All entries for Monday 22 October 2018

An introduction to plastinated specimens, peer support and the WMS Revue

Four weeks have gone by since I started at WMS and despite feeling exhausted, I am still enjoying lectures and CBL cases. Today on the way to lectures we were interrupted by a flock of geese crossing the road. I had tried to keep walking to the WMS teaching building but was quickly reminded that you do not mess with geese. I guess that’s one of the delights of going to Warwick!

We have had a couple of sessions with the plastinated specimens and I have found them to be such a valuable learning resource. I was originally looking for a medical degree with dissection, but the plastinated specimensare better for education than I could have ever hoped for with a dissection. They are incredibly detailed and truly give you an idea of the positioning of organs within the abdomen (the block we are going through currently) which does answer a lot of questions and helps to visualise the relations of each organ. For example, the relation of the diaphragm to the stomach, kidneys and liver was explained by viewing the specimens better than every single time I had loaded up my fancy anatomy app. Being the neuro geek that I am, I could not resist having a look at the neural structures on a couple of the specimens after identifying the abdominal structures. The detail of the nerves protruding from the spinal cord was incredible and I wish I had longer to look at each specimen than we’re able to. It’s apparent that although anatomy lectures are taking the longest to go through and understand, I am really enjoying the topic and I am really looking forward to Block Three … Brains. I am incredibly grateful to the people who left their body to medical education so that we may have this opportunity to view anatomy in the way we do and I thank them for their generosity.

We have also started Peer Support sessions and I have a group on a Monday evening with two second years leading the session. We submit topics we want to cover, and they make materials and we spend two hours going over things. This week we did surface anatomy as it’s something I am struggling to remember (Is it L4, T1, L2? These are questions I ask myself daily). A couple of our peers volunteered to be wrapped in clingfilm (as the models do on Fridays) and we drew on them with markers. It is a great way to visualise the planes and where the organs lie in context. You can’t really teach yourself anatomy just with a textbook. I was also able to palpate my course mate, with is something I am still working on during Friday sessions. It takes a bit of confidence to palpate a stranger’s abdomen to feel for landmarks such as the pelvis and ribcage, but I am slowly becoming more comfortable with it and I know this will be a key skill as a doctor.

We have also started the revue preparations as auditions are held this week. The revue is half the reason I chose Warwick out of the options I had as I love performing and it is a good break from medicine. The revue is an evening of entertainment where we poke fun at WMS and have short sketches, songs and dances all to raise money for charity (Street Doctors this year) whilst having a good laugh away from medicine. I auditioned this evening choosing to act and sing as I vowed to never dance again after giving it up during secondary school. As a dance teacher’s daughter, I have two brilliant left feet. We find out at the weekend which parts we have got, and I can’t wait to get started.

I feel completely settled here now. I can’t wait to start community placements next week and start having contact with patients. We get to explore their condition outside of hospital settings which is vital as this is where our patients spend most of their lives, despite us seeing them mostly in a hospital bed, so it’s a good idea to develop an understanding of care in the community. The block one formative is two weeks away and though I am slightly nervous, but I know that in the long run these just give an indicator as to how much we know. We also have a WMS Surgical Society anatomy day coming up which I know will be a massive help with getting the facts into long term memory.

So med school is tiring, but I’m enjoying every day and the hardest part is the walk up Tocil lane in the morning!

Abbie

Charlie Gallan : 22 Oct 2018 14:27 |  Tags: Abbie Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem