November 10, 2017

Psychiatry: the Last Frontier

Our cohort is in the first week of our last specialist clinical placement, and there is a certain feeling of conclusion in the air. For the vast majority of our group, this is the last medical rotation we will do at Warwick Medical School. It’s hard to believe that we’re so close to being done (well, there’s just that small matter of final exams…), but at the same time it feels like we’ve been learning for a very long time (actually, we have!) and so the fact that the end is in sight is a bit of a relief. We’re very much looking forward to progressing onto the next phase of our lives and careers.

My clinical partner and I have Psychiatry as our last rotation, and it’s proving to be very interesting and eye-opening. This is a branch of medicine about which I know very little, and so seeing the different presentations and the sheer variety on offer is really interesting. It’s also the one rotation that’s probably got the least to do with any other speciality, and so we really have to concentrate if we want to follow everything. Back in Phase II, we had a week’s exposure to the psychiatry speciality via a placement on a secure ward: it was interesting, but that placement was slightly more intense as it was psychiatric intensive care, whereas our current placement is almost wholly community-based. In any event, we’re seeing loads of very interesting presentations and the staff we work with are all very supportive and friendly, and they want to make sure that we learn as much as we can.

We’ve had lectures at many points in our medical-school career about the various types of psychiatric presentations, and like most of medicine, most of them are little more than words on a page until we see them in the flesh. However, up till now we have tended not to focus on a patient’s psychiatric co-morbidities if he or she is on a regular medical ward with a more pressing physical problem. For that reason, we haven’t usually been focusing on many psychiatric presentations until now, when it is the specific focus of our block. That’s why this block is helping us to see lots of new and exciting cases of conditions we’ve read about – it’s been a long time since a new branch of medicine was opened up to us like this!

We’re only a few days into it, but so far we have seen patients with schizophrenia, emotionally unstable personality disorder, severe depression and many other conditions that we’ve only read about up to now. It’s really a different flavour of medicine entirely. There is a lot of pharmacology (and with this come LOADS of contraindications and side-effects to learn), a lot of psychological therapies (mainly CBT, or cognitive behavioural therapy, typically administered by psychologists) and plenty of other therapies that we don’t see much of outside of psychiatry. I’m really excited by the potential, and I’m sure this block will live up to the excitement.




Joshua Galvin : 10 Nov 2017 09:09 |  Tags:     |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

October 24, 2017

Lesson’s to be learnt…

Open any newspaper and you will be greeted with headlines telling of a “social care crisis”, of “bed blockers” and a “dementia time-bomb”. While many of the headlines are misleading and not helpful, the issue of an increasingly aging population and the increasing rates dementia are very real. As a medical student, we witness the problems increasing rates of dementia causes in the NHS on all our placements. On the Care of the elderly wards many patients were “medical fit for discharge” but remained in hospital due to social care issues, many patients with dementia can become aggressive and upset when they are confused and can be difficult for staff to manage and also upsetting for other patients. Observing the challenges dementia places on the healthcare system is no different in the psychiatry block. We spend some of our time in Old age psychiatry where most of the work focuses on dementia but also other mental illnesses that have presented in old age.

Spending time in the community memory clinics I saw patients presenting with a variety of memory problems. The memory clinic is designed to help improve detection rates of dementia and ensure patients receives the best medical treatment and social support. For example, if a patient is diagnosed early with vascular dementia, there is an opportunity to ensure they are on the best treatment for their high blood pressure and diabetes which could help reduce the decline in their memory. Slowing the memory decline can allow people to live independently for much longer and have a higher quality of life. Alongside the medical interventions, psychological interventions in the form of support groups for patients and carers can help maintain good mental health and help families cope in these difficult situations. Providing the right social support can also help patients stay at home longer with their families. Observing how the medical and nursing team all worked together to help these patients was interesting and it was great to see the positive impact the team had.

Treatment of dementia is focused on community care but sometimes it isn’t safe for patients to be at home or even in care homes if they have complex behavioural needs. As part of our placement we also spent time on the inpatient dementia wards. In contrast to any other ward I’ve been on, every patient had a completely individualised care plan that had been formulated through careful observation. Even though many of the patients had severe dementia, staff had spent time with them to find out what their interests were, what music did they like, what activities or food were there favourites? Spending the time getting to know the patient meant that staff could engage the patients in activities that they actually enjoyed and find out what was possibly upsetting them or causing anxiety. One patient that had previously been violent and aggressive was now calm and ready for discharge, no medication had been given, just time.

While I’m panicking about my prescribing exam it’s good to know that the answer isn’t always medication and that getting to know all of our patients, no matter what their condition, can make a huge difference. That’s certainly a lesson that will stick with me and I hope will make me a better doctor.


Joshua Galvin : 24 Oct 2017 15:59 |  Tags:       |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

September 27, 2017

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:       |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

September 21, 2017

Spending time in clinics!

Well, the pace of the fourth year hasn’t slackened at all, and things have picked right back up after our summer break. I’m still really enjoying the Care of the Surgical Patient block and am learning loads at the same time. I’m not only spending time in the theatres and on ward rounds, but also attend my fair share of clinics. A clinic is (usually) a half-day session where the doctor has appointments to meet patients alone in a treatment room and discuss their condition. Clinic appointments can be either new referrals or follow-ups; the nature of the follow-up appointments varies depending on the discipline. Some people with lifelong chronic conditions will check in with their doctor every six months or every year or something. But others, for instance after surgery or a broken bone, will come in for a meeting just to make sure that everything is OK before being discharged.

I like the nature of clinics and find them very useful to attend. It’s much easier for me to remember details of a condition when I can attach a person’s name and face to it. I can almost walk through the consultation in my head after the fact, which helps me remember investigations and management. You’re not guaranteed to see everything in a clinic, but you’ll definitely see more by attending than if you don’t go at all, and that’s what I like about them. In this block, we have the opportunity to attend a great deal of post-surgery clinics and some pre-surgery clinics as well – including vascular clinics (lots of foot ulcers and artery blockage), colorectal clinics, ENT (ear, nose and throat) clinics, breast clinics, urology clinics and more. It’s great that the organisers of the block are giving us so much of an opportunity to take advantage of what our huge hospital has to offer.

In addition to a main surgical consultant, we are also assigned to an anaesthetist (or two…) for the block and are given a lot of anaesthetics training and tutorials. I have had the privilege of spending some time in theatre with my assigned anaesthetist and have learned a great deal about the science of anaesthetics and how a lot of our physiology needs to be taken into account when anaesthetists do their jobs. It’s not all about making people unconscious and then waking them back up – so many things need to be monitored and kept within safe ranges whilst a patient is being operated on. The list of things to monitor and that can go wrong is really endless.

I recently saw an operation on a patient who was having an adrenal tumour removed; an excess level of adrenaline and related hormones were being released by the adrenal gland directly into the patient’s bloodstream. So before the gland was removed, the anaesthetist had to administer drugs to counteract the effects of the adrenaline: the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure had to be brought down and kept within safe ranges to avoid the effects of high blood pressure. But – and this is where teamwork with the surgeons comes in – as soon as the gland was removed (and ideally a few minutes before), supplementary adrenaline had to be given for a while to counteract for the sudden deficit that the patient’s body was now experiencing. Watching the physiology literally in action was absolutely fascinating and an extremely worthwhile use of my time. I cannot wait to see more!


Joshua Galvin : 21 Sep 2017 12:12 |  Tags:     |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

September 12, 2017

In Demand…

Having started my acute block on the acute medical wards, clerking relatively stable patients, I have spent the last two weeks on the Intensive care unit (ITU) and in A&E where stable is not a word used to describe many of the patients!

The ward round in ITU was one of most fascinating ward rounds I’ve been on as a medical student, many of the conditions you read about as a medical student thinking you will never actually see were there, as well as patients recovering from major traumas with multiple injuries. On ITU patients conditions aren’t just identified and treated, patients are only on ITU if one or more of their organ systems need support. That might be blood pressure supporting drugs in the case of a patient with life threatening sepsis or in more severe cases patients may require multi-organ support, for example, dialysis for kidney failure as well as mechanical ventilation to allow them to breathe. Patients in ITU have 1:1 nursing and are constantly monitored, as such a stay on ITU is very expensive and there are only so many beds, dictated by the number of staff available. ITU beds are in high demand; deteriorating patients around the hospital are referred to the ITU registrar who can then discuss potential new admissions with the consultant. In addition as UHCW is a major trauma centre there is also the possibility of a major trauma arriving that may require admission. Deciding who to admit to ITU is a murky area with no strict rules; does the patient need organ support right now, are they likely to survive even with ITU support? Unfortunately using a crystal ball isn’t an option.

Patients often get referred to ITU from A&E and while it’s much easier for patients to get through the doors of A&E, demand is so high that getting a cubicle to actually assess a patient is not so easy. In just a handful of A&E shifts I’ve seen queues of patients on ambulance trolleys, paramedics waiting to handover their patients to the nurse in charge while the nurse is frantically trying to find a space. Reading about this in the newspapers is disheartening but actually seeing it is shocking. Demand is so high and while some A&E attendances are inappropriate the vast majority aren’t and need to be seen. It was nice to feel useful as a medical student in A&E by helping the doctors clerk patients, take bloods and insert cannulas (my success rate has now improved to 50:50-good for me, maybe not so good for the poor patients!). Seeing a wide variety of presenting complaints was really interesting and used lots of different skills. In Minors I saw lively children injured in various trampolining /climbing incidents, a few sports injuries ranging from badly sprained ankles to fractured bones and even a builder with a chemical injury to the eye. In majors I saw first-hand what happens when social care fails our elderly patients, patients discharged from hospital one day and then back again the next. I was able to observe the treatment of an acute asthma attack, something which can be quite scary but didn’t seem to fluster the experienced A&E consultant. I was also excited to be asked to see a patient had been referred urgently by their GP for a possible stroke, which I correctly identified as Bell’s palsy-a relatively benign condition that will improve in time on its own.

I don’t think there is ever a dull shift in A&E and despite some of the problems with the system it was inspiring to see the Nurses and Doctors in A&E working as a team-and actually feeling like I was a contributing member of that team! I have more A&E shifts over the final two weeks of this block, here’s hoping my cannula success rate improves!


Joshua Galvin : 12 Sep 2017 14:10 |  Tags:  |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

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Our Med Life blogs are all written by current WMS MB ChB students. Although these students are paid to blog, we don’t tell our bloggers what to say. All these posts are their thoughts, opinions and insights. We hope these posts help you discover a little more about what life as a med student at Warwick is really like.

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