Assistantship – Putting Learning into Practice

Now that we’re done with finals, elective is over and most of the difficult assessments are behind us, our cohort members are able to relax a tiny bit and enjoy the final tasks of medical school: trailing F1 doctors, getting stuck into teams in the hospitals, and learning the practicalities of how doctors actually do their jobs on the wards. This is the Assistantship phase, in which we learn what it takes to be a junior doctor, and prepare properly for our role in two short months! It’s hard to believe that we’re so close to finishing now.

The medical-school admin team try to match up students who are staying locally for their foundation years with the team that they will do their first rotation with. This way they can get to know the actual team and wards they’ll be based on when they start. It seems such a nice way to ease into the world of working on the wards and relatively stress-free. Those of us who aren’t staying around, however, are unfortunately not so blessed. I am planning to go to a hospital in the Southwest of England and therefore my experience on Assistantship, like the majority of the cohort, is sadly more generic. It’s absolutely fine, however, and every bit as useful as I would expect.

However, I think I have been lucky with Assistantship in some respects: two of my rotations in my first year of the Foundation Programme are respiratory medicine and upper-gastrointestinal surgery, and these are the two areas where I have been placed for Assistantship. This means that I will have some idea of what to expect next year and what F1s are expected to do in these roles. Although each trust is different (this is stressed a lot), some things will be common between all hospitals in the UK. I imagine this includes things like the types of procedures that are carried out in surgery, the demographics (roughly), the types of conditions that are present on respiratory wards, the general treatments and so on.

Outside of Assistantship, I still try to teach students in younger years when I can for a couple of reasons. First, I honestly believe that nobody should be in competition with one another in medical school – we are all here to help one another out, because if we become better doctors, then our patients are the ones that win. Second, I have certainly attended more than my fair share of peer-support sessions over the years and the least I can do is repay the favour in kind. A few weeks ago, I taught some second-year students at a weekend (people give up their weekends to be taught – amazing dedication!) and, I have to be honest, I’m quite glad that that part of my life is behind me. Although medical school has been fun, there are some parts that I’m quite happy not to repeat! Now I’m looking forward to the future, and enjoying the last parts of the journey along the way.

John

Joshua Galvin : 30 May 2018 12:39 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem