All entries for June 2015

A Midsummer Night on Call

Finally all examinations and extended exams are over, which means that its time to have some fun! On Tuesday, we had our graduation ball at a country hotel just outside Coventry. The theme was, “a midsummer night on call,” and was organised by the grad ball committee, who did a fantastic job!

When we arrived we were met with a drinks reception in the beautiful grounds, complete with a musician, bouncy castle and bucking Bronco. My housemate tried to persuade the head of our medical school to have a go but was unfortunately unsuccessful. We also had the chance to get our photos taken by a photographer who is a Warwick grad and who moonlights as an FY1 doctor in the area!

When we reached our tables the committee had arranged a bag of treats included syringe shots, flower garlands, and various other treats. We also got a tea towel each, which explained why a few months ago we had to draw our clinical partners on tiny pieces of paper! The last time I saw a tea towel like this was at primary school, and to be honest I think the art work was better on that one…. It’s a great memento of the class of 2015 though.

The rest of the night past in a blur (more blurry for some than others) of food, drink, dancing and a fantastic cheeseboard. It was great to see everyone dressed up and looking their best after months of living in tracksuit bottoms and hoodies during revision hell. There are some excellent photos which started going up on Facebook the following evening as people emerged from their after-ball state… 2 days on and I’m just about recovered enough to face results day tomorrow!

The ball was the last time that most of us will be together until graduation, and it brought home the fact that we are all moving on soon. Even those of us staying in the area are leaving housemates that we’ve lived with for 4 years.

Although I’m really excited to start work, I’m going to miss bumping into my course mates on the wards, and I’m really going to miss my clinical partner, who is moving down South. I’ve spent the last 2 and a half years on the wards with him, and at times we joked that we see each other more than our respective partners do. Its strange to think that he won’t be there on the ward with me on day 1, but whoever’s ward he does end up on should count themselves lucky.

Right, time to get some sleep to prepare for results day. We have the champagne on ice already so hopefully it’s good news!

Megan Earle : 29 Jun 2015 11:19 |  Tags: Graduationball Mbchb Sarah Student Warwick |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

One last push…

It is now 10 day to go until exams, lectures are finished and we have one week of dedicated revision time before our first year summative exams. Despite the exams hanging over Block 5 like a dark and very scary cloud, our reproduction and child health block has actually being one of my favourites.

Block 5 mostly focused on normal anatomy and physiology, learning about the physiology of pregnancy and labour and the development of a foetus right through to adolescence was truly fascinating and reminded me that one of the reasons why I wanted to study medicine is because the human body is amazing! We also did a lot about development in childhood and safeguarding issues around children. This really highlighted that as a doctor we aren’t just treating injuries and disease, we have a much larger role in society. Learning about the social aspects around medicine may not seem really relevant now but it will form a large part of our future careers!

Year 1 ended with a bang at our last session at UHCW. For the first time this year we had access to fresh human tissue. The surgical training centre team had dissected specimens of arms, legs, hearts and even heads for us to observe and revise from. This is a truly unique opportunity that doesn’t exist in many medial schools. At Warwick we are lucky to have the plastinated specimens all year round but their delicate nature limits how hands on you can be. With the fresh tissue you can feel the difference between a nerve and an artery and see the action of a tendon if you pull on it. It really is a brilliant learning opportunity and as a medical student I really appreciate the gift that the donors and their families have made to us.

I’ve spent my first Saturday of revision week back in the medical school with the Surgical Society for an anatomy revision day. There are lots of active societies at the medical school. I haven’t had much opportunity to get involved with many of them this year but I joined the surgical society as they run frequent revision sessions throughout the year for members. Tea, coffee and a seemingly unlimited supply of sweets gets us through long days where tutors, mostly 3rd and 4th years, help us go over key concepts and practice exam questions with us.

I find these sessions with the senior students really helpful as they can really guide you to the important information. As a first year graduate medical student it can be hard to identify the key points from lectures and also hard to know what sort of questions could be asked, getting tips and the chance to practice makes life a lot easier!

In our last week of first year we also had a lecture to introduce us to Advanced Cases 1, our first term in second year. Although everyone is very much preoccupied with getting through first year it was actually really motivating and inspiring to hear about second year. It was great to hear how we will be spending much more time on the wards, integrating all of our knowledge from first year and really learning how to apply it to patients in a clinical setting. I’m nervous of being let loose on the wards with only my clinical partner to protect me but I also can’t wait. Just one last push and I’ll be there. See you on the other side of exams…

Megan Earle : 08 Jun 2015 13:53 |  Tags: Exams Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Research as a student

With a bit of a hiatus between clinical and written exams, I thought I'd write about something unrelated to finals: research as a student.

Most of us who did science subjects for our undergraduate degrees will have had some experience of research during our undergraduate lab projects or dissertations. At medical school, although research isn't really a core part of the curriculum, it is something that is relatively easy to get involved with, excellent experience and looks great on your CV.

A very simple way of doing this is through audit. An audit measures performance against a standard, so you can do an audit against pretty much any guideline that you can find, whether that is NICE guidance, local hospital policy or something else. During my general practice block, I had to do an audit, I chose to look at whether GPs were prescribing stomach protective drugs with NSAID painkillers, which can cause gastric ulcers in certain at risk patients. After I did the audit, I presented it to the practice, then re-audited 3 months later. I made the results into a poster, and submitted it to the annual RCGP conference, where it was accepted! There were 3 other Warwick students presenting posters at the same conference, and of the prizes given out for audit and posters, 3 went to medical students.

Another way of getting into research whilst a student is to find a supervisor who has an ongoing project that you're interested in. My boyfriend chose to do his elective in ITU, and focussed on research whilst he was there. From the research he did, he's managed to publish a paper and present his work at 2 international conferences (I went with him to the one in Barcelona, it's a tough job....)

These are just a few examples that I know the details of, but loads of students have presented at various conferences and a fair few have managed to get a publication.

Not only is research a great way of making your CV stand out (remember all doctors have a medical degree so that doesn't really make you look that great) it's also a way that students can actually help to make an impact on practice, an opportunity which doesn't come along very often!

Warwick has an academic medicine society which aims to help students to get into research, and there are also academic foundation year jobs which provide time to work in a research group. I would recommend trying to get some sort of research done as a student, because contrary to popular opinion, you will probably never have this much free time again!

Megan Earle : 02 Jun 2015 16:03 |  Tags: Mbchb Research Warwick |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem