All entries for December 2018

Christmas has finally arrived! I’m currently heading home writing this blog and I am very much looking forward to just sleeping. We have had a busy couple of weeks, so it’s been a final push towards the end of the term.

I had my final 2018 student seminar session where we played “Pin the ECG on Santa” and all wore matching Christmas jumpers which amazingly had not been co-ordinated. One of the people teaching me is my medic dad so I can guess you call it family intuition! They have both been amazing this term along with the ECG session the cardiac society put on for us, the physiology and anatomy days and the MOSCE prep day which have also been lifesavers. There is so much support here, no one wants anyone to fall behind, which builds a sense of camaraderie in the med school. We also had a Christmas-themed CBL where we exchanged secret Santa presents! I received a bumblebee notebook, someone knows me so well!

We had our final anatomy session of 2018 in the surgical training centre, which was incredible. We were privileged enough to experience fresh tissue which had been donated for medical teaching use. It was something I will never forget. We were able to hold hearts, kidneys and livers and identify structures that we had learnt over the two blocks. All the time I kept thinking about how these were once keeping someone alive and had done so for 80ish years (I don’t know details about the donors, so this is just an estimate). We were also shown a working chest with the lungs inflating. I got to feel the lungs expand and feel every alveolus open which felt like small bubbles under my fingers. It was an amazing opportunity. I got to inflate the lungs and I was surprised as to how much I needed to inflate the bag to get the lungs to initially expand. In all honesty, this really should not have been a surprise as we had learnt about the force needed to open the lungs in a lecture… so I guess I need to go back over that one!

In the evening my amazing flatmates had thrown a surprise birthday party to top off an incredible day for someone who wants to pursue surgery as a career. We had lots of food, and a game which got brutal between some of the more competitive ones. I felt really touched as it’s been a tough couple of weeks with block 2, as physiology is just something I’ve not got on well with, so to have this to end the term really brought my spirits up.

We only had one more thing to do. MOSCES. These were mocks of our OSCE exams in the summer which meant that for 12 solid hours in our kitchen we practised all our examinations. I now know my friends’ hands back to front and can finally pronounce “Leukonychia” and “Koilonychia” which I suppose is good considering I will be using these terms for the rest of my life. It was very odd for my non-medic flatmates to walk into the kitchen to see us tapping each other’s stomachs. Perks of living with medics I suppose….

I had my MOSCE on Tuesday and was nervous, especially as I was in the same corridor as I was for my interview back in January. I don’t know my result yet. I did run out of time on a station which I had practised repeatedly in our kitchen and was way undertime. This was frustrating as I know I would have dropped marks there but it’s a good indication for next year. I also keep second guessing myself over what I said and what I didn’t say, and I know I missed a few things out when it came to another one of the stations. However, if I did fail (and that’s perfectly fine) I get 1:1 with our head of Clinical Skills so its all win I guess!

I am going to try and have a break over Christmas, I have a list of things to do and some final lectures to note from block, 2 but I want to make sure I have a couple of days where I don’t think about medicine. If I have learnt anything this block, it’s that it’s important to forget about medicine for 24 hours.

I am really looking forward to the next block: Brains! This is where my undergraduate degree will hopefully help. I love everything to do with the neuro side of things, so I am hoping that I will get to grips a bit more easily with this block. I also want to be able to help others who might struggle with it as so many people have helped me this year… but only time will tell! Merry Christmas guys!

Hope you all have a brilliant Christmas and an amazing New Year !

Abbie

These past two weeks have brought the first time we have had contact with patients. I had been looking forward to this for a while as it is nice to put into context the hundreds of hours of studying and lectures.

Understandably we were nervous - it was the first time talking to someone as a medical student and being in the patient’s home made it even more nerve-wracking. However, the experience was incredible in the end. I can’t say too much to protect patient identity, but our patient was lovely and made us all coffee and biscuits before we had even sat down! They were fiercely independent and had recovered quickly from what was a major operation. Our case had links to our teaching at the medical school, so it was nice to have reassurance that what we are learning now does have clinical application. The long hours can make it seem less so! It was interesting to talk to the patient and find out what was important to them with regards to their health. For this person it was being able to do their gardening. It provided food for thought about tailoring care to enable the patient to live as normal a life as possible and this includes allowing them to participate in activities that they find enjoyable.

We also had the opportunity to chat to healthcare professionals, including a strong-minded nurse who fought for their patients. We get told to always listen to the nurses as they see the patients more than us so have a better understanding of their needs than we do! This particular nurse was not afraid to argue with consultants about what was best for their patients. I can only hope to work with nurses like this when I graduate. We were also told about the funding nature of the NHS. The staff had to hold regular fundraising days to obtain the exercise equipment they needed for the patients’ recovery. It was clearly frustrating that the NHS did not provide this funding but due to the selflessness of the staff, they were able to fund the gym to enable patients to get the most out of their recovery as possible.

It was a long day but we were all grateful to have had the chance to see patients. It was a welcome change to the timetable and we took a lot from the day. It’s easy to be blinded by science teaching and trying to get your head around everything, but it’s good to have a reminder that there are more important things that matter to the patient that the science behind their condition.

We also had Warwick Take Me Out recently, which was a brilliant end to the week. It was the same set up as the TV show except the girls had balloons instead of lights (also the reason I decided to sit as far away from the things (balloons not girls) as humanly possible). We had five guys from the med school (and a couple of non-medics) come and try and get a date. I am pleased to say no one went home without a date and the dates included vouchers for Nandos and Waggas … something the whole of the lecture theatre was envious of and had considered putting themselves forward for just for the prospect of free food. The evening was run by Warwick Marrow and all money raised went to the charity, which will contribute to the £47 it takes to sign up one person to the register.

We are all looking forward to Christmas now. The whole year is pretty tired and ready to break for the holidays. Personally, I am looking forward to sleeping. A lot. I am also excited for the Warwick Medical School interviews for the 2019 cohort. I remember being at mine in January of this year chatting to the current students, so it will be nice to see the process from the other side! If there are any prospective students reading this, good luck! Treat it like a normal conversation - it will be over before you know it and you’ll move on to checking consistently for the decision email! (Just don’t check every five minutes like I did …. You’ll go mad).

Abbie