Anatomy Day and Transition Week

Week 11 of AC1 kicked off with some lectures and talks about Student Selected Component 2, which is a module we study at the beginning of third year. Although a while away yet, this module is a research module, where we develop a project and conduct some sort of research into a specific area. Because of how involved it can be, it needs a good deal of planning and projects have to go through ethical approval, so it is best to start early. We were shown some of the fantastic projects that Warwick students have done in the past, with these inspiring me to think carefully about what sort of research project I might want to conduct. At the moment I have a few ideas, including something to do with the liver, but no substantial ideas yet, so maybe a task for the Christmas break!

We also had Anatomy Day on Wednesday of week 11, which is a new session introduced this year for our cohort. The format is similar to our anatomy sessions from Year 1 – “stations” which are rotated around, with facilitators on hand to guide, assist and provide a useful prompt to identifying the key anatomical structures. All of the content was clinically themed and we covered mostly surgical and abdominal anatomy. Topics included the anatomy knowledge needed for arterial and venous access (procedures we will start observing/practising from January), and core surgical procedures and incisions. I was slightly anxious about this session as we haven’t touched on a lot of our core anatomy since end of Year 1 exams, but I actually found the whole day to be extremely well organised (as per all of our anatomy teaching), and very useful when about to enter the hospital environment. Warwick is known for its excellent anatomical teaching, and this day did not disappoint. Our exquisite plastinated specimens provide an excellent teaching resource and mean that we have a solid basis of anatomical knowledge on which to build and develop our clinical competence.

Week 12 of this block has been the last week of AC1 and is “Transition week”. This week is designed as our orientation week for our first full time clinical placement which starts in January. We are assigned to specific consultants and specialities and stay in this team for the 10 weeks of Core Clinical Education 1 (January-March). My first team is cardiology and acute medicine, which is a great one to start out with, with cardiac issues being the most common complaint and indeed co-morbidity affecting the patients we will see on our journey through medicine. On Monday of Week 12, my clinical partner and I drove into George Eliot Hospital for a relatively early start at 8:30 to track down our named consultant and begin the clinical phase of our medical course! We sat in on a cardiology clinic and various other sessions and learned plenty from our consultant, including some tips and tricks on how to do our cardiac examinations more efficiently and also the key features of heart failure to elucidate in our histories. I feel as though this has really enforced my previous knowledge, so that when exam time does come around again, it might be easier to remember certain clinical features as I will have seen them in person time and again.

Jordan

Charlie Gallan : 29 Nov 2018 13:57 |  Tags: Jordan Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem