Detective work and feedback
Hi again,
This is my fnal week with the firm I'm currently attached to. It's been a busy week for the house officer, since the consultant and registrar are away, and finding replacements for "consultant ward rounds" isn't easy. In some ways this has been an advantage, allowing us to be more useful on ward rounds, but it has also reduced the teaching time available for us. However, we did get a session with the senior house officer about some of the conditions we've seen, and we have also been set tasks of researching possible causes of some of the more mysterious complaints of our patients, such as the reason a non-diabetic woman is suffering from recurrent hypoglycaemic attacks. Another confusing patient has shortness of breath on exertion, despite no evidence of anything being wrong with her heart and lungs, so we have been able to watch and help with further investigations into the cause of her symptoms. This included a bubble test, where (despite repeated warnings that if we ever inject any air into a patient we will cause an embolus and kill them) several ml of air was injected into the patient's vein and then visualised on an ultrasound scan to show that there was no mixing if blood between the two sides of the heart.
On Friday I did a nursing shift on the Medical Assessment Unit, giving me the opportunity to experience the role of nurses and practise taking blood and cannulating. Unfortunately, MAU wasn't very busy because the hospital was on county divert (where no new patients are admitted from GP referrals due to a lack of beds on the medical wards), limiting the amout I could do. However, I did get to watch a rectal examination, do an ECG, take a patient for an endoscopy, and watch a blood transfusion, as well as helping with toileting and moving patients.
Today I'm going in a bit early to complete a task set in a communication skills session last week. We have to clerk a patient (take a history and examine them) whilst being watched by another student and then practise giving each other feedback on our clerking skills. It is a useful activity but I couldn't help thinking that the communication skills tutors had gone a bit far when not only did we have to fill in a feedback form about the teaching session on feedback, but we were also given a feedback form to fill in about the task of giving each other feedback.
It's not all been hard work and feedback this week though. We've also had our graduate freshers' dinner in college, where we had the chance to talk to our new college tutors as well as getting to know some of the other graduates in college. Since I'm living out in a house, I haven't been into college much at all so far this term. I might be making a few more trips back now though because the undergraduates have now also returned, ready to start their term next week, so more of my friends are around.
This is my fnal week with the firm I'm currently attached to. It's been a busy week for the house officer, since the consultant and registrar are away, and finding replacements for "consultant ward rounds" isn't easy. In some ways this has been an advantage, allowing us to be more useful on ward rounds, but it has also reduced the teaching time available for us. However, we did get a session with the senior house officer about some of the conditions we've seen, and we have also been set tasks of researching possible causes of some of the more mysterious complaints of our patients, such as the reason a non-diabetic woman is suffering from recurrent hypoglycaemic attacks. Another confusing patient has shortness of breath on exertion, despite no evidence of anything being wrong with her heart and lungs, so we have been able to watch and help with further investigations into the cause of her symptoms. This included a bubble test, where (despite repeated warnings that if we ever inject any air into a patient we will cause an embolus and kill them) several ml of air was injected into the patient's vein and then visualised on an ultrasound scan to show that there was no mixing if blood between the two sides of the heart.
On Friday I did a nursing shift on the Medical Assessment Unit, giving me the opportunity to experience the role of nurses and practise taking blood and cannulating. Unfortunately, MAU wasn't very busy because the hospital was on county divert (where no new patients are admitted from GP referrals due to a lack of beds on the medical wards), limiting the amout I could do. However, I did get to watch a rectal examination, do an ECG, take a patient for an endoscopy, and watch a blood transfusion, as well as helping with toileting and moving patients.
Today I'm going in a bit early to complete a task set in a communication skills session last week. We have to clerk a patient (take a history and examine them) whilst being watched by another student and then practise giving each other feedback on our clerking skills. It is a useful activity but I couldn't help thinking that the communication skills tutors had gone a bit far when not only did we have to fill in a feedback form about the teaching session on feedback, but we were also given a feedback form to fill in about the task of giving each other feedback.
It's not all been hard work and feedback this week though. We've also had our graduate freshers' dinner in college, where we had the chance to talk to our new college tutors as well as getting to know some of the other graduates in college. Since I'm living out in a house, I haven't been into college much at all so far this term. I might be making a few more trips back now though because the undergraduates have now also returned, ready to start their term next week, so more of my friends are around.
posted by Jane Davis @ 12:19 AM
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