End of term - for me!

Hello,

It's finally the end of clinical anatomy! W've had our last dissection session, our last computer-assisted-learning session, and our last living anatomy session; and our last test is this afternoon. There's no teaching this morning so it's just a bit of revision of the digestive, urinary and reproductive systems before the test. Living anatomy is obviously a bit difficult for the pelvis, so we had model to practise testicular and prostate examinations on instead - in fact exactly the same model we use on Medsim. So if you're coming this year, I'll have even more interesting clinical info to talk about while you have a go! We've also had some good clinical lectures this week, including some fairly gruesome photos of a woman with a collagen disorder who, because of the weakness if her skin and connective tissue, had given birth not through her vagina but through a rather large new hole that the baby had created in her perineum!

Providing I pass the test this afternoon, I'll have finished work for the term. However, I am meeting my project supervisor again tomorrow to discuss an article we're writing for an embryology journal, and my finals results are also supposed to come out tomorrow (assuming the rumours about disruption by the examiners strikes are just rumours) so I'll have more than just packing to do before I head off to Wales on holiday on Saturday. I'll try to update you on that before I disappear for the summer.

End of term - for most people anyway!

Hi again,
Another week of clinical anatomy is over, and I've got another free weekend. This week's test on the thorax was harder than last week's on the head and limbs, but they seem to set the past mark based on overall performance of the yeargroup, since a similar number of people fail each time. Today is the last day of term for most people, so Oxford has suddenly emptied. It's particularly strange this year as most people in my year won't be coming back after the summer, and even my friends in younger years won't be around me as much once I'm living away from the college, near the hospital, next year. Yesterday we had a litte going-away party for the second year linguists who are off on their year abroad, as well as the usual end of term gathering in the college bar and New Quad.
After helping people move out this morning, I went to the wedding of the student worker from my church this afternoon, and then walked around Magdalen grounds enjoying the sunshine. Now I'm just getting a bit of reading done in preparation for anatomy next week so that I can have another lovely free day tomorrow!

Schools Dinner

Hi,

I've passed my first clinical anatomy assessment, and anatomy is even starting to be quite enjoyable as we get to know the people in our groups better and realise that we might as well have fun if we're going to be stuck in the dissection room while our other finalist friends are out in the parks. There's nothing quite like living anatomy classes, where we poke and prod each other, to help a group bond! Fortunately, my group seem to be fairly sensible as well as fun, unlike one boy in the group that has living anatomy before me, who insisted on taking his trousers off for a class that only involved looking at the lower half of the leg and then refused to put them back on again before going to dissection.

Last night I had my Schools Dinner, where the finalists doing a particular subject in a college have a meal with their tutors (so that's the 8 medics in my year in Brasenose and our 3 main tutors). It was a fantastic night, and we were all particularly excited to be allowed on the Old Quad which is normally out of bounds to students. After numerous courses we played bowls on the quad with progressively drunker and drunker tutors and progressively less and less accuracy. By 2am one tutor, who also happens to be the dean and therefore in charge of discipline in college, was making enough noise to be deaned himself, and had provided several great photo opportunities.

Now I've got the weekend pretty much free (apart from a bit of preparation for Monday) before we start on heart and lungs in anatomy. I wonder whether anyone will insist on going into the dissection room topless this time.

Clinical Anatomy

I'm now three days into the clinical anatomy course and we've zoomed through heads, spines and arms. A lot of it is revision from first year so at least the names are familiar, but there's still plenty to learn. The days are packed with an anatomy lecture, two clinical lectures (yesterday we had one by a hand surgeon called Mr Hand!), two sessions in the dissection room, two sessions of living anatomy where we poke each other and draw on people, and two sessions in the computer lab. Then there's finishing off and preparation for the next day to do in the evening.

So, its been a pretty busy week so far and now I'm off to learn about the leg!

Week off!

Hi,

Finals are now over and the last one was fine. I'm now in the middle of my week off with absolutely no work at all! I've spent most of it so far at the house that I'm living in next year, painting and decorating. It's been fun spending time with my housemates and a lovely change from sitting in the library, especially because the results of our work are so obvious (compared to days in the library when the revision is never finished!).

Today I'm just getting little jobs done and seeing friends, although a lot of them are doing finals themselves now or working hard on other things. Unfortunately the weather hasn't been good enough for all the punting and picnics we'd planned but we still have weekends off for the next three weeks while we're doing the clinical anatomy course so hopefully it will improve at some point!

Clinical anatomy starts at 8.30 on Monday morning and might not be as enjoyable as our week of freedom but at least we will be able to catch up with all the medics, some of whom I haven't seen much of recently because we're did different options this year. And the clinical orientation of it should make it much more interesting than just basic anatomy.