All entries for Thursday 30 May 2019

The week off, and the week back

Core Clinical Education is a long block which makes up most of second year and runs from January-September, and is divided into three 10 week blocks – CCE1, CCE2, CCE3. We have a week off between CCE2 and CCE3 which is a much needed break from the day-to-day. Last week was the week’s holiday and I spent this in the west of Ireland! My partner’s family originally come from here and we had meant to go for a long time but never got around to it, so we decided that this week off between CCE2 and CCE3 was the ideal time to take a short break and head over (plus the flights were cheap at this time of year!)

In Ireland, I spent the whole week away from medicine and anything healthcare related, mostly climbing hills, walking on the beach and spending time enjoying traditional Irish music in the many pubs (along with a few drinks!). One day we climbed a local mountain, Croagh Patrick, which was advertised as a 4 hour, relatively difficult walk. As definitely not the sporty type, I was worried but it was actually perfect to get away from all of my worries on the ground and head up into the clouds, where there are no OSCEs or Medical exams. I did have a couple of scary moments whilst climbing (including nearly falling more than once), but managed to reach the top without too much ado. Light-heartedness aside, the week was the ideal break for me – Ireland is suitably detached from Medical School but also close enough and familiar enough to not entail a long journey.

After my lovely break, we had a bank holiday weekend with Monday off, which isn’t the worst thing to come back to. After a weekend of catching up with my family back home, I headed back to Warwick for an early start at the Medical Teaching Centre for our community day which covered the topics of Palliative Care and End of Life. For me the lectures were interesting and thought provoking, especially as I spent 2 years volunteering at a Hospice before starting here at Medical School. I found that I already knew a lot of what was discussed but I definitely learned a lot of new things, including some of the medications as someone reaches the end of their life. It is one of the specialities that I am considering for my future career as it involves looking at not only a person’s medical problems, but at the person holistically, but also from a personal, religious and social perspective.

Today we had our CCE3 indication at hospital, including tips from the module lead on how to get the most out of our 10 week placement. My assigned consultant is an Orthopaedic Surgeon, so I will be getting lots of experience in Musco-skeletal medicine, which is great as this is probably one of my very weakest areas, but also one that is bound to come up in end of year exams. In addition, in this block I also have time allocated to spend shifts in Obstetrics & Gynaecology (childbirth and female/reproductive medicine), so after the general induction for everyone, I then had a specific induction and tour of Labour ward and the birthing centre at UHCW. I am hugely excited for this, as I love Obstetrics and just babies in general, so I cannot wait for my Labour ward shifts which take place in week 6-8 of this block. These will be covered in a future blog from me and I will update you all on how I get on!

Jordan

Charlie Gallan : 30 May 2019 11:10 |  Tags: Jordan Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem