Coming to the End of Year Three

Starting the Care of the Medical Patient block felt like staring into the great unknown – how could we possibly cover all of this information in just six weeks?! – but it’s actually been great, if hard work. I’ve seen so much – it feels like all of medicine compressed into one six-week period and it’s hard to believe it’s almost over. It feels like a whirlwind tour!

Despite the time constraints of the block, however, our tutors have put a lot of thought into our timetable and, whilst it’s very broad in its focus, sometimes it feels like we’re jumping around a lot. I guess this is what being an F1 on A&E feels like! For instance, it’s not rare at all to spend the morning on an endocrine ward, have haematology teaching at lunchtime and then spend the afternoon in a neurology clinic! But thankfully we have developed a very strong base on core medicine in the second year – our hard work in Core Clinical Education is paying off – and so this block is allowing us to build on that.

I spent some time last week in an oncology clinic. I’d somehow never been to one before and it was really interesting. All of the patients were follow-up patients, so I was not present for any new diagnosis or any situations in which bad news was broken – but of course that’s not all that medicine is about. We spoke a lot about follow-ups and ongoing treatment and how different upper-GI cancers can present. I got to hear about a really uncommon presentation over the phone (as my consultant was also on call) and we saw the patient’s scans on the internal imaging system. The patient’s superior vena cava had been almost completely occluded by an undetected growth just under the sternum, which was detected incidentally after imaging for a different problem – this is apparently very rare and everyone got very excited by this. How interesting to see!

One of the other timetabled sessions last week gave us the opportunity to follow the Diabetes Specialist Nurses around the hospital. As med students and future junior doctors we don’t interact much with Specialist Nurses on a day-to-day basis (at least at the hospital where I am, they tend to move between wards), so this was a great opportunity to see healthcare from the shoes of people whose roles were slightly different to ours. We went on a massive, great ward round around the entire hospital, seeing diabetic patients and making sure that they were all supported in their needs. Some were newly diagnosed and some had lived with the condition for years, but the Specialist Nurses gave them excellent support; I was really amazed how well-versed they were and the strength of the rapport they had built up with their patients across the entire hospital.

We’ve not got much time left but I feel like we’ve got loads out of this block. And even though we had CCE in the second half of year two, all of the knowledge from that 30-week chunk has created a very strong base for this block. I’m really glad we did it as we did. And when this block ends, so will our third year! I just cannot believe that we’re almost fourth-years. This sounds so terrifyingly old. In the meantime, I’ll just concentrate on enjoying my summer vacation.

John

Luke Pemberton : 27 Jul 2017 16:49 |  Tags: John Mbchb Patients Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem