Monday
Online Learning (I’ve decided not to describe these as we all know what Teams teaching is like).
Tuesday
Online Learning
Wednesday
AND WE ARE BACK !! Wow, it really has been a while, huh? It honestly felt like second year was never going to end. One and a half years trapped in a year that kinda feels like a stop over between clinical and non-clinical but now, we are full pelt to the finish line.
Technically, I am now a finalist as our Years Three and Four are merged into one year but a shot of … well… horror and terror shoots through me when I say that.
We had a intro to the block and headed straight to Ward Hogwarts where we had been assigned. I was a little hesitant as I was through with the whole hanging round the wards thing hoping for something to do.
Boy was I about to be surprised.
We had a ward round on our tiny little ward which was a tad crowded but I have never had so much teaching on a ward round in my life. The consultant encouraged us to interpret ECG’s for them and I even felt confident to step forward and examine patients during the round. I kept catching eye contact with Klaudio with both of us shocked at this level of teaching.
We had interesting patients including diabetic feet (something amazing with this patient but can’t go too much into detail), COPD, Atrial Flutter and Fribilation (will I ever get my head around the difference between these two, stay tuned to find out). We even chatted to someone who was due to have a pacemaker fitted! Our consultant also seemed to be a lover of bedside echos and spent time orientating us to the image in front of us.
It felt so good. We heard there was going to be a cardioversion in the afternoon so ran off to get lunch and make it back for the procedure.
A cardioversion is shocking a heart which is in A Fib/ A Flutter back into sinus rhythm. It sounds backwards to shock a heart which is not in V.Fib but is actually the gold standard treatment for A fib and A Flutter ! We had to go up to theatres as our patient was a bit risky but wow. It was amazing to see.
They were made a bit drowsy to begin with (well, you would want to be drowsy too if you were going to be shocked) and their heart rate was roughly 150 upwards. One shock administered later and it dropped to 80bpm. That was a drop of 70bpm in less than 10 seconds.
Medicine is amazing.
Thursday
Back in again, but we had teaching in the morning. I love having this amount of teaching. It really does help with guiding what we should be learning. First topic up was Stroke. Except our teacher was not in the room.
I remember back in Primary School we would come up with concepts for the future and one of the suggestions was a virtual teacher, and here I am living the reality.
It felt a bit big brotherish to have a massive face up on the screen with us sat in the room but did end up working well and I enjoyed the rest of the morning !
Unfortunately, having teaching in the morning means the rest of the day is a bit awkward. You miss ward round and bloods so there tends to not be much else to do. Oh, well.
Friday
First Academic Day of Third Year ! Wow, and what a hit of reality this was. The whole first half of the day was taken up with talks about UKFPO (the process of applying to our FY1 jobs) and our various extra exams such as the SJT and PSA.
I think during the morning it was a slap of reality. I can’t believe that I am so close to finishing. I don’t feel like I’ve been here long enough for that to be the case. I remember first year like yesterday and second year was a nightmare I am willing to forget.
I sat there listening to all this information about the application process and the exams just having a crisis. This was all getting too real.
But we survived, and I spent the rest of the afternoon learning about prescription writing in hospitals and wrote my first ever mock prescription:
That felt pretty good.
We also had our first CBL session which meant another new group. We actually have a good mix of interests and personalities so the session was ok! I never thought I would spend 2 hours talking about UTI’s and Nitrofurantoin (Antibiotic for UTI’s).
And that was it. My first full week in my Care of the Medical Patient Speciality Block.
Here we go.
MedBeeMedic 