All 2 entries tagged History

A balancing act…

Now that we are on the wards I’m starting to fully appreciate the monumental struggle doctors face to maintain a healthy work life balance. The hours are punishing and the work emotionally and physically draining. Even as a medical student the balancing act is tough. At the moment I’m in hospital 4 days a week 8-5 and on my day in GP land we are in 9-7 to see a late surgery. An average day is a long time on your feet, a few periods of absolute terror (usually when taking blood and missing!) and a lot of mental effort. I usually get home and collapse in a heap, so finding time to study is difficult and finding time to relax even harder. Having said all that even after 4 weeks it’s getting easier and I’ve simply learnt that when it gets to a certain time I just have to switch off no matter what needs doing!

In first year I didn’t get involved in many extra-curricular things although I had a small part time job on campus. I’ve kept it up this year and I’m still enjoying a couple of evenings a week totally free from medicine. I speak to graduates of the university so I get plenty of helpful tips and advice from previous students, many of whom are now practicing doctors in the local area.

A big change for me this year has been getting more involved in societies. I’m involved in the committee with a new society that is gong out into schools to teach teenagers about mental health and reduce stigma. Getting involved in projects like this is great and you feel like even as a medical student you can make a real difference and get involved in causes that you are really passionate about. I’m organising a few talks and events this year with other societies and finding more and more people in the medical school who are equally passionate about those topics. You can feel a bit odd if you’re not really into anatomy or your sole aim in life isn’t to be a trauma surgeon, but there are so many graduates studying at Warwick and so many societies you will find people who share similar interests and passions and who will point you in the direction of some amazing opportunities.

Juggling hospital, a part time job, and extra-curricular commitments is hard enough but then the medical school throws in academic days which come with the usual lectures which must be prepared for and revised as well as our case based learning sessions. Our academic days happen every two weeks on a Friday and they are very long and busy days. They are usually around one topic so it’s quite an intense day where you question if you remember anything for phase 1, but it’s also a good chance to catch up with everyone over coffee.

This week we had our first day in GP. GP consultations are so different to histories and examination in hospital so I feel like I’m having to reinvent the wheel on top of everything else! Having said this I had a great day and saw a huge variety of patients and conditions. I even used an interpreter in one of the consultations. Working in different clinical environments is a juggling act in itself and I’m sure I’ll drop a few pins before I get the hang of it!

Joanne

Megan Earle : 10 Feb 2016 10:38 |  Tags: Gp History Joanne Mbchb Student Wards Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The End of Pre–clinicals and the Start of Clinicals

For the past year and a half, we have spent a great deal of time in the lecture theatre and in other practical sessions getting to know the human body inside and out (literally). We have studied the structures of cells, tissues and organs, how they work together, what can go wrong and how to manage it. Most of the work we’ve done up till now has been very theoretical – although WMS does a good job of integrating (or at least introducing) clinical exposure into the curriculum, we have still had to endure more Power Point than any human should have to. This is understandable, of course, as the amount of information we must absorb is just huge and the pace is quick and we need to be able to access a lot of it in the future.

The end of the autumn term also marked the conclusion of the pre-clinical phase of our curriculum. Our weeks of lectures and intense group work have morphed into something much more hands-on and practical in its delivery –and most of us our going into this period with many different emotions swirling about. It’s exciting that we’re finally going to be on wards and working with teams like proper doctors do (which of course we are not, yet). It’s a little scary that our hands are no longer going to be held quite so tightly as before – a lot of our learning is self-directed and self-managed. But it’s also very encouraging to know that we are given responsibility by the medical school (and its overseers) to manage our own education to a high degree.

From what I have heard, Warwick are quite pro-active and advanced regarding clinical exposure as compared to other medical schools around. Although (of course) all students in the country complete the same amount of clinical exposure by graduation, and all must meet the same standard, WMS introduces the exposure far earlier in our medical-school careers than many other medical schools, thus making the process of speaking to patients far less daunting than it might otherwise be. We meet several patients during the first year through a variety of means: ‘community days’, in which we meet non-hospital patients in the community with medically complex conditions; brief hospital-ward introductions and examination practice; and various other opportunities.

But now, as of Monday 4 January, we will be joining the hospitals full-time and our focus will shift to learning in the clinical environment. It’s very exciting. We’re focusing on history-taking and examination of common diseases in our first ten-week block. Although my partner and I are based on a respiratory block, the focus is not on respiratory ailments as such, but rather the basics of patient interaction from the doctor’s perspective. All of our cohort are distributed throughout the three main hospitals in the Warwickshire area, across numerous wards, but all will be following the same basic curriculum. I am very much looking forward to the transition towards becoming a member of the hospital team and putting my efforts into learning in the clinical environment.

John

Megan Earle : 06 Jan 2016 11:51 |  Tags: History Hospital John Mbchb Patients Student Wards Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem