All entries for December 2014

Bring on Christmas!

Phew, I can honestly say I have never enjoyed myself so much or been more exhausted as I have been in the last 11 weeks. Semester 1 has really flown by and I can’t believe I have completed two full blocks of medicine already! At times I’ve felt like I don’t know which way is up anymore with the constant stream of lectures, CBL work, clinical skills and then our community days which bring their own challenges with them. I am finding medical school hard but I am also proud of all that I have achieved so far.

I know I’m not only one lacking confidence in their knowledge and skills on this course. This course has been more intense than my previous undergraduate degree and even my PhD. We have a full timetable of lectures during the week and then every Friday is spent at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, by the time Friday night comes round I’m usually asleep by the time my partner comes home from work! Medical school isn’t all work and no play though. I have joined the Medics Mixed Hockey Club and even survived a hockey tour in Southampton while dressed as an Alien from Toy Storey!

The things I’ve enjoyed most are Friday’s at the hospital. I start my day with Clinical skills where we are taught by practicing doctors and practice in small groups. We have all become very good actors while practicing histories and I can actually use my stethoscope properly now! In the afternoon I have clinical anatomy in the surgical training centre where we have access to anatomical specimens and use 3D TV’s to see the structures from our lectures in incredible detail. I’m hoping that if I work hard at Anatomy I may be able to secure a place on the summer anatomy course in Grenada - a fine way to spend my last long summer!

I have also really enjoyed working with my CBL group. We have had to constantly re-evaluate how we are working in order to optimise our time in CBL and we have spent a lot of time the last few weeks teaching each other when we have been struggling with particular topics. This is where working with all graduates and from different backgrounds is so helpful-we all have different area of expertise and can all bring something unique to the group. We have all worked so hard this semester but we have had fun as a group too, we have enjoyed some lovely lunches in Leamington Spa on our community days, we have had several birthday cakes and also had our own CBL Christmas party at the postgraduate halls on campus.

I’m looking forward to the Christmas break - I’m going catch up on my notes and flashcards (a lifesaver in medical school if you don’t already use them) for the first couple of weeks and then I plan to put my feet up and relax!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from a tired but very happy first year medical student!

Megan Earle : 15 Dec 2014 10:22 |  Tags: Christmas Joanne Mbchb Student Wms |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Working 9–5 (and then 6–11) is no way to make a living…

I’ve had a part time job for most of my life since I got a paper round aged 14. I’m lucky in that my parents help me out financially when they are able to, but I’ve always felt better about accepting their help in the knowledge that I have made at least some effort to earn some cash myself.

I knew that working whilst at medical school might be tricky as we do have a lot of work to do outside hospital hours, and I’ve also had to do some out-of-hours hospital shifts in the evenings and at weekends.

Currently, I work at a bar on the university campus, doing one or two, four or five hour shifts a week. This means that I often have to go straight from hospital to work, which means I can be out of the house for a good 16 hours.

Although it is hard work, I have found that working in something completely non-medical can actually be quite relaxing. It’s nice to be able to turn up, switch off to a certain extent, and pour pints for a few hours. I’ve also made a few non-medical friends along the way, which is a really nice thing to have when you’re fed up of talking to your medic housemates about whether or not they could hear the patient’s heart murmur on Ward 11, how long is it until finals (in days, hours, minutes, and seconds) and how many cannulations they’ve managed to do this week, when you last did a successful one about a month ago.

The one thing that I have learnt at work though is to be very careful about who you tell that you’re a medical student. Obviously our customers talk to us, and lots of us are students so they ask us what we’re studying. Usually when I say medicine, people often react in one of 3 ways:

1. “Oooo you must be clever!” (No, if I was clever I would have done dentistry and be earning loads of money by now, rather than doing a full time course and working here in the evenings).
2. “Ohhhh you’re going to be so rich, I read in the Daily Mail recently that all GP’s earn £150k a year…” (Not true, I did actually think that being a doctor would make me rich, mostly thanks to the Daily Mail, but after further examination of the facts, it was revealed that this is sadly inaccurate.)
3. “Oh interesting you should say that, I’ve had this stomach ache for a while now….” (Please continue to tell me about your bowel movements in excruciating detail at a volume that the whole bar can hear. But seriously, go and see your GP.)

Now, it is nice that people want to show an interest in you and share their medical stories with you, but after a long day at hospital and when you view yourself as, “off duty,” it isn’t always great. Unfortunately, I’m a really bad liar, so the occasions when I’ve told people that I study economics haven’t worked out very well, mostly because our bar is next door to Warwick Business School, which is full of people studying economics.

Alternatively, there is the option that one customer told me that his doctor-wife uses to avoid people asking her medical opinion at dinner parties, which is to tell everyone that she works in the GUM clinic…

Megan Earle : 10 Dec 2014 10:19 |  Tags: Bar Mbchb Sarah Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hi my name is Joanne…

Hi my name is Joanne and I’m a first year medical student here at WMS and I still can’t believe I’m able to say that! This is my first blog post and I hope you enjoy hearing about my experiences (positive and negative) of been a fresher all over again.

The path to medicine for me has been quite long with a few twists and turns along the way. At school it was my lifelong ambition to become a doctor but whilst studying my A-levels, working part time and volunteering something changed and I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t feel able to commit to a 5 year medicine degree and instead decided to study a degree in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Sheffield. I made the most of my first degree and developed an interest in medical research. After my degree I decided to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience at Newcastle University (my home town).

After another 3 long years I finished my PhD and went out into the real world for the first time as a Postdoctoral researcher, but something was different. I didn’t feel like my research was really making a difference to patients. I was talking to clinicians about my work and where it could lead but found myself wishing I was in their shoes as they went off to their clinics to actually put their research into practice and I headed back to the lab. I knew then that I wanted to study medicine, but I had to be sure. Making the decision to return to university and change career was not easy but the time I spent volunteering with patients and shadowing clinicians and speaking to other graduates studying medicine convinced me that even if I was crazy I wasn’t the only one!

Receiving my offer from Warwick was a dream come true. Warwick’s emphasis on early contact with patients really appealed to me. Also the fact that the course is graduates only mean that you have people from a variety of backgrounds who all have their own unique experiences to bring to the course. This has really helped with our case-based learning sessions, in my group we have students who are qualified chiropractors, teachers, civil servants as well as students who have recently graduated and have great study tips for those of us who have been out of education for a while.

The medical school here at Warwick has a real community atmosphere to it, as I walk from the main campus past ducks and geese on the pond and through ancient woodland up the hill to the medical school the contrast between Warwick’s campus and the city-based universities I’m used to could not be more apparent. I’ve become a regular at the café here at the medical school and already have my favourite spot in the BioMed Grid (the library and study area here at the medical school) and the first term isn’t even over yet! Life as a medical student here at Warwick is hectic, I have learnt so much already, but there is time to enjoy ourselves too - more about that in my next post!

Megan Earle : 09 Dec 2014 09:23 |  Tags: Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Honey, I shrunk the patients

Last month, I was filled with dread as I approached the end of my senior surgical block. Not because I am gunning to become a surgeon and would miss scrubbing in during theatre sessions (quite the opposite!) but because I could see my“child health” block looming on the horizon.

Prior to this placement, I had absolutely no experience with children. I am the youngest in my family and I don’t have the hordes of nieces and nephews that other people appear to have acquired during their early 20s. Children were like tiny aliens to me, and the thought of even changing a nappy, let along trying to take a history from a screaming 6 year old instilled a deep sense of panic in me.

We had three days of introductory lectures before starting clinical placement, during which we learnt that everything that can go wrong in an adult can also go wrong with a child. On top of this, children can also suffer from a variety of often quite bizarre and rare conditions not found in older people. After these lectures we were sent out to our hospitals with strict instructions to “see lots of children.”

The month since then has been my favourite month of medical school. My fears were completely unfounded, and working with children has been amazing. I really like that in every paeds consultation there are at least two patients – the child and their carer. Both of their problems and concerns have to be explored and addressed, and the solution has to be acceptable to both.

A big difference between child and adult patients is their willingness to be examined by a student. Although obviously some children are shy, at a certain age many of them are more than willing to show off whatever ailment they have to anyone nearby who will have a look, which is very useful for learning. As a medical student you get quite used to getting sent out of adult consultations so this has been quite refreshing! Less fortunately, children also tend to have less control over their bodily functions than most adults, so if you are squeamish when it comes to getting covered in whatever happens to be coming out of a child at the time, then maybe paeds isn’t for you!

Children get ill quickly but they get better quickly as well, and in A&E I have seen really quite poorly children being given the correct treatment then bounce out of the department a few hours later, which is really satisfying!

Neonates and infants provide their own challenges, as they can’t communicate that they are unwell. One of my consultants likened paediatrics to veterinary medicine for this reason, and paediatricians have to rely on their examination skills and clinical acumen to work out what is going on with a child.

Whilst on this placement I have had the opportunity to clerk sick patients in A&E, helped to resuscitate neonates on SCBU, hold supervised clinic sessions and do some work on the wards. Oh and I’ve also now changed that all important nappy!

Megan Earle : 02 Dec 2014 13:47 |  Tags: Mbchb Paediatrics Sarah Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem