Back by popular request

Well I'm blogging again. Had a family gathering last week and everybody was asking what had happened to it so I'm making a come back. On my second day as a Healthcare Assistant, I worked a 13 hour shift at a care home so did lots of bathing, toileting and generally helping lots of elderly residents. I was exhausted when I left and subsequently took a wrong turn when walking back to the station and I got quite lost and found myself outside of a dark, leafy psychiatric hospital but thankfully called a taxi and made it home safely.

Blogging again

I'm back at uni after 3 and a bit weeks off. I figured that I'd work better here, less distractions than at home. I'm currently plodding through the Life Cycle module and today has gone okay.


I spent two days at my community placement last week, the girls there were trying out new arts-based activities and I got to try floristry, felt making, drumming, singing and jewellery making which was all fun and counted for quite a few of the total hours which i need to make up.

I also helped out at the Medicine open day where I was paid to talk about how much I love medical school for five hours, which was a bit good.

The Glastonbury line-up was announced last week and I'm muchly excited! Especially about Florence, Marina, Frankie & the Heartstrings, Imogen Heap and Editors.

Better week

Got some free time this week. had yesterday afternoon off, this afternoon off (but I'm going to my community placement) and all day tomorrow so I'm going to get caught up. I'm also staying down here on Friday and studying all day Saturday. So I'll definitely end the week more up to date (if not fully up to date). feeling better about it. Off for (free) lunch with my tutor in a moment.

Tuesday musings

I'm still working 'smart' (that's more efficient than just the traditional method of working hard, apparently) although I didn't do as much as I hoped at the weekend as I was snuggled under my duvet with another cold. Feel totally fine now, possibly down to the herbal remedy (hippy sh*t) Echinacea which I took twice on Saturday. Although having had a lecture on the placebo effect this afternoon- I'm not entirely convinced but I feel better anyway.

I've been using my big A4 diary to review stuff and my motivation is still very high.

I was in hospital on Friday to practice taking a history form the cardio or respiratory patients. I had a very nice but very poorly old lady who had a chest infection. I think the history taking went quite well but when she coughed up some phlegm and spat it into her collecting pot I did gag. This is possibly the most gross experience during my time as a medical student so far. However, she was quite deaf and didn't hear me gag and I was later able to look at the pot and determine it's contents were green without being sick. It ain't as glamours as they make out sometimes!

While ill at the weekend and waiting for my Indian take-away to be delivered (a delicious chicken tikka pathia and onion pilau rice) I watched a pretty good episode of Casualty. I diagnosed the young diver as having a pneumothorax (that's air in the space around the lung, i.e. a punctured lung) when he did in fact have haemothorax (blood in the space around the lung) and felt quite pleased for being close-ish. i should have inspected the x-ray more clearly! The highlight of my evening (aside from my curry being delivered after waiting for an hour and a half!) was when the paramedics brought a patient in and I figured out what all of the acronyms meant;

Dixie- GCS of ten

Me- Ooooh, that's Glasgow Coma Scale!

Sad I know but it made me smile- when I wasn't well myself!

I'm exhausted!

I've had a really busy day again today. i didn't go to sleep until after midnight on the last two nights which is probably catching up with me for a start. On Tuesday night I sat up studying and reading a book I got out of the library called "Mnemonics for medical students" and last night I was ploughing through a book called Talk of the Town by Jacob Polley which is the book of the month at the book club I'm joining on Saturday. I've got about another 100 pages to read tonight and tomorrow! I'm joining the book club to read more (1 book a month for a year is 12 books!) and also because my boyfriend always jokes that I never finish books so I'm going to give this ago. It's not something I'd usually pick up and it's written phonetically in Cumbrian dialect but I'm enjoying it.

This morning we had a lecture from a community paediatrician on milestones in child development which was interesting. I then made lunch and went to my community placement for my induction with two other girls from my course. After that I bought a couple of birthday cards in town (and a cake!) and went to tutor my new GCSE science tutee. I've got a girl for A-level biology next week too.

Now I'm back in my flat and about to to write up today's notes. my dad gave em a big A4 diary and I'm trying to write up the key things I've been taught each day and then look back at them 1 day, 1 week and 1 month later as this is apparently the most effective way to get things into your long term memory. I certainly need a more effective study method than I had last term due to the shear volume of material that we cover. Our lectures are longer (time wise) than my last degree and we also have more lectures per week than during my previous degree so I shouldn't be surprised there is so much to learn.

I'm in hospital tomorrow. I'm going to see either a cardiovascular patient or a respiratory patient and take a medical history from them. Today we've also been told that we can sign-up to shadow an anaethnatist during surgery sometime in the future. It's at the big university hospital and it should be really interesting as I've never been in an operating theatre before.

Back to lectures

Exams were okay, but only okay. I found the DIPSE the best which is contrary to what everybody else thought which isn't usually a good sign. Additionally i failed to identify a nipple on the cadaver (it was a man!) in the anatomy exam so I'm not feeling too clever.

However, they're only the first ones, don't count for very much but proved the shear volume of material which you need to know in medicine and hence how much revision you need to do in the term and not just the five weeks before exams.

This morning got off to a slow start. We were in 9-11am to identify our learning outcomes for the kidney lectures but got done just before 10am. so i went back to my flat, had a brew and read a couple of pages of the physiology textbook. returned to lecture theatre at 11am but lecturer didn't show up so after sitting around for 20 minutes we left. I'm in again 12-1pm for history taking and then 2-5pm for communication skills.

Revising

First exam tomorrow and I'm pretty nervous. I think my anxiety is being compounded by the other medical students I live with talking in great detail about alveolar compliance and other topics I haven't revised. i just haven't been able to get through everything. Medics are known for being competitive and countless people have said don't believe the people who appear to know everything. When my boyfriend was at uni he said his mates were at the opposite end of the spectrum- bragging about how little work they had done for the exams.

It's different living with people doing the same course and pretty intense. When I did my last degree and lived at home I hardly saw anybody else during the run up to exams so it was only during the half an hour of hanging around outside the exam venue that I could get freaked out.

I'm just re-revising the stuff I've done at the moment- no point trying to learn anything new now. My exam is at 2.30pm tomorrow afternoon.

On a happier note i made my first Spanish Omelet for tea this evening and it was delicious so I'm quite pleased with myself. Shame it's not a cookery exam tomorrow...

Happy New Year

Hello again!

I've been really bad and I haven't posted for ages but I will try harder this year. I'm currently revising for exams which commence on 18th January.

I've got three exams-

1. a DIPSE (not the telly-tubby- it stands for something like data interpretation and short answer questions although I know that doesn't spell DIPSE. It's a bit like a GCSE science paper where you write odd words or short paragraphs actually on the exam paper. You also have to write your candidate number on every page because they break the paper up and the different subjects are marked by different people)
2. a MCQ/EMI (multiple choice and extended matching items whihc is multiple choice but with about 10 or 12 options)
3. anatomy spotter (the specimens have various pins stuck in them and you have to precicely identify which stucture the pin is pointing to)

It's going okay, certainly more enjoyable than revising for any of the stuff I did in my previous degree. I've also gotta keep a blog as part of my course called a Learning Portfolio where I learn be reflecting on expereinces that I have had both inside and out of the classroom.

I watched Julie and Julia again the other night which is probably the reason I'm blogging again. It was definately my favourite film of 2009- I loved it. The 1940's Parisian glamour, the food, the clothes, New York...

I've been dreaming about food and drink ever since. Last night it was Pina Coladas with my friend Mim. It's was great night out and no headache this morning!