Monday
We had another Monday anatomy session today which I discovered were a new addition for our year and I am happy that they are there. It serves brilliantly to go over things without the pressure the surgical training centre so I get a lot from the sessions. I also managed to get through most of the Anatomy Jephoardy game with Michael and managed to nearly complete the entire table. We also discovered that if you just took both of our answers and found the median , we actually got most of them correct – so two med students are better than one ? 😅
Revue rehearsals started today! We had our read through in the evening and the script is brilliant! I’m really excited to get started! We ended up in the dirty duck after with a pint and burger – how I am used to finishing rehearsals from my undergraduate degree!
Tuesday
Tuesday was our first community day. Essentially, these are opportunities for us to find out about care in the community and how patients manage long-term conditions at home. This week, however, we were going to just scout out the area and complete final training before November. We are in Stratford Upon Avon which is a beautiful place but proved to be a problem when it came to reporting deprivation… Because there was hardly any….which is great… Just not for our presentation 😂
We also had a wander around town and had lunch in the Dirty Duck (Stratford style) as a group which was nice to do as a way to unwind after our early morning.
We had started revue rehearsals in the evening and although I nearly forgot to go (I was in my PJ’s at my desk doing work), it was great to get back to performing again!
Wednesday
This is the first Wednesday I have managed to enjoy. From being carted between NHS services to hospital teaching, I have never quite managed to have a day off. I had an early lie in (8 am wake up instead of 7 am whoop whoop) and headed to the library. The library on the main campus is huge and my favourite spot is the 5th floor. However, today my head was not working and it took me two hours to do 10 slides, though I did catch up on my emails.
I decided to go to the food market to have a bit of a break. However, this meant losing my seat in the library which was surprising at UCLan’s library was only busy in Jan and Summer exams so I guess Warwick students work harder than UCLan? That or the first years are really keen.
Headed back to my room and managed to drag myself through the rest of the lecture before admitting defeat in the evening.
Thursday
CBL today and I ended up scribing which I had been looking forward to doing. However, the case was hard and there is a mixture of elements such as polypharmacy, hypertension, kidney problems and arthritis. So we found it hard to know where to even start but we had a successful session, we just all need to go over our renal physiology.
Some more rehearsals in the evening before heading to my medic parents for tea. They were lovely to re-arrange it when I was in the hospital so I was really looking forward to the evening. I had an amazing time and the food was incredible! I also loved reminiscing about Preston with their housemate who comes from Preston and we both agreed that the the grottiest place was the best night out. They also had a bumblebee door mat in their house which confirmed that I had been placed into the right family ….
Like mother , like daughter my medic mum is also a blogger so please go and check her site out ! You can find her at The GradMed Journey
Headed home and quickly filled out my clinical skills book ready for Friday.
Friday
At the bus stop, early again today whilst the rest of my year get a lie in because I have an early meeting. I am grateful to my lecturer as he is talking about how to manage the symptoms of Asperger’s in OSCE’s.
I also had my flu and Hep B jab done and the Help B was a real stinger. 1ml of fluid injected into your arm is not the nicest feeling, but I got a sticker and a free pen out of it…. Not to mention immunity to flu and Hep B ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At lunch, Matt and I headed to the university hospital library to fill in our anatomy booklets and were treated to watching the Air Ambulance fly off. Matt wants to go into trauma medicine so it was a euphoric end of the week for him!
Anatomy went well with the models again and I thought back to my first week when touching the surface anatomy model was my worst nightmare and now I’m happy to try and palate to find deeper structures such as the 12th rib…. So you could say I ended this week on a high 🙂
Maybe I’ll actually get through med school one day 🙂
We finished off the week by playing cards against humanity again, with a particular stella one relating to the wildlife around Warwick. Our international flatmates seem to excel at this game despite not knowing half of the references… Im calling beginners luck ..,.
We also had a game of uno of which became really tense even though it was getting on for midnight and we had all been up since five that day …..
Saturday
I could hardly sleep last night as I knew my parents were coming to visit with the second love of my life … my dog. I was also re-united with my guitar, ukulele and bike so I was one pretty happy student. I have begun to grow sick of walking so having my bike up is going to be life changing. We caught up in my room and then went for a pub dinner in a pub near campus. Mum also went home with my purse which lead to a panic call on Sunday for her to post it back to campus.
Sunday
I was grateful for the turning back of the clocks this week as I had a pretty rough night with both jab arms hurting again and we had our first anatomy day of the year. Nadir (my flatmate) and I walked up to the Med School for a 9am start. The anatomy days are run by the upper years and consist of short 20 min teaching sessions going over key points of the block. I found this useful and particularly enjoyed the pizza break. If you ever want to see the human equivalent of vultures , put a pizza in front of Med Students.
We were also taught by two Ollies from the year above who were unfortunately landed with the topic of “Inguinal Canals”, something we hadn’t covered yet. However, the session still was useful and I can guarantee that without it, I would have been 100% lost in Mondays lecture on it. The outfit co-ordination by the two Ollies was great too (not sure if planned). Ollie also has a blog/youtube channel and I recommend having a gander as this is what got me through my interviews and that agonising wait for decisions..
Overall, I did come out feel a bit worse off as I know less than I thought , but now I can focus on these areas and nail them before block two.
Finally, we arrived home and I spent the evening watching Nadir go crazy over F1 whilst I made a kahoot for my CBL the next day.
Fini
Update : Nadir has nagged me to make sure I mention that Hamilton won the Championship in this race – though if you live round Tocil , you would have heard the celebrations 😂
Further Update : Nadir has reminded me it was his 5th Championship Title …. If my knowledge of Medicine was as good as Nadirs knowledge of F1 then I would be a consultant by now……
