All entries for Monday 19 October 2020

Child Health

The last two weeks saw the end of my Obstetrics block and the beginning of the Child Health block.

My last week of Obstetrics was a busy one for many reasons – the main reason is that I have been running around trying to get my end of block sign offs from my consultant. Part of this is a mock assessment called an OSLER, which is, in short, an observed patient encounter. During the assessment you see a patient, take a history from them and perform an examination of them. Following this you have a discussion with the supervising consultant about the condition the patient may have and what you would do to manage their care. The patient I examined and took a history from was lovely which makes the whole process a lot less daunting. I always really appreciate the patients who allow us to examine and interact with them as being in hospital is stressful enough without having an eager student assessing you! Without the help of the patients we see our education would not be a true reflection of the career that lies ahead of us.

I have really enjoyed this block overall. Whilst it can certainly be a little bit more exhausting with the long labour shifts and sometimes emotionally charged situations, I have appreciated being able to get stuck in. I love interacting with patients and helping guide women through labour is so rewarding (and the cuddly with the new-borns are so cute!) the experience is something I know I will never forget.

The first week of my latest block, Child Health, has been steady for me, which is something I feel I have needed. I have certainly been feeling a little burnt-out the last week so have taken things a little steadier intentionally just to give myself a little breather. I’m looking forward to the week ahead and experiencing a side of medicine I have yet to go in-depth on since my enjoyable year working at Birmingham Children’s Hospital prior to coming to medical school.

This weekend I have had the privilege of attending GERMCON – which is the Graduate-Entry Medicine Research conference. By attend, I actually mean turned on my computer and listened as this year the conference was completely online due to COVID-19. It has been a strange experience attending an online conference but still interesting and still had some very inspiring talks, including from Professor Vinod Patel, who gave the keynote address on the last day of the conference. Professor Patel is Warwick’s Academic Lead for Clinical Skills and oversees our clinical skills education in first year and clinical exams later on in the course. Research is such a huge part of life in medicine, and it was great to see the diversity of projects and approaches to research that were highlighted in the conference.

Hattie Trigg : 19 Oct 2020 15:44 |  Tags: Consultant Jordan Mbchb Patients Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem