Starting the Care of the Medical Patient Block

We have just started our fifth specialist clinical rotation of Phase III and it’s really hard to believe that the time is flying by so quickly (this seems to be a recurring theme). This block is called Care of the Medical Patient (CMP for short) and I think we’re lucky to be doing it at a very big and busy hospital with lots of learning opportunities. Whereas most of our blocks have focused on more focused topics (paediatrics, musculoskeletal health, and obstetrics and gynaecology), the flavour of this block is more on general medical topics than many other blocks. This means that we see lots of traditionally core-medicine topics in quick succession and have many varied learning opportunities.

In Phase II (the latter two-thirds of our second year), our curriculum introduced us to “Core Clinical Education”, the purpose of which, I gather, was to give us a grounding in core medicine and help us students become proto-clinicians without getting carried away by too-detailed topics. At this point, it seems like the CMP block is expanding on these themes. We are getting a lot of teaching on core topics and talking about conditions – their diagnosis and treatment – in far more detail than we ever did in the second year. We seem to be focusing a lot of dermatology, neurology, renal medicine (I actually love kidneys), cardiology, gastrointestinal medicine and respiratory medicine than we have so far in any other block, and I’m really enjoying it. I have always had a great time with the core-medicine subjects and could possibly see my career developing in this direction.

In addition to being assigned to a base ward for the block (my clinical partner and I are on an endocrinology ward, so we see lots of diabetes and thyroid problems), we are also expected to attend lots of clinics of all sorts of flavours and also rotate through other wards for exposure. It’s pretty full-on. So far, I have attending two renal-medicine clinics (did I mention I love kidneys? I love kidneys!), a lymphoma clinic and a diabetes clinic – and we’re just a week into the block. It has been absolutely fascinating to see physiology come to life: when we first learned about the structure and function of the kidneys in October 2014 (Block 1 of year 1), I found it really overwhelming. But I committed myself to learning more about them, and I’ve slowly developed a begrudging yet abiding love for all things renal. Needless to say, the clinics have been great.

In addition to wards and clinics, we also get a fair amount of teaching from consultants and registrars. This is usually very useful. Today we got the first haematology teaching since second year, and I found it fascinating. I think my coursemates all think I’m mad, but I love talking about things like Tissue Factor and the Extrinsic and Intrinsic Pathways. I am really looking forward to the rest of this block and seeing more of what CMP has to offer. Maybe I’ll see if there are any extra kidney clinics as well!

John

Luke Pemberton : 30 Jun 2017 10:26 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem