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!