All 1 entries tagged Year

We are back for seconds!

So, I am back, and have been for four weeks now. It’s been really busy, so I have had barely any time to sit down and think about what has gone on these past 4 weeks but now I have some spare time so let's begin!

We arrived back two weeks before the freshers arrived, it felt both good and weird to be back. Everything was the same, but different at the same time. We have now shifted to being grown up clinical medical students, so our lectures are reflecting that. The lectures are less of “this is how it works and what happens when it goes wrong” and more “it’s gone wrong, now let’s fix it”. I finally feel like I am training to become a doctor! I have also been hot on making sure I keep to my promises from last year in keeping myself well and energized to work. I make sure I stop working at 8pm each evening and just spend the next four hours doing whatever I want, I don’t feel guilty from taking a step back from medicine and even just 4 weeks after putting those measures in place, I can’t believe how I got through first year the way I did.

I am also a residential tutor this year. This means I live on campus in a block with 89 odd freshers (I have my own flat thankfully!) and be their first point of call through the year. So far, I have loved this role and it’s nice to think that I may be helping freshers get through the hardest first two weeks of term they will ever have. However, they have given me two separate types of fresher’s flu of which I am not thankful for them for, but I guess I will forgive them.

We are also now in hospitals on Mondays and I love it (despite my early bus rides from campus). We get to spend more time on the wards, where we will be working one day. I can now take blood from patients as I passed my TDOC on Monday (whoop). One moment that has stuck with me whilst doing my first clinical learning opportunity session with the REACT team at UHCW. My tutor suggested I go and see a patient with Parkinson’s who had significantly deteriorated and was severely ill. I went into the room and instead of throwing 21 questions at the wife, I ended up just helping her care for her husband by helping her clean her husband’s beard from custard. The wife looked exhausted and my first instinct is tea, tea solves everything. I dashed off to make her some, so I now know where the tea station is in ED (which I believe will come in handy) and when I came back, she was alone. I asked if she had had anything to eat and managed to find her some (very dry, very crumbly toast). I went to sit with her just to offer some comfort, but I was whisked away by my supervisor, I hope I helped her a little though! That singular moment there showed me why I had battled my way through first year and what I have to look forward to now I am out of lectures.

AC1 (Advanced Cases) block is a lot less intensive than first year, instead of 5 lectures a day we get 5-7 a week. It feels amazing and I don’t feel like I am swimming against the tide. It’s enabled me to get more involved with life outside of studying. I am a medic mother with a fellow neuro friend of mine, and we have two kids in the year below whom we basically cheerlead on through the year. My kids are also neuro inclined so we are one big brainy family, just as how I imagine my actual family to be! I am also excited to get to teach on Anatomy and Physiology days as well as setting up Flash Seminars to allow more opportunities for peer teaching for those not involved in Student Seminars. I have also re-visited my beloved climbing wall where I fully realized how much I missed climbing over summer. I am even signed off now to belay other people up the wall, something my little sister is particularly excited about.

So far, Year 2 has been brilliant, and I can’t wait to get further stuck into this block. Next Monday, I have the thing I have been waiting for… my surgical induction! I’m now off to a communication skills session with a SIM patient so I guess this is it till the end of the month. School is officially back.

Lucinda Sidbury : 08 Oct 2019 09:49 |  Tags: Abbie Blog Mbchb Medicine Second Warwick Year |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem