All 236 entries tagged Warwick

End of Paediatrics and the SJT

The last two weeks have been very busy. Firstly I have been completing the last couple of weeks of my Child Health/Paediatrics block. I have seen a couple of interesting things. One of my days I spent observing and helping with the NIPE checks. NIPE stands for Newborn Infant Physical Examination and this is a general health check completed on newborn babies, and the first is done within 72 hours of birth and the second check is done at 6 weeks of age by their GP/family doctor. I was observing the first check which is usually done in hospital and often done my midwives or junior doctors. The check is an all-round physical for the baby and looks at things such as oxygen saturations, reflexes, movement, whether they have a heart murmur, and looking for any birth defects. Essentially the check aims to find any issues which may impact on the health of the baby and the ability of the baby to cope when they go home. I enjoyed helping with the checks and seeing some very cute babies, and learned some interesting and important things which the check looks for. One of the coolest things I learned was about the reflexes that babies have to help them survive – one of these reflexes is one which you may know about, and that is the grasping reflex where if you offer a baby your finger, they automatically hold on to your finger. I find it amazing that these reflexes are present from birth and without the baby having to learn anything.

This week I have also been booking my Situational Judgement Test (SJT). I have spoken about the SJT on my blog before, but just to recap, it is a really important test that final year medical students sit and the score that you get gives you a score. If you have a higher score, you are more likely to get the Foundation doctor job that you want. You also have to get a decent score to get any doctor job at all! This year the test has changed, as it used to be sat at Medical Schools but this year we have to go to a test centre. This is similar to the UCAT/UKCAT which some of you may have sat or be aiming to sit soon. The SJT has questions which cover ethical and practical dilemmas and then your answer is how you would respond to these dilemmas. I have booked my test for mid-December to try and get it out of the way so that I can concentrate on finals when I return from the Christmas holiday. I am nervous about this test but also it is a tricky one to revise for. I am generally quite good at the type of thinking that the test is looking for, which I think is courtesy of my History degree days. Hopefully I do okay on the test.

Overall, I have found the Child Health block challenging for all sort of reasons, including just how many things there are to do, and anticipation of finals just around the corner. My next block is Care of the Medical Patient which is a block which covers lots of different areas, all concerning general medical patients. These patients suffer from heart issues, respiratory issues, brain and nerve problems and also gastrointestinal problems. I think it will be a really useful block for recapping and building on my existing knowledge and building a wide knowledge base before finals. In addition, I am heading back to George Eliot Hospital which I had a good experience at in my first and second years of med school and hopefully it’s a productive block!

Hattie Trigg : 30 Nov 2020 10:00 |  Tags: Jordan Mbchb Patients Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Child Health

The last two weeks saw the end of my Obstetrics block and the beginning of the Child Health block.

My last week of Obstetrics was a busy one for many reasons – the main reason is that I have been running around trying to get my end of block sign offs from my consultant. Part of this is a mock assessment called an OSLER, which is, in short, an observed patient encounter. During the assessment you see a patient, take a history from them and perform an examination of them. Following this you have a discussion with the supervising consultant about the condition the patient may have and what you would do to manage their care. The patient I examined and took a history from was lovely which makes the whole process a lot less daunting. I always really appreciate the patients who allow us to examine and interact with them as being in hospital is stressful enough without having an eager student assessing you! Without the help of the patients we see our education would not be a true reflection of the career that lies ahead of us.

I have really enjoyed this block overall. Whilst it can certainly be a little bit more exhausting with the long labour shifts and sometimes emotionally charged situations, I have appreciated being able to get stuck in. I love interacting with patients and helping guide women through labour is so rewarding (and the cuddly with the new-borns are so cute!) the experience is something I know I will never forget.

The first week of my latest block, Child Health, has been steady for me, which is something I feel I have needed. I have certainly been feeling a little burnt-out the last week so have taken things a little steadier intentionally just to give myself a little breather. I’m looking forward to the week ahead and experiencing a side of medicine I have yet to go in-depth on since my enjoyable year working at Birmingham Children’s Hospital prior to coming to medical school.

This weekend I have had the privilege of attending GERMCON – which is the Graduate-Entry Medicine Research conference. By attend, I actually mean turned on my computer and listened as this year the conference was completely online due to COVID-19. It has been a strange experience attending an online conference but still interesting and still had some very inspiring talks, including from Professor Vinod Patel, who gave the keynote address on the last day of the conference. Professor Patel is Warwick’s Academic Lead for Clinical Skills and oversees our clinical skills education in first year and clinical exams later on in the course. Research is such a huge part of life in medicine, and it was great to see the diversity of projects and approaches to research that were highlighted in the conference.

Hattie Trigg : 19 Oct 2020 15:44 |  Tags: Consultant Jordan Mbchb Patients Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Welcome 2020 Cohort – Is your WIFI working?

We now have two sets of first years, the ones who are nervously cramming for their exam which has finally come around, and the new ones taking pictures with our infamous lanyards. I was honoured to be asked to talk to the new first years about “Succeeding in Medical School”. In my head I re-named it to “Don’t do anything I did in first year”. Medical school can be overwhelming, so I was keen to get across to the newbies that it is more important they get time out from the world they have just entered than try and finish that last lecture.

They all have been lovely, and I do feel sorry for them. I remember how good (if exhausting) my first week was. I loved the welcome ball, the medsoc nights out and generally getting to know the place I was calling home for the next four weeks.

My favourite part was heading up to the hospital for the first time which happened exactly a year ago today. That cheesy picture of us in front of the hospital makes me grimace now but at least we had the opportunity to get one. I also got to chat to some of them one their one day of the week they could come in. There were a lot of questions about foundation year applications which blew me away as I did not even know what the UKMLA was in my first year, and we were meant to be the first cohort to take it!

There was also a lot of concern about settling into Warwick which I fully get, however, I hope they will take use of campus. I must have advertised Curiositea (the on-campus coffee shop with the BEST hot chocolates) until I turned blue. I wonder if I can get a share of their profits? I hope they are not pulled out of face to face education for any longer than they need to be.

Meanwhile, I am still stuck in second year and with the first years taking their exam next week, I think it is really starting to hit home how long we have been stuck in this year. Describing myself as a second year makes me seem more in experienced than I am but I am not jinxing my exams by calling myself a third year yet! We are keen to move on, we have to just wait until January. However, the rising Covid-19 cases across the country do make me nervous about the future of my degree and if we are going to face being pulled out of placement again or even allowed to take practical examinations.

I am now at the end of my Medicine block and out of tiredness, myself and my clinical partner have decided to make this week a home study week (bar our GP placement). This means we can make sure we are fully caught up before surgery block begins. I am getting fit tested tomorrow, so I hope to be included in the anaesthetic process too!

Campus itself is becoming busier and I am having to remind myself that noise outside my room at 10pm is a normal thing again. We have had six months of silence, so it feels like a strange new world to have freshers back in the halls. I have some nice students and even though I am having to remain distant, I hope I can support them through one of the weirdest academic years of their lives.

That is it for now, I am excited to get to Surgery block. I really hope to Scrub In and give surgery another try before I completely rule it out. I wish all the luck to our 2019 cohort. I remember how terrified I was last year, make sure you give yourself at least Sunday off, and remember, You’ve got this !

Megan Earle : 29 Sep 2020 15:05 |  Tags: Abbie Mbchb Warwick Wms |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Babies and bellies

I have now started my Obstetrics and Gynaecology block, for which I am based at Warwick Hospital. Warwick Hospital is one of the smaller hospitals for our medical school but one of the best in terms of the experience that you get. I have only been at Warwick before for a day here or there and never for a long time, so I was excited to start a 5-week block based at Warwick. Obstetrics and Gynaecology covers pregnancy, childbirth and women’s health, and for the block we have two midwives supervising, teaching and organising us. For our first week we had mostly lectures covering some of the basics of this speciality, some of which is revision and some of which was new information. The lecturer midwives who were teaching us did a fantastic job of breaking these topics down and giving just the right amount of information to make it digestible. We also had sessions on obstetric palpation (feeling babies in pregnant tummies), which I have always found tricky. The only way of describing what it is like is having an action man in a inflated balloon and then trying to feel what clothes action man is wearing. It can be tricky so I’m glad we got some more supervised practice!

This week we also had Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM) day, which is a whole day in this block which covers sexual health and medicine. We don’t get much exposure to this speciality as a medical student, but I actually find it really interesting and varied. The day involved some lectures on HIV and different sexually transmitted infections (STIs), as well as some interactive sessions. This included practice conducting intimate examinations of male and female genitals, and then we also had some practice taking sexual histories. As I said, we don’t get much exposure so having some interactive practice makes tackling these sometimes-difficult areas a bit easier.

Today we had some bedside teaching. At Warwick Hospital we are very lucky to have booked sessions with doctors and midwives where they take us onto the wards, we find a patient and then see the patient under supervision to practice our history taking and examination practice. In the morning we were doing Gynaecological histories with one of the education doctors and in the afternoon, we were taking pregnancy histories and feeling tummies under the supervision of the midwives. Overall, the day was tiring but also really useful and we managed to get some hands-on practice, which is definitely needed at this stage!

I started my Obstetrics and Gynaecology block feeling as though it wasn’t really for me. I’m not really sure why – I think I find it difficult and so don’t enjoy it for that reason. However, after 2 weeks I feel as though it has been demystified a little bit and I definitely feel more comfortable already, with still 3 weeks to go. Im excited to see what the rest of the block brings!

Megan Earle : 18 Sep 2020 09:59 |  Tags: Gyne Hospital Jordan Mbchb Obs Warwick Wms |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I’m tired!

The last two weeks have been….BUSY! My General Practice block has been coming to an end. Like with all my placements, I have had to get sign offs from the doctors to say that I have performed to a good standard, engaged with everything and completed all the necessary tasks on placement! One of the GPs that we have been with quite a lot filled in our “End of Block form”, which they sign giving feedback on areas such as attendance and engagement etc. We received some nice feedback from that GP who said it was a pleasure to teach us, which is always nice to hear! My general ethos in life is to always put your best foot forward and go in full steam – always work to your best ability. If you don’t do as well as you could or you could improve, that’s okay! I do think this makes the job of teaching easier and shows respect to those teaching you – the most frustrating thing in trying to teach is when you ask for volunteers and no-one says anything!

Thursday last week I also did some teaching! Warwick has a very strong tradition of students teaching students, and I have gotten involved with this throughout my time here – I taught seminars to first years and also taught life support last year. I really believe that one of the best ways of learning is to teach. The first years have had their exams delayed this year due to COVID – usually they are in June, but they have been pushed back a few months, so these are coming up soon. I picked the chance to teach shoulder anatomy to the first years, mostly because I have recently had my musculoskeletal block and so the knowledge is fresh and also because shoulders are cool! Unfortunately, the session was online this year rather than in person which does limit things somewhat. Usually in my seminar sessions I like to have activities and demonstrations to show concepts but being online makes this harder. Despite this (and also some technical issues) I did manage to teach I think some useful hints and concepts to the first years and enjoyed myself while doing it. Hopefully they found it useful!

On Thursday I also had my end of block assessment for GP block which took the form of history taking with an actor and discussing management with one of the doctors who was marking me as if this was my final exam. I got some nice feedback in terms of my communication and actually really enjoyed the assessment. I know that’s probably quite weird! It was actually quite fun to have a practice and also super useful as it reminded me of lots of things that I need to go over (ahem…ECGs..).

This week I have also been trying to exercise more and improve my wellbeing as I’ve been quite worn out. GP block has been really fun but also very tiring as its very busy. I’ve (re)joined the gym and am going to try and go a couple of times a week to try and destress. I think my next block is less busy timetable-wise so I can have a bit of a rest. So that’s the end of GP block. My next block is Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in which hopefully I get to see some cute babies! See you in my next blog!

Megan Earle : 15 Sep 2020 10:00 |  Tags: Covid19 Gp Jordan Mbchb Onlinelearning Teaching Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem