All 2 entries tagged Surgical

The End of the Surgical Block and the Passage of Time

Our sixth block, officially known as Care of the Surgical Patient, is coming to a close already. I swear it just started the other day, and yet it’s already almost over. Like lots of specialist-placement blocks, it’s been a very self-motivated learning experience. This is something I wasn’t quite expecting about the course: as a student, we are given a framework of learning opportunities and then, depending on the block, we are expected to fill in some portion of our timetables by ourselves. This requires a very proactive student who isn’t afraid to get stuck in and talk to the right people, but can also take some getting used to as well.

I spent the first few weeks of the surgery block really enjoying vascular surgery (really, it’s very cool!) but then branched out to learning about other forms of surgery in the last couple of weeks. You really have to do this in the trust where we did our surgery block. I spent some time with colorectal teams and going to lots of follow-up clinics in other areas – breast surgery, urology, even the ENT (ear, nose and throat) clinic for an afternoon. It was absolutely fascinating to spend time in underexposed parts of medicine and surgery, and I’m acutely aware that these might be the last opportunities for a long time that any of us students get to see such a wide variety of disciplines.

One big surprise of this block was that, interestingly, it contains a lot less exposure to actual operations than I initially expected. This kind of makes sense, however. I guess that a lot of what we as students and foundation doctors have to know has far less to do with actual surgery and far more with knowing about conditions that would cause an operation to be necessary (and there are plenty), how to assess a patient immediately before an operation, how to treat them afterwards, and of course the anaesthesia care before, during and after as well. I don’t think foundation-year doctors even make it into theatre for operations, so that realm is basically reserved for registrars and consultants. Even though I found surgery really interesting to watch, I’m glad to have had the opportunity to gain knowledge in other related areas too as it feels much more relevant to our education at this level.

Soon we will be starting the acute block, which means that our seventh – and penultimate – block will begin. A new cohort of medical students (I remember when we were that young and excited!) will be starting and we’ll now be top of the heap. I’ve been interested in emergency medicine for a while, so this block is really exciting to me. Although we have our fair share of overnight and odd-hours shifts, I think it will be really accurate and a good opportunity for us to understand what emergency medicine is like – plus I want to see if it really is like 24 Hours in A&E! I am very excited about this next block and anticipate a lot of excitement.

Joshua Galvin : 27 Sep 2017 12:18 |  Tags: John Patients Student Surgical Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Two Weeks on a Surgical Ward

As part of the Core Clinical Education block during the second half of our second year, each student is assigned to spend two weeks on a surgical ward. The purpose of this rotation is to see how the ward operates, speak with and examine pre- and post-operative patients, and hopefully to observe some procedures in progress. My clinical partner and I just completed our two-week rotation and it was extremely useful.

The surgical ward at our hospital was an interesting place ­ and entirely different to the respiratory ward where we'd spent most other days since the beginning of this year. For one thing, most patients in the surgical ward are more acutely unwell than those of most other wards ­ this is logical, as they've either just been operated on and are not well enough to go home, or they are in a state in which they require an operation. This presented its own challenges when finding patients who were willing to speak with us and to let us examine them, but after some investigation and detective work (and handy tip-offs from helpful doctors) we found several willing patients over the course of the two weeks.

The variation in age was also far greater on the surgical ward than the respiratory ward. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most people with significant respiratory ailments are elderly (and many of them have a decades-long history of smoking) and that surgical candidates can be of any age. There were far more middle-aged patients to speak with (and even a few under the age of 30, which was a novelty!).

My clinical partner and I had the wonderful opportunity to observe a few different surgical procedures over the course of several days as well. Once again, I was humbled and impressed by the utter professionalism on show at all times by the staff. The surgeons, the nurses, the anaesthetists and the rest of the team all worked seamlessly together as a matter of course to ensure the very best outcomes for the patient.

On one afternoon, I was asked to help assist by manoeuvring the little camera for a routine laparoscopic abdominal procedure (this is the one where a few small holes are cut in order to minimise tissue trauma to the patient and everything is conducted using apparatuses at the end of long, thin rods). It was absolutely excellent. Not only was the surgery like an anatomy lesson come to life, but it took a while to get my head round the fact that I was actually looking in someone's living abdomen ­ I was honoured and grateful to have been given that chance. But the most rewarding part of all was speaking with the patient the next day (who was very well recovered and well enough to go home). The patient was immensely grateful for the care delivered and for having met all of the surgical staff before the procedure, and thus couldn't have been more gracious. Moments like these reminded me that sometimes the best lessons are taught outside of the lecture theatre.

John

Megan Earle : 22 Feb 2016 09:49 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Surgical Wards Warwick Wms |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem