New Media Medicine - Blogs

Calm Before The Storm?

ilovehotchoclate — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:26:00 GMT

Last week I noticed a deep sense of calm in me. I was smiley happy all week from a combination of small things: the fact my shoes click when I walk in the office (when I was little I couldn�t wait to be grown up and wear shoes with heels that clicked like Mummy�s shoes, and now I do :) ), I bought a new cardigan from Topshop the weekend before and it has a waterfall front which swishes nicely when I walk and I had a quiet week where I got to solve a lot of people�s small IT issues as it�s like a little win for me each time. They normally aren�t very difficult problems, but I like helping and they have such a big smile when I�ve fixed them.
I found myself switching between thinking �Of course I�ll get in, why wouldn�t I get in, my interview went well�, to �Well, what will be will be, I can�t change it now, I probably haven�t gotten in because I should have said this and this, but that�s alright because I probably wouldn�t be any good at being a Dr anyway.� I noticed on New Media Medicine that someone interviewed the day after me had an offer, but she was an undergrad, so it didn�t stress me that much.
It was also an odd week because mr (my bf) was off on exercise all week from Monday to Monday evening and incommunicado. It made me feel like I was kind of on hold all week, wondering what he was up to, hoping he wasn�t too tired and watching the phone in case I had a call to say he�d been pulled off injured. I find it quite strange going from functioning fine on your own to suddenly realising that you care this much for another person that isn�t family and it seems to have snuck up on you without warning.
The weekend went quietly, just like the week really. I got my car insurance sorted and saved �100 by adding Mum as a secondary driver. Score 1 for me :) We went for a nice pub lunch for Mother�s Day, she loved the chocolates I got her for her present and I got some nice lentil and pasta soup made for lunches. Buying lentils is actually quite difficult, believe it or not. Having never tried them before, I thought I�d be brave, but this led to me spending a good 10 minutes with a packet of green lentils in one hand and a packet of lentilles vertes in the other and trying to work out what the difference was between them and wondering if I was just being silly or if the world had conspired on a big joke without telling me. I was actually looking for brown lentils, which are not green lentils or even foreign green lentils. I found out after Sainsbury�s in their wisdom store the brown lentils in the world food section, not with the pulses and other lentils�obviously o_0 But I still don�t know the difference between green lentils and lentilles vertes. I did have a slight geeky moment when describing the only discernable difference between the two to a girl I give a lift to work was that green lentils are smooth and lentilles vertes are like Mendel�s wrinkled peas. *Hangs head in shame, spot the Biologist?*
The start of this week couldn�t be more different. I feel calm, but I think my body is just fretting at a really deep level. I keep waking up every two hours when I�m asleep, all the traffic in the world is on the roads when I�m trying to get to work, so the 15 minute trip is taking me 45 minutes, people at work keep stopping me to ask if I�ve heard anything, my Notts interview is next week, I�m very light on work which leaves me sitting doing nothing while people prepare stuff for me (I hate not being busy) and mr keeps falling asleep on the phone when I�m talking to him (makes me feel mean, like I�m keeping him up) � all in all, this makes for a stressed bean. Peninsula decisions soon perhaps? I really really hope so. I read Internal Optimists blog and I wanna do that!!! There�s a little bean in my head jumping up and down and pouting and stamping her feet because she wants to know now and wants to be reading textbooks and journals and learning interesting things and poking people, now. Arrgh! Patience is so overrated. Pretty please Peninsula?
http://ilovehotchoc.blogspot.com/

Confidence

InternalOptimist — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:46:48 GMT

An ABG is where a needle is stuck into the wrist at a steep angle to go and pierce the radial artery (the one you can feel with your fingers at your wrist). This is needed to see the levels of oxygen, CO2 and the pH of the blood. You need to get this information from an artery, as you want to know how much oxygen is getting to the tissues, not coming away from it. I have to be honest here, I don't think I have ever seen an ABG carried out in real life, but I have read about them (Wikipedia) and heard about them plenty. I suppose I may have seen one carried out on a programme like scrubs, if that counts. Anyway, when I was asked if I wanted to do one, I wasn't going to say no. They don't seem too hard, just feel for the artery with two fingers and stick the needle between them. After all - I seem to have a knack for finding veins, and you can FEEL arteries! I went and got the necessary hardware as the F1 asked me if I know about these.

"Yes, I have a pretty good idea of what it involves"
There we go. Not a lie at all, and said with a confident smile. Again, you can get so far with confidence.
"Sure, that's fine then, talk me through what you do as you do it then please!"
That's fine with me. I don't want to be left alone to do this at all! Unfortunately, as I come up to see the patient I suddenly feel really bad. Its one of the several alcoholics we have on the ward (being gastro there is always alcoholic liver disease around) and he has been very out of it for the last couple of days. I am more than happy with explaining myself to a nice patient, trying to win them over and then doing the ABG, but doing it for the first time on someone who is barely concious seems somewhat wrong to me. Yes, he is unlikely to care too much, but what about informed consent? Too late now, I can't really pull out. Better carry it out well!
I prep the area, unsure as to what help these alcohol wipes really have. I am sure I read somewhere they increase the chance in infection by breaking skin layers. Stop. Where did all of this doubt come from!? Before I saw this patient I was calmly confident - now I have noticed it is not someone who would care if I messed up why does it matter more?

"Would you mind if I took some blood from the artery in your wrist, sir? It might be a bit painful I am afraid"
Patient flops his hand forward and upside down, grunts in agreement but doesn't open his eyes. He isn't the sort you could have a conversation with, brain encephalopathic from chronic alcohol use. That seems like as much consent as I am going to get. I start feeling for the pulse. Not as strong as most people's I am sure - but perhaps that means the artery is bigger, and as such has less force on the walls? I don't know, I just want to stay calm and confident. That's the trick.

I talk the F1 what I am doing, angling at about 45 degrees and angling the bevel to catch the flood flow as soon as I hit the artery. The idea with this technique is that once you hit the artery the blood flow has enough force from being in the artery to fill up the needle, pushing the plunger out.
There is nothing else for me to wait for now - hesitation loses that confident air you need to keep. I push the needle in between my two gloved fingers. Not even a twitch from the patient, still sitting there with his eyes closed. I can feel the pulse on both, so the artery is definitely between them as well. But my fingers are big, and gloved, the artery small and hidden below all that flesh, what if I am a few mm to one side? I might miss it, or clip it and damage the wall, leading to lots of bleeding from the wrist. I don't want that! I am sure it is here somewhere, but it seems deeper that I might have thought... Keep the confidence!

[Sorry, started that post half way through the blog, but as usual - if you want the whole think continued at A weekly blog from a 3rd year UK medical student ]

Half a doctor hits the wards

halfadoc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:41:38 GMT

Originally Posted by halfadoc

Crash call!
Here is the start of my latest blog...

On friday (two weeks ago!) had the most awesome ward round ever! Literally! Reading the title of this blog you might think I'm a bit weird for saying that but I'll tell you now (spoiler alert..) that the patient was ok at the end so I think I can say legititmately say that it was awesome. So heres what happened...
I was on a ward round on CCU (cardiac care unit) with one other student and a lot of doctors (3/4 registrars, and 3 F1/F2's and we were going around seeing patients in turn who had recently had acute coronary events - such as angina, MI's or had just had arrthymias detected. After seeing several patients we reached one elderly gentleman whose heart was absolutely racing at over 200 beats per a minute and his monitors were bleeping away to alert the staff to this problem.....

To read more please visit Life as 1/2 a doctor ;)

Interview!

ilovehotchoclate — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:40:06 GMT

Last week at work went really quickly. Partly because I was looking forward to my interview (perhaps looking forward to is the wrong word, more anticipating the interview) and my boyfriend coming down for the weekend and partly because of a photo frame on my desk.. For Valentine�s Day my boyfriend gave me a digital photo frame and filled it with photos of us, him and my Facebook photos. It was lovely of him, because I really like photos - my screensaver usually cycles through all my photos on my laptop at home, but also because the photos change every 30 seconds, time seems to go by very quickly.
Before I knew it, it was Thursday and interview time. I had to get there for 8.15 for an interview that wasn�t until 10.30 so they could register me and go through my documents. The girl sat next to me whilst being registered hadn�t got the form signed by her GP and hadn�t bought all the ID forms she was asked for. It really amazes me sometimes, how this is possible. We�ve had these documents for months, plenty of time to assemble what was required. If you can�t follow simple instructions with plenty of time to complete them, it doesn�t reflect well on you, surely, and it wastes the Medical School�s time, the very people you are trying to impress. I know that it probably won�t make any difference, but when it�s this competitive, I really wish it did sometimes. Sorry, rant over.
Everyone was registered by about 8.30, so we had plenty of time to sit and chat. The other candidates all seemed really nice and friendly, though most were older than me A presentation at 9 told us that lots of people had dropped out, so the two days of grad interviews had been cut to just this one and some people had had their interview times bumped up. There were 42 of us interviewed throughout the day. I don�t know how many grad places there are � they said a proportionate amount to those who applied � and I don�t know if anyone was interviewed at Plymouth. I was first up after that, and taken to a room to choose my ethical scenario of a choice of three and answer the questionnaire. After 30 minutes I was taken to the interview room where a panel of four made up of clinical people and professional laypeople asked 9 questions based on the ethical scenario, and then standard questions on situations I�ve been in and how it makes me feel. I don�t want to put too much information about the interview because this is the internet, but get in touch if you�d like more info. I did have a bit of a eureka moment when they asked me a question I�d had when I did the PMCD interview in my first round of applications and I finally understood it this time. We went on the tour, most of which I�ve seen before as it was part of a work experience course I did run at the Postgrad research side of Peninsula, but it was nice to see the accommodation and chat to some students and other candidates. It was a beautiful sunny day and nice to be out of the office for a change. All in all, I think it went quite well, she says, tentatively. Then again, I always think it went quite well, and it doesn�t normally get me anywhere. But no, this time, I didn�t stumble on any questions, I had a big smile, I gave honest answers, demonstrating what they are looking for, I made them laugh, that has to be a good sign, right? Ah well, we�ll see. They said a panel is getting together mid March and all decisions given out by the end of March. Finger crossed!!
I had a lovely afternoon off after that, watched some Lost and did some tidying ready for my boyfriend to come in the evening. He stayed until Sunday afternoon, and apart from being a bit bored when I went to work (he did ask again if he could come in with me Friday morning!) we had a really nice time. We did some shopping for Mother�s Day presents, had the best steak in the world (according to bean!) at Harry�s Grill, I beat him at Wii canoeing and Wii fit and he beat me at Wii tennis, he rubbed my back and fixed my silly back ache (5 layers at work from now on) and we went to see Alice in Wonderland at the cinema. It was a lovely, relaxing, fun weekend, and I loved seeing him before and having him to come back to after work. He�s on exercise now so I won�t be able to speak to him for a whole week, which is rubbish. Saturday morning post bought the interview pack from Nottingham, so the next set of stressing can begin.
One thing I did find from the interview that was interesting is that we were told to apply for a student fees loan anyway, even though the Student Loan Company says it doesn�t give them for second degrees, because they actually don�t mind giving them to grads on a degree leading to a professional career, I guess because they are guaranteed to get their money back fairly soon. This means that a 5 year course will def be possible to fund, even if it means the amount of debt I come out with might actually make me cry, it�s do-able. Plus one for Peninsula. I�ll leave it there for now, since this is quite long with all the interview stuffs. Hope you have a good week, please feel free to comment, and very excited to have my first follower!
http://ilovehotchoc.blogspot.com/

Gastroenterology

InternalOptimist — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:54:54 GMT

Hi,

Ok, so my first week on my medicine rotation, which is based around the GI system (top to bottom, including associated organs such as liver, pancreas etc.) and I get back to the 'proper' hands on medicine. Nurses, endoscopies, cardiac perfusion scans, X-ray meetings, hepatitis, a patient who has severe intestinal bleeding, seemingly from switching to a purely raw food diet (not healthy), 'on take' and ERCPs topped off with an upsetting surprise finding that a patient only had around 3 months to live because of a tumour found instead of gallstones. While sad in places, this is more like it. Much more proactive and time is spend 'doing things' instead of sitting around waiting for the next patient.

Lets get started on my week. To start off out medicine experience we were meant to be with the nurses for a little to 'warm up' at the start the rotation. With shifts starting at 7AM this was no mean feat, I was not used to getting up early after psych where the ward rounds started much later to give the patients time to 'get going'. While far too early for me (most definitely not a morning person) it was nice to fraternize with the nurses for a bit. Helping them give medication to the patients and get them out of bed lead to just chatting with the patients as the nurses got on with their general day to day activities. What a lovely way to start the week! I got to hear some wonderful stories from someone who grew up in Australia on a station (a ranch) and how his life lead him to the UK. While this was strictly not a nursing activity, I persuaded myself it was for the good of the patients, to prevent boredom, so continued at my leisure. I think the nurses were happy to have me out of their hair anyway. While the nurses there were more than lovely, there is sometimes a bit of disagreeability between the doctor and nursing professions. Some doctors seem to have a very patronising attitude towards nurses, and see their role as menial, and the nurses obviously do not appreciate this. Some nurses see doctors as stuck up, too big for their boots (which some are, in my opinion) and overpaid. Usually these feelings seem well under the surface though, and don't seem to affect patient care, though we have overheard one nurse telling patients that they would be 'stupid to consent to having a medical student sit in' as it was a waste of their time and we were only nosy. If we qualified as doctors without seeing any patients we would be a danger to society! We have to start somewhere.

Some time spent in the hepatitis clinic with a doctor was a real eye opener. In the morning, despite having solid appointments from 8.30 'til 12 there was only one patient before 10.30. An elderly gentleman who had contracted hepatitis from a blood transfusion some time ago, but had only found out recently. The clinic was for follow up for those who had just been diagnosed with hepatitis to see if they wanted treatment, or if their body was clearing the infection (there is a chance the body can clear the infection, depending on the strain). The only people attending the clinic were people who had the B or C strain as the other strains (A,E,G) do not lead to permanent infection. Many of those in the community who are catching hepatitis are IV drug users and in the morning they need to pick up their methadone, so will not turn up for appointments. Perhaps a different plan needs to be made for when to carry out the clinic. After 10.30 plenty of patients were showing up. Many of them apparently homeless from their unwashed state and ruined clothing, but polite and kind none the less. Drug users get a bad press, which is perhaps fair enough as it is a large cause of crime, but I think judging people in this situation is exceptionally unfair. Many of them have had horrific childhoods including problems such as abuse, and how can you look down on someone for turning to drugs in that situation when you have not been in it yourself. One of the most interesting patients who turned up to the clinic had turned up with his wife, but on reading the covering letter with which he was referred (before the consultation, to find out a little before it started) we found out that the patient had not told his wife how he had caught hepatitis C. The truth was that he had relapsed into using heroin after about 10 years abstinence due to stresses at work, and had been using since. He had told his wife that he had caught it while nursing his father, who was currently suffering from end stage liver cirrhosis due to too much alcohol. At least the patient got the right organ to lie about.

[Blog continued at A weekly blog from a 3rd year UK medical student ]

A quiet week with an exciting end

ilovehotchoclate — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:27:04 GMT

So last week was a nice and quiet one at work, which was good. Oh, and I won our weekly Thursday lunchtime game of cards, which was awesome :) It got crazily busy December/January time as I was trying to get around 80 data analysis reports done to an external deadline, whilst trying to find people to confirm I should do them and then check them once I�d done them. Since then, I don�t take the quiet weeks for granted anymore! I work for a pension�s administration company. It wouldn�t be my first choice, but with the job market as it is, I shouldn�t complain.

I started here in the summer between college and uni as a temp sorting and filing paperwork. Luckily they liked me and have taken me back every Christmas, Easter and Summer since then, and every time I come back I do harder things. When I told them I would have a whole year free, they extended my contract, promoted me and moved me from the Direct client facing team to the Business Support Team. Here I do a lot more technical bits like calculations, constructing spreadsheets to perform certain tasks, training people in Excel and Word, reporting, data analysis general computer troubleshooting and formatting things. It�s a lot of problem solving, which I love and although I�m part of a team I�m left to my own devices to get on with my work flow most of the time, which I also like. I guess I do really like my job, especially now I�m not bottom rung and filing all the time! :p It�s a nice office with really nice people, the majority of which are grads who fell into the job because there was nothing else at the time. This means there�s quite a high turnover of people but everyone is really friendly. On my team especially we do have a laugh. They are quite a competitive bunch and there�s normally some sort of a quiz going on: What happened on this day in� kinda thing. It has shown me that I don�t want to work in an office forever and I do really miss biology. Another thing about this place is that it is always so cold! I know I�m a cold person normally, but I have to be wearing four layers at all times to be warm here, it�s ridiculous. In fact, it was so cold in here last week the muscles in my back tensed up and were really painful. They are still a bit tight now but they are getting better.

Like I mentioned before, my boyfriend is in the army and is going through Sandhurst at the moment. He had a hard week last week with a big test so we met in Salisbury last weekend to give him something to look forward to. Salisbury is almost half way between us, a little closer to him than me and it�s the second time we�ve done this now. I drove up on the Saturday, we went out for a lovely meal in the evening at Charter 1227 which I cannot recommend highly enough � the chef there is a genius and I have honestly never tasted food as good. Actually that place is the reason I chose Salisbury to go back to instead of somewhere closer to me. The waitress lady remembered us from last time, just over a month ago, which was amazing. We stayed the night in the Grasmere Hotel which overlooks the river Avon and is so pretty. When we came back from our meal we bought a business card to give the hotel manager as he's never heard of the place before. He was so pleased, he gave us a free glass of wine each and invited us to sit and chat with him and his friends who were out celebrating their son's birthday. It was really nice, particularly since I'm quite shy, so wouldn't normally have said yes to sitting with a bunch of strangers for an hour, but actually, we had a really good time. I am trying to come out of my shell a bit more. I can do it when I have to, like when I'm instructoring, so I know Doctoring won't be a problem, I'm just trying to make it more me all the time. The next day we went to Wilton Shopping Village Sunday and then to the Victoria and Albert Pub for Sunday lunch before driving home. Well the pub was lovely, a really nice, proper country pub, but Wilton Shopping village�. Lol, well, perhaps if we were about 50 in our tweed and wool and comfy shoes with a lovely big country house it would be alright, but it wasn�t really for us!

He�s actually coming down to see me this weekend as he has a long weekend of leave before a big exercise the week after. We spent so much time together at uni, I really miss him when he's not here and I know what with the army and me hopefully going back to uni it's going to be ages until we can be back together like that again. Hopefully if we can last that sort of time apart, we should be able to get through anything, but we'll see. He should be getting here Thursday after my interview which will be nice and staying until Sunday afternoon. I�m still trying to work out things to do with him, especially while I�m at work Friday. I think he thinks he�ll be able to come in and sit with me, he doesn�t really get office life! At least he�ll be able to give my back another rub and sort these silly muscles out! Thanks so much for your comments, they�re really useful, and it�s nice to know people are actually reading. Back to the ethics revision, bye!!

UCAS History

ilovehotchoclate — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:48:55 GMT

I did the International Baccalaureate instead of A levels, so when I was offered a place at University of Southampton for Med with 36 points and 666 at higher, my 32 with 644 at higher (4 � A�s at A level equivalent) didn�t get me very far. It did however, get me into a Biomedical Science Degree at Southampton Uni, which I absolutely loved (apart from neuroscience � very interesting but I appear to be rubbish at it, plants and molecular which are just dull and complicated and filled with three letter abbreviations for everything!) Here I learnt I could cook, I learnt to row, I made some great friends and I met my boyfriend. All was going well until the start of my final year, when I developed asthma so had to stop rowing and then anaemia, so my body tried to stop me doing everything � moving, concentrating and remembering, which is not conducive to revising for finals, or indeed sitting them. I had to take time out of my dissertation research but carried on battling to lectures. The uni had told me that they would apply a sickness policy to me, unfortunately, due to their anonymity policy, this didn�t help me in the slightest. Once again, I missed my offer of a place at the University of Leicester, but this time by a measly 3%.

So now here we are at round three. I revised and took the GAMSAT, and amazingly passed which was surprising considering I don�t really do well in exams and I have no background in Physics at all (I dropped it in year 9). This got me three interviews at St George�s 4yr, Nottingham 4yr and Peninsula 5yr. I found out last week I didn�t pass the interview for St George�s which is a shame because that was my first choice, but there we go, two left. I have the other two interviews coming up this month, and I honestly cannot pick between the two. Peninsula is close to home, a nicer program, has better facilities and I�d get to watch my god daughter grow up and see my family more often. On the other hand, it�s more expensive as I wouldn�t get a fee loan and I�d have to move every two years. Nottingham is a grad entry program, so a shorter course, I get a fee loan, it�s a nice friendly place but I�d be far from home and based at Derby away from the main uni and student-y goings on. I�m hoping actually going to the two places for interview will help me decide, and then again there is the distinct possibility that I will only get the one offer (if any) and so my decision will be made for me. I guess really, I�m going to enjoy wherever I end up going as it�s the course that I want to do and if the area�s really *that* bad I can just throw myself into my studies. Oooo, I just hate the waiting though! I submitted my application in October, which was ages ago. I went through all the stressiness of waiting to find out if my GAMSAT was good enough, then waiting to see if I�d get any interviews, then waiting to hear the results of my St George�s interview and the waiting�s getting kinda old now nice admissions people, yeah? Unconditional offers please! I�m a nice person, I�d work hard for you, do I really need to be interviewed? Aww, I wish, sadly, it�s not to be. Peninsula interview this is Thursday so I�m boning up on my ethical arguments and terminology. Fingers crossed for me!
http://ilovehotchoc.blogspot.com/

Introductions

ilovehotchoclate — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:47:41 GMT

Hi. Over the last couple of months I�ve been reading some blogs and it�s kinda given me the blogging bug. I�ve always been one of those people who start a diary as a New Year�s resolution and then get bored and stop by about February. Hopefully this one will last a little longer!

The reason I�ve been looking for blogs is to get an insider�s view on medical school. See, I�m one of those crazy people who has decided to put themselves through the hell that is UCAS apply to med schools: the stressing, the obsessively checking track, the over analysing every sentence of my personal statement and answers to interview questions and terrorising the postman for thick letters only please, no thin ones. It turns nice, normal, ordinary people into crazy, twitching, paranoid, ones � not fun. To make matters worse, this is the third time I�m putting myself through it. You might very well think that I should have learnt my lesson by now, but no, I�m a glutton for punishment. All it has taught me is that yes, medicine is what I want to do and that hopefully it will all be worth it in the end.

I�m back living at home with my parents and my cat for the time being, working in an office for a pension�s administration company. I�m a Project Officer, so I make spreadsheets, analyse data for problems and make reports. It�s not terribly exciting, but it is nice to have a wage. The people I work with are great, and I�ve been here for three years now working in my holidays from Uni. It also satisfies the geek in me that likes playing with spreadsheets and problem solving.

