Month: Mar 2019

Monday

What a start to the week.

This morning began in a bit of a hurry because I had signed myself up to go
to the deans breakfast which started at 8 and having woken up at 6, I thought I
would take a nap…. this nap meant I woke up at 7:30.

I quickly managed to throw some clothes on and luckily I’d made my lunch and
my tea tonight before hand. I’ve decided to start taking tea up to the medical
school building, so it means that I am not eating my dinner at 11:45pm at night
instead I’m eating it at 6 so I’m not going to bed on a full stomach.

The deans breakfast was actually really nice and I feel that the group of us
had a productive discussion with the senior staff about what is going well with
the course and what could be improved.

We then hung around for the first lecture of the day which started at 10 and
it was a bit of a review session where I kind of realised that I didn’t have as
much of a grasp on the lower limb as I thought I might have. I’m not too fussed
though because I haven’t actually had the chance to properly go over the notes
so, I think when that is done I will be a lot more happier with the content.

I decided to not stay for the next lecture because this lecturer had previously
had just read off the slides so, I went to a CBL room and set up the tea and
empathy society and then finalised my presentation for community placement.

The society was actually really successful today, we had a couple of staff
from the wellbeing services on campus come up and chat to us medical students.
I think it was nice for people to know that the wellbeing service finally know
how restricted we are on getting to main campus services, and it’s something
that has been brought up quite a lot recently as the main campus have had their
su elections. We actually had a couple of representatives from the su make it
up to gibbet hill through the election week. I made a joke saying ” oh the
SU actually exists?!” and they laughed but one of the guys replied
“yeah well the path up to gibbet hill was a bit of a trek” to which I
just looked at him. I wish I could use that excuse to escape my 9 a.m.
lectures.

After lunch we had the usual anatomy and CBL in the common room anatomy
session we were giving white rubber gloves to draw on the distribution of the
nerves of the hand. I love this as I’d actually started doing something like it
in the anatomy session last Friday. I took some rubber gloves as spares and now
I think I have practically 1/2 of the glove collection from anatomy in my
locker.

I carried this on through the computer room session as there was no point me
carrying out the actual task because I didn’t feel I knew enough to be doing
it. one of the new anatomy professors was hanging around watching me draw on
these gloves adding layer-by-layer all main muscles and nerves, I just hope I
got it all right.

I know I find this technique useful as one of my course mates Tom ended up
in the Toc flat this weekend, because he just wanted to find out more about
accommodation. I begged him to teach me some anatomy tricks so he drew the
muscles of the forearm straight on me, and I can still remember them today so
I’m guessing there’s some tricks of the trade there.

CBL was the usual, it was really quick today as we only had 4 pages to get
through. the team are working well again and we have always joked about trying
to get CBL team of the year. However, my facilitator had their notes out and I
saw that they had circles the word “no” when asked if they were
nominating us. Dammit.

I’ve gone to fetch a parcel from the locker and coming back I bumped into
one of my friends in second year. He did the Revue with me and I haven’t really
seen much of him since then. He is also a bit of a theatre nerd like me so it
was really nice to see him again. I was chatting about how the musical theatre
society at Warwick are performing “dogfight” the musical over summer,
and I’ve been so tempted to audition because I think these songs from it a beautiful,
but I guess exams are a bit more important right now. Oh well, there’s always
next year.

I then decided to stay late in the medical school building to try and get
some work done. Surprise surprise. My usual study partner Sam decided to leave
at 8 because he has a human to go to at home, whereas I have Rolf the cat who
is currently on the mend after being run over by a van earlier this year.

I was a bit hesitant about going home really. We have had reports that
someone had been mugged down by the bus stop outside gibbet hill campus. The
criminals had decided to lure the person away by saying that someone was in
need of help out of sight. I was worried because I obviously cycle to and from
the med school and even though I was going back down to campus and wouldn’t be
passing the bus stop, the thought had been put in my head of someone jumping
out down the path. I’m pretty sure that I would have been perfectly safe but I
just didn’t feel confident about going down the Tocil path this evening.

I was originally going to get the shuttle bus back down to main campus, but
I finished too late for that to happen. Luckily, my lovely medic uncle Will
offered me a lift back to campus in his car.

I think the tiredness of the day got to me as I fell in a bit of a mushy
mood. I am so proud of my year getting to this point, and I know that we will
get through these exams together.

• 

• 

• 

Tuesday

Final community placement day today, which means the final presentation! I’m happy that we don’t have to do it anymore as they can be frustrating to put together when you have a million and one other things to do.

It also meant that it was the last time we were going to see our clinical tutors in a while. I felt kind of sad as they had been supportive of us over this year and it was always nice to see them at the end of a long day. We got individual feedback on the reflections we produced a couple of weeks back and I was happy to hear that they thought my communication skills were good and that my reflection was strong. Considering I am not really wired that way, I am happy to see my hard work is paying off!

Tuesday evening I drifted back to the med school and managed to get some work done after a long day, although I can feel something brewing in the back of my throat, I hope that it isn’t the bug going round Tocil , it’s the last thing I need.

Wednesday

Yes, indeed it was. I woke up today with my throat on fire and a cough that was sore on my chest. Still, I dragged myself up to the MTC because I had work to do but ended up sleeping on the bean bags for most of the day. I did get some work done but not as much as I would have liked to have gotten done. I ended up just laughing with Daryl, Faith and Abi in the common room, but laughter is the best medicine right ?

In the evening we had our careers in Neurosciences evening which was really insightful with talks from a Stroke doctor and two neurologists. They were inspiring and gave some tips on how to stand out on applications. We were meant to have a neurosurgeon and a neuropsychiatrist but unfortunately their schedules resulted in them not being able to come. I got to chat to my friends in the upper years though and have a discussion about getting involved in research in the upcoming years 🙂

Thursday

Full.On.Lergy. I dragged myself to the MTC for my 9 and 10am lectures as the 10am was looking at the exams coming up including the dates which I now have written into my calendar. It’s terrifying but I know what with dam hard work, it is possible. I had to go home after though as I just felt ridiculously rough which is a shame as I was looking forward to the revision PPD session in the afternoon. It turns out everyone in Tocil has been infected at some point from one person, so currently everyone is being taken down by this one lergy. Laura and I basically spent the afternoon in bed messaging each other about feeling guilty about not doing medicine work even though Laura is basically mid flu and I feel like I need to be in the range of a bowl at all times. Hopefully, I will feel better tomorrow as we have fresh tissue!

Friday

Managed to make it in. I went to anatomy where I understood something! I had a chat with one of our lecturers Jamie about the back plexuses as these have become mushed in my head as they have been brushed over, and being the neurotic person I am , I need to know the details, Jamie is brilliant as his way of teaching can make you feel like even knowing the tiniest of details is a huge accomplishment.

The fresh tissue was incredible, and I got to pull on some tendons to move the fingers and toes. I was surprised as to how strong these things are and I loved being able to sit and understand how the muscles are related to each other in a real anatomical specimen. We had a review of the clinical skills in the afternoon and I managed to grab one of my lecturers James to ask him about managing stress from exams and revision. I wanted to ask James specifically as he knows about not being able to switch off from Medicine and how to best handle it due to the “wiring” of our brains. I still find James helpful, so I feel I have found at least three lecturers here that I can trust and go to about anything. Im hoping that the distinct lack of first years during the Easter break will mean I get the chance to sit down with people such as Jamie and Tunstall to go over things I find difficult. I really want to ace these exams …….

Speaking of exams, this will be the last blog post until we come back from Easter. I wont really be doing much apart from revising and occasionally taking a break. They won’t be interesting if I do them but I am planning on having a video to release each week and keeping the Instagram updated. Please bear with !

Abbie 🙂

Go and check out my Youtube channel for more procastination !

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSzkNY8TnBx28gtB-h7c04ghttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSzkNY8TnBx28gtB-h7c04g

Oh, because Nadir made me promise I would do this before he gave me some Strepsils for my throat this morning : Should also mention F1 starts again on Sunday… There goes my quiet Sunday mornings

I think exam fever is starting to set in. You know that feeling before you get a cold and you don’t feel right but you can’t pin point what exactly is wrong? That is me at the moment!

Monday

Another week, another lecture and another community day week meaning Monday started with a 9am. I often find myself drifting back to block one where 5 9am’s in a row were normal, and now I can’t even handle one ! It was pretty much a normal day, except the elections have started here for the MedSoc committee next year meaning there are posters everywhere, I mean, I can’t even get some water from the tap without being bombarded by 5 posters. In their credit though, this has been very political and honest and fair, unlike nearly all the student elections I had seen! Sam also taught me a easy way to remember the Brachial Plexus which has become my new favourite thing…

Tuesday

We had our final community day today for Phase One (gulp). We had a really interesting case of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and I made friends with a local cat (what can I say, I am an animal whisperer). The patient was lovely and gave us a detailed breakdown of their life and how their condition affects them, especially as a parent to a newborn. We also got to visit a gym to learn about how adaptions in the work place can help the disabled and how being compromised mobility wise shouldn’t stop you from visiting the gym. Finally, we got to go to a mobility centre where we were taught about the different mobility aids on offer and how the NHS does and does not fund each type of wheelchair. We even got to have a go on some of them, they were all comfortable but after 5 minutes my arms were quickly tired, and I could see how being in a wheelchair all day would significantly impact someone who would have to travel a lot for a job. I also tried imagining going around even the Warwick campus in one and I have to say I think it would be a struggle. The campus is hilly especially the path to and from the med school campus so despite it all being novel to try, it really did hit home how something as mundane as a hill can be a huge struggle.

We got back to campus early meaning I could run over to the post room to grab a parcel my old friends had sent me. I’ve been using them as a bit of an outlet recently, so they know how much a struggle this block has been, so I think it was a bit of a care package. They had sent me a cushion with bumblebees on it of which I instantly fell in love with and I would be lying if I said no tears entered my eyes.

I also had my student seminar in the evening which was a quick one as it was just me and the lovely larynx, pharynx etc from block 2. It had been a complete mush to me beforehand but now I think it seems like I can tackle it!

I cycled back to have pancake night with my flatmates of which it was the first pancake evening for my international flatmate…. To sum it up, there were a few disasters.

Wednesday

The usual day off today, I had planned to do a lot of work, but it just ended up just filling out my case report and doing a couple of slides on Anatomy. I was annoyed at myself, but I just have to accept some days will be slower than others.

After meeting with my mentor, I ran over to the CPD building to see the Surgical Societies talk from the President of the Royal College of Surgeons which was incredible for a Surgical geek like me! He spoke about the developing use of technology in surgery and what makes a good surgeon and thusly a good surgical candidate. I finally got to ask a question about AI which I had been sitting on for a while. I was wondering if the use of AI will mean that some of the core surgical intuition will be lost as we will just be reliant on looking at the screen waiting for the programme to move us onto the next step. He said that there will always be a place for the surgeon in practise and that although Robots will be better than us technically, they will never surpass the human mind when it comes to what is best for the patient.

I also had the chance to meet someone from the year below us (the new freshers) who said they had a Facebook group and a WhatsApp chat, glad to know our year are trend setters! He was a friendly, chatty guy so I am now excited to meet the year below me …. I just have to make sure I don’t end up in the year below me as I can’t really afford to resit the year….

I went to cycle back home after this and as I was unlocking my bike with my music basting away in my ears, I was jumped upon by Daryl, a guy from my year. Apart from giving me a heart attack, he recruited me into his campaign video and I spent the next three hours watching them all film him backflipping down corridors and playing the “welfare superhero”.

A number of videos have been released for the Med Soc campaigns and they have all been hilarious, and so well thought out. Which inspired me to ….

Thursday

Film Med Soc elections! My policy was that I would put any of the candidates on one of my channel videos if they wanted to so I managed to record a couple of people and I will be publishing the video on Sat. I’m hoping that it helps communicate to the wider years who the candidates are and to keep it fair it was a “volunteer , come and find me in my usual spot and I will film you gig”.

Thursday also kicked my confidence to the floor a bit because we had our first set of talks about the exam. This was to do with mitigating circumstances and how we need to submit them. I don’t think I will qualify for my condition because it’s an ongoing thing but its nice to have confirmation about who I can go to for advice.

However, this started the whole exam talk and at one point I was surrounded by people with revision timetables and block one material. Not the nicest thing when you are barley keeping up with the block we are on. I tried to remain calm and went to go and see my anatomy professor about a workbook question I had but even meeting with him set me off and I think he picked up on it but I retained my composure – Go Me! Thankfully, I had a neuro society committee meeting to distract me. I felt a bit weird being the only one eating at a meeting, but I needed food because I had only had carrots as I haven’t been able to go shopping. I also got to talk about an event I am hopefully putting on and for some reason I had given the impression I wanted to run for a big role. I blabbed something out but I was a bit thrown under the bus , so sorry guys for the babble !

Friday

Final. Day. Of. The. Week.

We had a lecture on breaking bad news in the morning which was a really heavy way to start a Friday but it’s an important skill we need to learn. I also had my usual anatomy session and came up with a good way for leaning hand anatomy. I also had a bit of a wobble during the session but judging by everyone’s reactions , I guess I am not alone.

Maariyah distracted me by going to get the data for our next patient report. Again, she did the talking so I was able to concentrate on what we had to do. Our patient was lovely and we had a good discussion with them about their condition and one of the Junior Doctors even gave us some quick teaching at the end, which is always appreciated!

We had to go through clinical skills sessions where we practised breaking bad news to the SIM patients (I had to tell someone they have rheumatoid arthritis). I really found this hard and stumbled a lot but I think this was because I didn’t know the science well, so I was struggling to find things to talk about. I got some good feedback and I know what to work on for next time.

Managed to get a lift back with Alex meaning I could get home early, eat and then head over to do some work as I never normally work on a Friday evening due to being shattered from hospital. I managed to grab a desk in the PG hub and spent the next 4 hours doing 15 slides out of one lecture (this anatomy is complicated and heavy). However, there was another fellow medic in there and we were chatting about hard we are finding it and how nice it is to know that there are others on the course who feel the same way. So I guess this week ended on a comforting tone!

My plan this weekend is to just sit down and blast through the lectures I haven’t written up yet and submit my 1^st case report, I am on a motivational roll… Let’s just hope this keeps going !

What a week !

So this week (apart from the norm) has been pretty impressive on my blog front. Ollie released the video that I filmed with him and people reacted to it well so I thought I would take the plunge and finally release the Vlogs I had been making over these past couple of months – so the MedBee Blog is finally on YouTube! It will not replace any of my existing things, Just something else to distract me from Medicine. A new video will be released every Friday at 7pm, so stay tuned tonight!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSzkNY8TnBx28gtB-h7c04g

Monday

The weather has been beautiful this week! Some groups decided to have CBL outside which I wish we did but half of my groups laptops are reliant on a good power supply so we were trapped inside. 4 of us Neurosoc also gave out some questionares as part of a longtidutional study looking at attidtudes towards careers in Neurosciences so we were running through the MTC giving them all out.

In the evening I started on my ANKI deck for pharmacology and before I knew it, it was 9pm. Sam and I tend to be the two who are constantly in the MTC so he decided that evening that 9pm is our bedtime 😀

Tuesday

Ended up spending the majority of the day sat on the Medical School balcony getting some more anatomy done ! It was a beautiful day and we were all pretty relaxed considering our Anaotmy Proffessor had said to a couple of people he was quality assuring the MCQ papers

Wednesday

Day off today so I went up to the med school for another day of studying in the sun. I spent the majoirty of the day with Sam from my year soaking up the sunshine whilst learning about how we “soak up the sun”. It was such a nice day as we had some of the rest of our year who came out occasionally for study breaks.

Tabba also became the best person in our year after donating her left over pizza to us so we were pretty content for the afternoon !!

I also met with the other Warwick Medical School blogger Jordan who like me writes blogs for the Medical School on the medlife blog 🙂 He was lovely and it turns out he reads this (Hi Jordan). We are presenting at the Warwick Medical School open days so we had to get our powerpoint sorted 🙂

In the evening a couple of us headed to the Duck to have a drink in the evening. This ended up turning into a few drinks, which ended up turning into karaoke evening! It was a great unexpected night out and one which I apparently needed!

Thursday

Pretty average day today though we had an interesting discussion in CBL about patient care and good samaritan acts. The debate was if you were helping someone who had just been in an accident and you see a potentially cancerous mole on their back (somewhere where they might not have seen it) , do you say anything?

The doctor in our CBL case did but we were unsure if it was the correct thing to do because:

a) The mole was not the main priority

b) He didn’t need to stress the patient out even more

c) He was an off duty doctor.

I also began to wonder what this would mean in the wider context. Would the docor get in trouble further down the line if the mole was found but he didn’t say anything about it at the time when he could have potentially started the treatment process?

How would this also apply if you spotted a mole like this but in a less threatining context such as at the beach?

Ethical Dilemas are always interesting ….

Friday

Up to UHCW again! Maariyha and I finally finished our Case Report and we agreed we should go up on the ward next week on friday to collect data for our next one 🙂 I am also going home today so I am pretty eager to escape Coventry and crash out on my own bed 😀