All entries for Tuesday 25 August 2020

Hot Wards and Cold Equipment Rooms

SO we are well into the run of our 10 week block of medicine and as unpredictable as the British weather is, we have had a heatwave on the busiest week of my timetable. Whilst temperatures were hitting 30 degrees outside, we were trying to find the coolest part of the ward which was normally strategically standing near patient’s fans (of which there were three) or running to the equipment room undetected. The masks don’t help either as they just reflect warm ari back into your face but if they keep the patients safe, it’s a small price to pay. However, despite losing all my body water in the first 10 minutes, it proved to be a really productive day on the ward. We had a lovely consultant who was keen to teach us and told us more than once we really should be outside and enjoying the sun and not on the wards. What was an added bonus was that we got all our sign off’s done for the 10 weeks in one morning. Before running off as we were told, myself and my clinical partner stopped at GEH famous ice-cream bar. The ice-cream is incredible and after putting it on Instagram, I was met with lots of jealousy from medical students and doctors at other trusts! I am officially team general district hospital!

This week in all has been just incredible for our learning and progression. We have a lovely F1 and an incredible Physicians Associate who have just included us into the team from day one. On the Friday we had another incredible consultant who literally sent us off on our way to manage a patient by ourselves. I stood wide eyed like a deer caught in headlights but actually, this was the best thing for me as I finished with my lovely patient and actually, for the first time, I actually felt like I was going to be a doctor in 2 years (Covid-19 depending). It’s nice to be praised and have the support there and this week has just been a huge confidence booster, which was needed as my PassMed average is lower than I’d like it to be.

Getting used to an emptier timetable than last block has been a bit of a feat but, I actually like this way as I have a chance to breathe. I can do more of my theory work during the day and not at 10:30pm when I would rather be in bed. It also means I can do more extra-curricular things like inhaling half of the pool water at the gym as apparently my swimming technique is far from desirable. The perks of being in the same ward every week means we become far more integrated into our ward team and we go into the wards with some determination to get things done as we have less clinical exposure time. We have also been encouraged by the doctors to leave the ward and go home if we aren’t learning anything. I really enjoy going to placements now and developing professional relationships with the team and patients is just the icing on the cake.

We start GP next week and I am a little sad not to be going back to our original practise in Nuneaton as we loved being there and our supervising GP was amazing. It is also going to be dramatically different not actually seeing patients which I am sad about. It’s surprised me how much I love chatting with patients during their history and seeing them week after week, which I thought I would never say as someone who has difficulty with communication. I’m sad I wont be able to chat to people face to face and instead just listening to consultations over the phone before performing my own consultations. I know it’s important to learn phone skills as it is likely this is the new way of working for GPs and hospital clinics but it’s still sad knowing there wont be any patients.

So far, so good in the big picture though. I really love being back on placement and it beats sitting at my desk every day typing the same words for my SSC2 over and over again. We are still waiting for results but we are so busy with clinical learning that I forget it is even a thing most days!

That’s it for now! See you in September!

Megan Earle : 25 Aug 2020 09:21 |  Tags: Abbie Covid19 Mbchb Ppi Wards Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem