Monday
Decided not to go in for morning lectures because I am really not gelling with the style of lectures currently being delivered so I decided to spend my time working to catch up rather than zoned out for three hours. I am slowly getting my head around this block, even if it is taking forever.
We had our closing CBL in the afternoon and I was pretty happy to get rid of the chair position. I was a good learning experience but it’s not me … especially when I have no idea what is going on content wise.
Monday evening brought a meeting with Tom in the year above (who I embarrassed myself in front of at my own interview by declaring ” You’re Tom from Ollie’s blog !”… not my finest hour). We were being briefed for the Sunday on which a group of second years had put on an MMI outreach day and I was going to be on a student panel. I was looking forward to it but I had got annoyed with someone when they snorted with laughter when I announced it take me up to 5 hours to get through one lecture, so I was in a pretty bad mood. Not everyone is like that at med school and most of the time it’s only occasionally that people do act like it but it drives me up the wall.
Tuesday
Tuesday brought part two of my community day. We presented our patient cases to the rest of our group and despite being a member down, we got some really good feedback! In the afternoon we have external speakers come in to talk but two of us were lucky enough to visit a special needs school. It has always been an interest of mine to find out about education and care needs for children with extra needs, especially with my uncle. He suffered an accident when he was little so I’ve grown up with him and he is one of my favourite people in the world. However, I have always known him as an adult so to see what facilities there are for children answered a lot of questions.
I had my student seminar in the evening and with my medic dad jetted off halfway around the world, Ollie Bond from the year above stepped in as our “guest lecturer”. Again, these seminars save me as I now have some idea of what is going on meaning I can make my notes from the lectures and actually understand them!
Wednesday
I went to bed having done no extra work last night after my flatmate told me it would be fine because we have Wednesdays off… which is normally true, except I had forgotten about all the training that I had to do that day.
We had our first session up in the MTC for the medical school interviews happening in two weeks time. I remember every second from my own interview in Jan so this was nice to peek behind the curtain.
I did not realise, however, how much weight each medical student brought for the fate of the medical school and the teaching hospitals. WMS pays 40% of the constant salaries at UHCW so if the medical school went under tomorrow (because of students dropping out) then UHCW would also close. This is terrifying to think of so it’s essential the right people are picked. Which of course gave me a huge self-esteem boost.
I am really looking forward to working for the interviews although I can’t tell you guys any more than that because it’s confidential but as far as training sessions go, it was one of the best I have been to. Concise and to the point.
As we came out the MTC Christmas tree had been put up and it’s amazing to see..
Our second training session was moving and handling at UHCW so I legged it over there on the bus and made it for the afternoon training. The nurses were lovely and just as keen to get it over with as we were so less than an hour and a half later, I was on the bus back to campus. Result.
Thursday
We had a new CBL session today and I was happy to not be chairing or scribing. We also set up our secret Santa in our group so I am excited to see what we all bring on Monday. I had found the perfect present for my person but it was £20 postage…. slightly above the £5 limit …..
Ashika had made brownies again and Dillan displayed some impressive concentration skills by decorating Kajanis hoodie with orange sticky notes… So good session 😀
Ollie had also given me back my Marsh book and I could not stop smiling for the rest of the afternoon. I finally had it and I geeked out for a full 10 minutes and even now I can’t not smile when I look at it. All three of my medical bibles are now signed …. :
In the evening we had clinical skills again and there were a significantly increased number of people there due to the nature of respiratory exams. I had a shocker of a headache pounding through my brain at this point so I was not feeling my best. However, the session again cleared a lot up and despite me having to run off before practice (sorry to let you down Will !) I value these sessions more than anything.
I also found out that a friend from my old uni had placed third in the European powerlifting competition. I am so proud that she has accomplished this, well-done bobby!
We also had our reunion meal that evening. Everyone from revue had come together to eat curry ( our curry nights get spicy) and have a giggle. It was amazing seeing everyone again and I realised how much I missed them all. We had a couple of awards to give out named after inside jokes at the med school and I am pleased to say that the table gained special recognition as the biggest muck up of the evening.
Friday
Up to the hospital again for a morning of “Making every contact count”. Although I enjoyed the sessions and it was far less dry than I was expecting. We were basically thaught the same thing over and over again which was slightly tiresome at the end. We also received our hospital ID badges (cue the rugby scrum of medical students) and I am pleased to say I look like I could appear on an episode of the Simpsons…
Managed to get a lift back in the evening after anatomy which was amazing as A) I didn’t have to sit on a bus and B) I could leg it over to the mailroom where a parcel had been left for me. Annoyingly, the team had decided to email me back just as I walked into the building to say that they hadn’t processed it yet. The next time I can get there is Wednesday so I hope they don’t process it before Monday otherwise my parcel will be sent back.
I had also brought myself a treat last Friday which I finally got round to putting up, remote control fairy lights!
Saturday
Dragged myslef out of bed for physiology day today. Again, another lifesaver of a session as I discovered that I knew more about the lungs than I thought I did but nothing on the heart (which is not surprising as I haven’t actually made notes on it yet). Cosco pizza was also delivered and I got the chance to chat to Will over lunch and we decided to go to the Christmas carol concert where my medic mum is playing next week as I mentioned I missed the carol concerts from my secondary school days.
In the evening we headed over to cannon to pick up some secret Santa presents before getting home and finally finishing a lecture I had been trying to get through for 5 days…
Sunday
The final day of a busy week! Today was the MMI day that a group of second years had out on. The day was brilliant and was run free of charge to the students involved in the hope to widen participation in medicine.
In the morning I was in charge of an MMI circuit (by far the most stressed out I have ever been) but it was nice to be on the other side instead of a nervous candidate. The second years were pretty stressed due to some printing / stapling disaster going on but the day went amazingly well and despite how tired they all looked, the sixth formers hopefully got something out of it.
A massive well congratulations must go to the team of second years though as they had arranged it off their own backs on top of their degrees. I’ve been moaning on this blog about how tired I am but I am pretty sure at least one of them is running on 10 hours accumulative sleep this week. It gave me an of inspiration for the STEM outreach day I want to run in the summer as part of a URSS project but again, that’s a backburner idea…
Finally, got back to the flat and begrudgingly did my washing, cooking and wrapping of secret Santa presents and despite my promise to myself to do some work, I can feel my eyes becoming heavier… It’s ok, I would rather not be tired tomorrow… FINAL WEEK OF BLOCK TWO ……. THANK THE LORDS OF MEDICINE
MedBeeMedic 