The End of CCE 2

This week marked the end of CCE 2, I cannot believe how quickly the months are going by.

The most enjoyable aspect of this block for me is definitely my GP placement, so it was sad to say goodbye to the fantastic team at the surgery we have been assigned to this week. My clinical partner and I have grown really fond of the picturesque village of Upton-on-Severn in Worcestershire where we have been attached for the last 7 weeks.

During our lunch break last week we even managed to hire a small boat and have a little adventure on the river which was great fun and the perfect antidote to a busy morning surgery! Fun aside, over the course of this placement, I have really felt as though I have been the closest to actually being a doctor than I have at any point so far on the course. We’ve had the chance every week to lead the consultations and diagnose patients, all under support and supervision, but largely the onus is on us to lead the consultation. This is a huge responsibility, but I believe that definitely the best way to learn is experientially, by “doing”. The support from the amazing GPs at the surgery gave me the opportunity to lead consultations with confidence and really build on the skills I have been taught so far, as well as put them into practice for real. It was no longer a case of ‘watch and learn’ but rather ‘do and learn’ and I really feel my time spent at this placement has been so valuable to my growth as a budding clinician.

As this week is the last week of the block, I spent some time finding my consultants to try and get my sign offs for the end of this block. It has been bittersweet discussing my progress this block, reflecting on the various things I’ve done but also the fact that it is now over and we will be moving on soon. One highlight has been attending kidney clinics and the dialysis ward with our renal consultant. I wasn’t the biggest fan of kidneys at all after first year due to the complicated physiology, and I suppose in part the fact that I am from an arts background so all of the physiology was completely new to me. However, actually seeing these patients in clinic and on the dialysis ward this block has been really enlightening. Clinical nephrology (the study of kidneys) is actually a very involved speciality where you really get to know the patients as you see them long term and are also involved in preparation and assessment for kidney transplant and evaluation for dialysis treatment. I certainly don’t have the same fear of kidneys now, and in fact I actually quite like them!

We now have a week off (during which I’m going to County Mayo in Ireland for what I think is a well-earned break!), before starting back for our third Core Clinical Education block. This is our only week off from January-September, so I feel as though I really need some time off. Everyone always says that Graduate Medicine is intense, but you don’t realise how true this is until you get here. Despite this, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

I cannot believe that this is our last block of this year before our exams, and I feel as though it has gone so quickly. However, I would say that it also feels like its been a long journey in terms of the amount we have learned and the progress we have made, into budding clinicians and doctors. After all, this is why we signed up to the course – to be doctors! For my next block, I am attached to Orthopaedic surgery and Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Stories of many babies and tibias to come!

Jordan

Charlie Gallan : 20 May 2019 10:13 |  Tags: Jordan Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Mr Marsh – Can I have a photo please?

There has been a surprising amount that has gone on these past two weeks. We are in the final week of block 5 (gulp) and today we have our final CBL of Phase 1. We have decided we are going to go through a children’s party of sorts and I have supplied choc ices and a cake with a 7 on the top as we are group 7. I must admit, I am happy that CBL has come to an end, as all I have just wanted to revise but it is important that we keep to some sort of normality as after all, block 5 is just as important.

I feel like some bits on information are sticking but I still feel really overwhelmed with how much we must do. I am really nervous for the unknown, but I guess I have just got to keep going. It’s only three more weeks. I still struggle with the drugs list and SOC/POP due to the vast amount of information but I like anatomy and I love Block three so I guess I have just got to remind myself that I do have some strengths!

I have also met one of my medical heroes recently by the name of Mr Henry Marsh. I read his book “Do No Harm” when I was in year 13 and having no hope of getting into medicine with my grades. His book gripped me and since then I have wanted to pursue a career in Neurosurgery. I even got to experience 2 weeks with one of his trainees! Mr Marsh was lovely and a pleasant surprise was finding out he was a Paediatric Neurosurgeon, my goal. It was fascinating listening to him talk and I was sitting there with a massive grin on my face. There were also a couple of Warwick people there too and one of whom I share a love for everything Neuro related, and we were talking about how much we were looking forward to it before. Mr Marsh talked about his love of tools and his development from medical student to one of the best Neurosurgeons in the country. It is just as inspiring as Mr Marsh was technically a GEM student like us at Warwick. He originally studied PPE at Oxford and worked as a hospital porter before pursing his career in medicine. I was incredible to finally meet him, and he even signed my brain light and I have now got a photo of me with him on my desk to get me through this revision period. I had been joking with one of the lecturers here that I would probably get a restraining order if I ever met him from being such a fan so I emailed them to say that police intervention was not needed!

We have also had a lecture on AC1 which was slightly terrifying to think we are nearing it. However, it was also a bit weird as the state I am in, I often doubt if I will make it! I am looking forward to next year if I do make it though, I am looking forward to being able to direct my own learning a bit more and being able to have a bit more freedom with what I learn (to an extent). I also really want to carry on the Warwick Student Seminars for the new first years as I found I love teaching and supporting those around me. I have just got to get there first!

We have another open day before exams so I’m meeting up with Jordan again. It is on my to do list to re-vamp the presentation, so it is suitable for a two-person delivery. The next blog I write will be the last before my exams…. And that is terrifying.

Abbie

Charlie Gallan : 14 May 2019 15:35 |  Tags: Abbie Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

General Practice and Surgical Skills

We’ve had quite a few clinical skills labs recently, and this week we’ve had labs on fundoscopy and then a workshop on suturing. Fundoscopy also called (ophthalmoscopy) is shining a light into the eye to look at the retina (at the back of the eye) to check the blood vessels and look for changes which could be caused, for example, by diabetes. Although it sounds easy in principle, as I quickly found out in the skills lab, it is not!

At first I couldn’t see anything. I’ve been told that it takes years of practice to master this skill, and I’m sure it will take this long as all I could see was redness... The second clinical skills lab I had was suturing, which is essentially sewing up a wound. I’ve done a little bit of this before, so it wasn’t completely new to me, as my partner brought me a suturing kit from the internet last Christmas. (would recommend as a relaxation tool, practising your suturing while watching TV…) The session was facilitated by a surgical nurse practitioner and a surgeon, which was great to get tips from the people who do it multiple times a day! Practice makes perfect, and we have further teaching on suturing and surgical skills in future years, so it was good to be introduced to this skill at an early stage in our careers.

Recently, I have been thinking more and more about what direction I want my career to take post-graduation, and even what specialty I want to end up in. As a second year, graduation is still some way away, but in two year’s time, we will have finished finals and be waiting to start our first job as qualified doctors. When I first started the course, most of my work experience was in acute medicine – so I thought I wanted to work in A&E, Intensive Care of Anaesthetics. I have enjoyed my placements in these areas but I have also been surprised at how much I have enjoyed General Practice too. I think that my personality is well suited to a generalist specialty, where you might be seeing a heart patient one moment and a baby the next. I get bored easily and think I would struggle in a speciality without this variety. General Practice has been fantastic so far, and I have really loved the chance to see so many interesting cases and practice my examination skills. I also love the fact that you build up a rapport with patients and get to know them and their stories, and hopefully see a good outcome for them in the end. I’d never considered it before, but I think GP may be for me, although time will tell whether I still feel this way in two year’s time. Putting this down in writing I may look back on this and wince at how I end up not doing this at all, but these are my thoughts at the current moment.

Jordan

Charlie Gallan : 07 May 2019 10:05 |  Tags: Jordan Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Harnesses, friends and cups of tea

I feel like it was three seconds ago I was writing my last blog. Exam fever really has set in now and I am trying my best not to get too wound up but it is hard! However, I have discovered a new outlet. Warwick have just opened a new sports centre which has an incredible climbing wall. A lot of people here enjoy climbing so I thought I would give it a go. It was fantastic. I was out of the MTC and had two hours where all I thought about was where my feet and hands were going to go. I am having to learn the ropes (literally) as I need to learn how to tie the knots to climb but the auto-belays are just as good, and I am enjoying pushing myself up the walls and letting off a bit of steam. However, the new sports hub means that the wall has moved from 30 seconds outside my door to a 10-minute bike ride. I guess it just means I can have a few extra biscuits!

Outside of medicine and climbing, I didn’t get the internship. I was slightly disappointed, but you win some and lose some, I guess! I have found another opportunity that I managed to apply to over the weekend thanks to one of my neuro tutors who wrote a reference for me over the weekend! Thank you Dawn! I am excited about it but I am not going to pin my hopes up as I know its competitive, but I guess so is medicine in general! I am also still waiting for the results of my application to become a resident tutor but I won’t find out till June so it is going to be a long wait.

Revision has been the majority of every single one of my days but thankfully, I have an amazing group of friends around me to get through it all. This weekend we have been laughing together about insignificant things such as the inability to work for 20 minutes without talking to each other. We have our own spots, make each other cups of tea (Sam has re-named me his tea wife) and share resources around including yesterday when I was slightly on the manic side and I decided my new technique to remember the basal ganglia pathway was so good, it needed to be shared with everyone. I was basically wandering around the MTC repeating this mnemonic over and over again to everyone I saw which was a surprising amount for the weekends! I am not mad. Yet. We ended up heading to the dirty duck after a hard day studying to have a bit of light relief in the form of burgers and a couple of drinks.

One of the second years Ollie has also been giving me small glimpses of next year. We both are interested in Neurosurgery and Ollie is getting to watch a lot of neurosurgery, so I get updates about “open craniotomies” and “optical canal meningiomas” whilst I am sitting here doing Anki, growing slowly mad. It is nice though, as it makes these exams seem a little less like an impossible mountain to climb and more of a marathon. Hard but not impossible. I can’t wait to be full time in hospital and being able to go down to the Neurosurgery ward to experience these surgeries for myself and hopefully experience some Neuroradiology which is also growing as an interest of mine. Henry Marsh is also in Stratford this Friday, so I am hoping to go and see him as he has been such a big influence in my medical career.

One of my friends from my undergraduate days also recently got an offer to study here next year and I am not sure who was more excited, her or me! It will be nice to have a fellow UCLan grad here and even more importantly, a fellow Neuro! It’s becoming real now that we will soon be taking this exam and hopefully passing into second year, I can’t wait to see patients. I just need to get through these next few weeks! Someone send coffee ... A lot of it .... Please.

Abbie

Charlie Gallan : 30 Apr 2019 09:55 |  Tags: Abbie Mbchb Neurosurgery Revision Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Block 5 … Babies and hormones

So, we are officially back from Easter break and I can officially say that it felt like we had 4 seconds off rather than 4 weeks. I was worried about the atmosphere when everyone else returned but it has been really nice and everyone is building each other up and reminding everyone that making sure they have a break is just as important as learning pharmacology. I have also discovered I have grown rather attached to my spot in the MTC computer room as someone was sat in it the other day and I just ended up wandering around until they moved so I could work…. I wonder if a post-it note claiming my spot will work?

I am enjoying Block 5 so far which is our child development and pregnancy block. The physiology is actually going ok for once and I am enjoying my lectures. We have Jamie Roebuck back for anatomy this term and I think he has provided the most memorable moments such as the “abseiling testicle” and demonstrating what the lithotomy position was on the front bench of the lecture theatre. We have also had our block lead Dawn Cannon who has taken us through contraception meaning there was a line-up of 5 students holding condoms at the front of the lecture hall describing them to us. Block 5 is going to be eventful. I have also had the joy of being a mother for one lecture by holding a plastic doll whilst taking notes, much more difficult that you would first think.

My favourite lecture so far has been on development as we talked about the teenage brain which is one of the topics of Neuroscience I love more than anything. I first got interested in the world of Neuro by a book which detailed all the aspects of Teenage Neuroscience, so it’s a topic of which I am ridiculously passionate about and could talk about it all day (though I think everyone would hate me for that !!).

It’s a busy time as I have also applied for a WMS internship which will be developing a new peer teaching programme and a booklet for the new first years. I had my interview the other day so … fingers crossed! I have also applied to be a resident life tutor which is a live-in student who helps the first years with their time living in halls. The role looks incredible as I get to be the friendly face for the first years to come to with problems but it also means I have to deal with things like noise complaints and encouraging the freshers to not be typical freshers and keep the kitchen areas at least liveable! I am waiting to hear if I have got an interview but it does mean I currently have a lot of balls being juggled at the moment!

My scheme that I set up over the holiday has taken well. I get a little wave of excitement when I hear people taking mugs or using blankets. I am really happy that people have deemed it as useful and I hope to build on it in the future. I have also just taken on a role in Neuroscience Society working on the outreach and engagement which I am really looking forward to getting my teeth into.

The first open day went really well and I enjoyed meeting all the premeds. It felt so weird as I was in their position just over a year and a half ago. I still have my pen from my Warwick open day and the pack we were given. I was slightly nervous giving my talk but once we got rolling I was in my element. It reminded me just how much I love public speaking and I even got a couple of laughs on the day!

I am a bit stressed. I found that trying to get to sleep at night is proving to be a mission and I am struggling to completely switch off. I am worried how this will develop as we get closer to exams but I guess it’s something that is affecting everyone. However, the nights are drawing out and campus is looking as beautiful as ever which makes late night studying that much easier. Cycling past the lake means I have met the newest arrivals of some goose chicks. I wish I could show you a picture to show just how fluffy they are!

Anyway, back to work I suppose!

Abbie

Charlie Gallan : 23 Apr 2019 14:51 |  Tags: Abbie Easter Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem