All entries for Thursday 10 December 2015

End of Lectures…sort of

My self and the other phase 2 students have reached the end of Advanced Cases 1. This means that from now on we are primarily based out in hospital in the partner trusts. Every two weeks on a Friday we will be at the medical school for a mixture of lectures, group work and case based learning, Junior Academic Days or JADs for short! I have mixed feeling about coming to end of the ‘preclinical’ phase of the course. While endless lectures can be mentally draining, the relative comfort of the lecture theatre is reassuringly familiar compared to clinical care in hospital or in the community. Being on your feet most of the day, trying to stop your hand from shaking as you attempt to take blood and then trying to think of differential diagnoses is both physically and mentally exhausting! It’s a feeling I’ve not adjusted to yet, so while I’m excited to move to the next phase of the course I do so with trepidation!

In between juggling lectures and CBL I also presented my poster from my summer research project this term. The Undergraduate Research Support Scheme is a university wide scheme here at Warwick that supports students to undertake a research project over the summer vacation. My project was to conduct a systematic review looking at the relationship between poor sleep and the development of obesity in children. At the URSS Showcase I was presenting my project poster alongside students who had done projects in diverse areas such as philosophical theory to sustainable water projects in Africa. It’s good to get involved in research early on at Medical School and take advantage of opportunities like the URSS scheme. We also have dedicated timetable time for research activities, in our last week of AC1 we’ve been told about our next Student Selected component (or SSC2) that happens at the start of Year 3. This is an 8 week block dedicated to a research project, this can be chosen from a list provided or we can develop our own, hence why we are being told about it 9 months in advance!

As well as Systematic reviews and research projects we can also choose to conduct an audit. There are also lots of opportunities to get involved in audits while on our clinical placements. The Warwick Academic Medicine Society also helps students to find audit opportunities in areas they are interested in. At the moment I am helping my Psychiatry Buddy with an audit looking at Consent and Electroconvulsive Therapy. The Psychiatry Buddy Scheme is run through Warwick PsychSoc, students are paired up with Psychiatry trainees in the local area who they can meet up with for careers advice and tips in Psychiatry. I’m helping my buddy with an audit and I’ve also been shadowing her in clinics which has been a very interesting sneak-peek before I have my own placements in Psychiatry through the Medical School.

This past week we’ve had lectures introducing us to Core Clinical Education in January, different specialties came in to give us tasters of what we will be doing, for example as part of our obstetrics placements we will be on shift with midwives assisting on the Delivery ward, one of which will be a night shift! My last few weeks on placement have been filled with great experiences which have only increased my excitement for January. We’ve had some great bedside teaching sessions and I really enjoyed my time in theatres. I wasn’t scrubbed in so I spent most of my time with the anesthetist. I got the opportunity to put cannulas in for the first time and was doing lots of airway management completely on my own! With clinical skills you often don’t think you can actually do it in real life but in the heat of the moment your constant drilling and practice just seems to kick in! So thankyou AC1 for getting me as ready as I’ll ever be and here’s to core clinical education!

Joanne

Megan Earle : 10 Dec 2015 13:15 |  Tags: Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem