for the first time; this was another area in which I had read a great deal but had seen hardly any patients. Now I can confidently say that I have seen and can hopefully recognise cases of myasthenia gravis, epilepsy, early-stage Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and many other common neurological conditions. Attending neurology clinics definitely brought more than one flashback to Block 3 of Year 1 (Brain and Behaviour), especially the direct and indirect pathways for movement regulation and how they can become inhibited. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry much about the various tracts that go up and down the spinal cord – that’s a headache for another day!

John

Luke Pemberton : 21 Jul 2017 12:10 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem