All entries for October 2015

Out into the Wild…

In my last blog I spoke about learning to love my time in hospital and I think I can safely say that I’ve cracked it! All the Phase 2 students have just completed a week full time on placement in hospital. It’s very different being in hospital full time and learning away from the lecture theatres so this past week was designed to give us a taster and identify and problems or areas we need to develop before we hit the wards full time in January.

We were assigned to wards along with our clinical partner, another person on our placement who we have chosen to work together for all our future clinical placements. We will be working closely with our clinical partners so it’s important to choose wisely!

My clinical partner and I were assigned to the Frailty Ward at Warwick hospital. This is a ward specifically designed for elderly people who require only a short stay in hospital of less than 3 days. They are a multidisciplinary team (key Medical School buzz word!) consisting of Doctors, Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists and social workers designed to get older patients back to their pre-hospital functioning as quickly as possible in order to prevent a permanent loss of function, which often happens after a lengthy stay in hospital.

We attended the daily ward rounds with the Consultant and Junior Doctors, taking notes for them, reading Observation charts and noting if a patient had an interesting clinical sign. You can read about what a sign should look like, see a picture or watch a video but you remember so much more when you see or hear it yourself! Seeing a raised jugulo-venous pressure around a patients’ earlobes made much more sense than reading about a flicker on the neck and seeing the characteristic tophi of gout is something I won’t forget.

As well as observing how the wards are generally run for the first time this week I actually felt useful for the first time. Having completed my T-DOC in venepuncture, I was able to take bloods this week and send them off to the lab for analysis. I was also very lucky to get the opportunity to clerk patients in A&E. I was the person to take the history and the first person to examine them which was all very exciting until I was told to present my findings to the Consultant who happened to be in charge of acute medicine at Warwick!

Getting used to learning in the clinical environment means asking a lot of questions but also answering lots. When helping clerk patients you will be asked to summarize your findings and come up with several differential diagnoses and asked what you would do next to investigate. You are put on the spot but this learning experience is really invaluable. This is how I will have to think as a Doctor so the more practice now the better!

You can also feel a bit lost in hospital and often busy wards and doctors don’t have time to teach. You have to seek out different opportunities, introduce yourself to people in the canteen, bleep services who you want to go and shadow and generally get in the way. Being so proactive is a skill in itself so this last week was a good chance to practice and I can honestly say I feel excited and ready for January now!

Joanne

Megan Earle : 29 Oct 2015 10:01 |  Tags: Hospital Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Learning to Love Hospital…

A month into advanced cases and everything is much more clinical. We spend more time in hospitals and our lectures are more clinically focused. Last year I couldn’t wait until things were more clinical but now it is actually happening I’m actually very nervous! More clinical means more complexity, more unpredictability and more patients! It sounds crazy to be so nervous as this is the reason I came to medical school but trying to pull together all the information from phase 1 and apply it to real cases is a skill that I have yet to master.

Apart from an often overwhelming sense of bewilderment I’m really enjoying my time spent in hospital, I currently spend one day a week at Warwick Hospital. We had the opportunity to select some clinical learning opportunities that particularly interested us, these are half days spent with different healthcare teams around the hospital learning about their different roles.

So far I have had the opportunity to work in ambulatory care, where patients are referred to hospital direct from general practice and the clinical audit team. In the ambulatory care unit the patients presenting complaints were very diverse and there was very high turnover of patients which required expert organisation skills and quick review of investigations from the FY1 I was shadowing.

Working in this acute clinical environment was very different from my time shadowing the clinical audit team. Over a much appreciated cup of tea the team took me through the audit process including the large national audits that the hospital takes part in. I also saw how the outcomes of audits are implemented, from large changes to national guidelines to small changes in local services; these all directly improve patient care.

Other clinical learning opportunities I have over the next few weeks include the radiology department, outpatient’s clinic and theatres. Getting a feel for all these different areas will help prepare us for full time life on the wards in Core Clinical Education, which starts in January.

As well as shadowing lots of different teams within the hospital we are also starting to complete some more practical skills training including how to conduct patient observations correctly and learning how to use the early earning score systems used on the wards and how to take bloods. We also learn about basic airway management and more advanced hospital resuscitation, which includes how to use a defibrillator. I don’t think we’ll be in charge of any cardiac arrests anytime soon but it does feel good to learn some more practical skills in phase 2. I’ve decided to think of my time in hospital as a reward for surviving phase 1 and a welcome change from the lecture theatre!

Joanne

Megan Earle : 16 Oct 2015 11:59 |  Tags: Hospital Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

WMS – The Rest of the Week

Things have already stepped up a little in terms of expectation since my last post. Whilst this week has been a relatively gentle introduction into med school life for a biomed graduate, we’re under no illusions as to the scope and breadth of work that’ll be piled onto us from next week.

How many lectures, you ask? 15 lectures and a group session over three and half days. Then we have an additional day where we’ll be spending our time at University Hospital of Coventry & Warwickshire (UHCW) to learn clinical skills and anatomy.

This is a really cool feature of the course, where we get to look at (outrageously expensive) plastinated body tissues to learn anatomy. It’s consolidated by radiology teaching and then we try to apply our new anatomy knowledge to a relevant clinical skill. This term we’re focusing on Health, Metabolism and Homeostasis which ultimately means we’re studying the entire abdomen, thyroid and a few other bits and pieces. Therefore our clinical skills should reflect that by the end of term – we should be able to take good histories of abdominal problems, examine the abdomen and thyroid and so on. The pace is incredibly daunting, but the support network in the medical school seems really good.

It’s not all hard work. Thankfully on Thursday night we got the chance to unwind at Drs and Nurses night at the Kasbah nightclub. On the whole guys dress as nurses and girls dress as doctors, but it’s pretty casual and you do get a good mix of both. I’m still struggling days later to remove leftover eyeliner and nail varnish!

I did hope to relax this weekend but there are a few bits and pieces to finish before the coming week, including finding some resemblance of organisation for my notes. Tonight we do get a final chance to unwind as a group with the Fresher’s ball in Kenilworth. Our first black tie event! J I’ve seen pictures from previous years and it looks like a great chance to meet students again outside of a work environment.

Matt

Megan Earle : 09 Oct 2015 10:05 |  Tags: Freshers Kasbah Matt Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem