Post–Finals and Medical Electives

After a seemingly unending course of exams – clinicals, writtens, and then practicals – we finally got our results from our finals last week. After having been through this process a couple of times (both Phase I and Phase II results periods were similar), we were pretty used to the drill. Still, this didn’t reduce the anxiety and uncertainty in the buildup to results day. It’s like this big clock constantly ticking in the background and you barely notice it getting louder and louder until eventually you can’t ignore it any longer. Knowing the exact date and time that results will be released – whilst appreciated and necessary – doesn’t make the anxiety any easier! I don’t know a single person who was entirely certain that they’d made it through. Everybody was on edge. And just like Phase II results, we didn’t have much of a buffer zone between results day and getting ready to go off on the next stage: this time, it was our elective – we found out the news on Thursday and our elective period started four days later on the following Monday. Those who were successful on their finals were permitted to proceed to their elective.

I’m delighted to say that I passed. More than elation, I’m just relieved. Although it is a bit strange to know what to do with myself – I’m so used to being in the revision mindset that I am having a really difficult time just relaxing without the compulsion to be doing something exam-related. I’m really glad my passmedicine subscription expired the other day – otherwise I’d probably still be doing a few dozen questions a day!

Lots of people in my cohort elected to spend their elective overseas, so I’m already hearing stories of fabulous times in the most exotic locations. The purpose of the elective period is to experience medicine in a different surrounding, thereby allowing us to compare, contrast and grow as clinicians when we return to a more familiar surrounding. As you can imagine, after forty-three months of extremely hard and intense work with very few breaks, most people apply the ‘different setting’ rules rather liberally – and with good reason. It’s a great opportunity to travel somewhere exotic and new and experience some better weather than what we have in England – and why not? All electives require approval from the medical school, so it’s all perfectly legitimate, but once that approval is given then we’re good to go.

I spent a month for our SSC2 block (October 2016) in the Gambia, researching TB investigations. For this reason, I was less motivated to have another big overseas elective experience – also because I couldn’t have borne cancelling it had I not been successful in my finals. So instead of going somewhere like India, Sri Lanka, Colombia or New Zealand (all destinations of people in my cohort) I decided to return to my old home in Greater London. For the first three weeks of this six-week block I’m based in the A&E department of a medium-sized district general hospital in an affluent area of the capital, and am enjoying myself tremendously. The acute block in Phase III was my favourite block, and being able to relive these experiences in a different setting and get properly stuck in is so much fun, and really what I understand the elective period to be all about.

John

Joshua Galvin : 22 Mar 2018 11:01 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem