All entries for Tuesday 26 February 2019

Did someone say the E word?

Yes … they did. Today. In Anatomy. They counted how many days we had to go. My heart nearly stopped. I keep saying I will start my revision in March but now I realise that March is next week. Gulp. So, like any good student. I have chosen to put it off a bit more and distract myself with other things to do!

It really has been a busy couple of weeks with a lot going on. My clinical teaching this week brought a couple of firsts with one patient sticking in my mind. They had a cardiac condition to which I was able to hear my first heart murmur and felt heaves and thrills! This was incredible to see as we are taught about these things in clinical exams and we are so used to performing on each other that we forget what we are meant to be looking for so to see this in the clinic was unforgettable!

One major thing that has happened is that some of my year participated in some research regarding the use of VR in anatomy teaching. I was intrigued as I used some VR in my previous degree, and I am really struggling to pick the anatomy up this block so I wondered if it would help. There was a control and experimental group but both groups could use the VR once the experiment had ended. The kit was incredible in the fact you could manipulate the limb in so many ways including looking at each muscle’s individual movement. I could easily study from it and I really hope to see it come into teaching soon! I’m pretty sure it would have been a good giggle to record us using the VR set as a bunch of students, waving their arms around with massive headsets on would have been a sight to see.

I also had an event that I had signed myself up to in September not realising just how busy I was to become! This is the National Undergraduate Neuroanatomy Competition held in Southampton. I genuinely love Neuroanatomy so I thought it would be a good challenge to learn some further anatomy and see how much I could remember from block three. It was an incredible day and I really enjoyed it, even though I couldn’t answer half the questions! An example is in block three we are expected to name the vessels in the Circle of Willis and not many more, here they had a pin pointing to a random artery peeking through the cerebral surface and a faint grey line on a Neuro Angiogram. Safe to say, I don’t think “Artery” alone quite cut it. However, when it did come to the block three material, I could recall most of it, so I am pleased with how I did! I can’t wait to go back next year, and I am aiming for Top 10. Currently, St. Georges seem to do brilliantly in this competition, so I am keen for Warwick to knock them off the top spot!

Obviously, another highlight was the free(ish) food (we had to pay to enter the comp) consisting of pastries the size of your hand and pizza… a lot of pizza. There were some stands from the BMA (from which I now have three bones pens and some pen torches) and we also managed to get a mug for one of the third years who couldn’t go… We love freebies!

Another thing that has happened was going over to my medic family/student seminar team house for tea. We normally don’t meet for student seminars the first week of every block, so we descended for an evening of pizza, games and just a much-needed night off. It was also nice to see my medic mum and uncle as with the second years now in full-time hospitals, we don’t see them that much. I also gained a new half-sibling as my student seminar pal announced she needed to be adopted so my student seminar teachers decided to adopt her. I am looking forward to next year (if I get back in – sorry I am superstitious, and I am not taking any chances) teaching and hopefully adopting some freshers as my medic kids …. Let’s just hope my cooking skills improve in time for Medic Family Tea!

Abbie

Megan Earle : 26 Feb 2019 14:57 |  Tags: Abbie Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem