Down to 3 patients
Hello again,
A week after out last take, my firm is now down to 3 patients and we won't get any more until our next take on Wednesday night, so there's not a lot of clerking patients to be done. The lack of patients has meant that our house officer has had a bit of spare time to teach us, but she's taking Monday and Tuesday off while things are quiet because she's owed some holiday, so there might be even less to do at the beginning of this week. It might give us an opportunity to do some of the jobs she normally does though, and practise at things like taking blood is always useful. And when there's nothing else to do, there's always the library to read up on topics covered by our syllabus.
On Thursday we had the first set of case presentations by students on our firm - each student has to be assessed on one at some point during the attachement. The idea is that we learn from each other at the same time, and I did learn a few new things from the three presentations. We also have a few other timetabled bits and pieces, including some pharmacology teaching and lectures on Friday afternoons. Teaching arranged with doctors on our firms is more flexible and is sometimes bedside and sometimes in little tutorials going over a particular topic like what to do with a patients presenting with chest pain or shortness of breath. Some colleges also arrange teaching from college tutors, and we have one who we can contact if we want any teaching. In addition, the 6th years, who are about to sit their finals, have offered to give teach us when they have a bit more free time!
I'm also still doing a bit of work based on my 3rd year project on embryology, since my project supervisor and I are hoping to publish an article about heart development. The unpredictable finish times at the hospital make it a bit tricky to arrange other things in the evenings, but I managed to meet him on Friday to go over the article and to sort out what we need to do next. I'm currently drawing some diagrams for it while he tries to get permission to reproduce some relevent images from reference articles.
Weekends are refreshingly free - other than drawing embryology pictures and a bit of reading and note-making on conditions I've seen at the hospital or on the syllabus, I don't have to do anything work-wise at the moment. It makes a nice change from preclinical essays, although there are occassional things like case-presentations to write at various stages. Fortunately, I've ended up on a firm that happens to have no weekend takes while I'm on the general medicine attachment, while others have several. Takes at weekends inolve being at the hospital Saturday night and Sunday during the day, so they are pretty exhausting and don't give you much of a break between weeks. Although at least having a weekend take might give me more than the current 3 patients to talk to and examine - I think they're getting a bit bored of medical students now!
A week after out last take, my firm is now down to 3 patients and we won't get any more until our next take on Wednesday night, so there's not a lot of clerking patients to be done. The lack of patients has meant that our house officer has had a bit of spare time to teach us, but she's taking Monday and Tuesday off while things are quiet because she's owed some holiday, so there might be even less to do at the beginning of this week. It might give us an opportunity to do some of the jobs she normally does though, and practise at things like taking blood is always useful. And when there's nothing else to do, there's always the library to read up on topics covered by our syllabus.
On Thursday we had the first set of case presentations by students on our firm - each student has to be assessed on one at some point during the attachement. The idea is that we learn from each other at the same time, and I did learn a few new things from the three presentations. We also have a few other timetabled bits and pieces, including some pharmacology teaching and lectures on Friday afternoons. Teaching arranged with doctors on our firms is more flexible and is sometimes bedside and sometimes in little tutorials going over a particular topic like what to do with a patients presenting with chest pain or shortness of breath. Some colleges also arrange teaching from college tutors, and we have one who we can contact if we want any teaching. In addition, the 6th years, who are about to sit their finals, have offered to give teach us when they have a bit more free time!
I'm also still doing a bit of work based on my 3rd year project on embryology, since my project supervisor and I are hoping to publish an article about heart development. The unpredictable finish times at the hospital make it a bit tricky to arrange other things in the evenings, but I managed to meet him on Friday to go over the article and to sort out what we need to do next. I'm currently drawing some diagrams for it while he tries to get permission to reproduce some relevent images from reference articles.
Weekends are refreshingly free - other than drawing embryology pictures and a bit of reading and note-making on conditions I've seen at the hospital or on the syllabus, I don't have to do anything work-wise at the moment. It makes a nice change from preclinical essays, although there are occassional things like case-presentations to write at various stages. Fortunately, I've ended up on a firm that happens to have no weekend takes while I'm on the general medicine attachment, while others have several. Takes at weekends inolve being at the hospital Saturday night and Sunday during the day, so they are pretty exhausting and don't give you much of a break between weeks. Although at least having a weekend take might give me more than the current 3 patients to talk to and examine - I think they're getting a bit bored of medical students now!
posted by Jane Davis @ 8:23 AM
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