I have a Laser Radial which I don�t sail nearly as often as I�d like to/should. I am also a sailing instructor for Juniors, which is great fun. At uni I was looking for a challenge and to learn a new skill so I started rowing as I am hopeless at all land sports (can�t run, can�t throw, can�t catch). That was awesome and I loved it so much I joined my local rowing club and we are currently the novice women�s 4 WEARA champions, which means I have shiny stuff with my name on it :) Considering I�ve always been rubbish at sports, this is a big deal to me. My goal is to lose my novice status by the end of the year, which means I need to win two more races.

I knit in the evenings in front of the telly curled up on the sofa. It started because I needed to do something creative for my IB, and so I got my Mum to teach me and I made a patchwork blanket with her and my aunts to take to uni with me. I made a few scarves, a load of baby jumpers for my cousins� kids and some stripy socks for Christmas presents this year. I am a firm believer that you should never wear boring pants and socks. If I�m having a rubbish day I only need to take my shoes off and see my brightly coloured stripy socks and I smile, as does everyone else who sees me padding round the place in my socks. Try it someday; I defy you not to smile :)

I�m not the best writer, but I�d like to think I have good sense of humour, which I hope comes through in my writing. If there�s any comments you have to help me improve, or if you�d just like to drop me a message to say hi I�d love to hear from you. By the way, bean is a nickname my boyfriend gave me that seemed to stick.

http://ilovehotchoc.blogspot.com/

Violence

InternalOptimist — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:33:46 GMT

Hi,

It was a very short week last week because being the last week of the rotation there were exams instead of ward rounds. That said, there was a single day in the psych hospital, which I really enjoyed. It is a shame that at the end of the entire psych rotation it starts getting good. A good combination between a proactive and interested consultant and seeing about 4 (yes four!) patients in a day showed me what psychiatry can be like.

Two of the patients we saw were in because of violent tendencies. One of the patients was in the manic phase of bipolar affective disorder and had been bought in because of their strange behaviour, and the other one was a possible sufferer of antisocial personality disorder (AKA psychopathy). Talking to both of them, they seemed relatively normal likeable people, though the latter did seem very manipulative. This was obviously not enough for the consultant psychiatrist, who decided it would be a good idea to test whether they were ready for release. He slowly started winding the patient up and saying things to aggravate and annoy them.

[Blog continued at http://internal-optimist.blogspot.com/ ]

Biomedical Science to Medicine

med20 — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:06:28 GMT

I started writing this blog about a month ago and apparently NMM has deleted all my posts which is a bit of a shame, something to do with the updates me thinks. Anyways I havn't posted anything new simply because nothing much has happened in recent weeks in my final year biomedical science degree. I guess in a brief description about my blog; i'm a final year biomedical science student applying to medicine and in this blog hopefully ill be able to describe what happens and hopefully give some advice/tips for other biomedical science applicants in the future.

So basically nothing has happened over the last few weeks other than lectures, writing lab reports and reading references for my dissetation :o. But on thursday i got an update from my ucas to say that i had an offer from HYMS which made me absolutely estatic. One reason for going a bit over the top was that i received the email at about 6:30 ish when i was stuck in massive traffic jam due to the snow. I then had to wait an hour and a half until i got home and safely logged onto the ucas website. I rang my mum who got a bit emotional, son being a doctor type thing, and then my best mate said he never expected it, yep cheers, but now its started to sink in and its so cool to think that bar any complete screw ups i'm going to be a doctor :). Without sounding like everyone else, the strange thing is, is that i didn't think my interview went that well as i said 'yea' a lot and there were frequent pauses where i lost my words. It made me think more than ever that as much as interviews are there to judge your answers, they also judge the way you answer questions. I think you can say all the right things but you still need to show some character. For instance one of the most memorable moments of my HYMS interview was during the 'advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power' question, something which i knew absolutely nothing about and was probably saying the same as everyone else. But during the tour i had noticed a local wind turbine in Hull and so i took a chance and mentioned it in my answer in a very exaggerated, almost cheeky way to say 'can i have some extra marks for that please', but it made the lady interviewer laugh and i think it displayed my character and confidence to speak my mind in the interview which aided to my advantage.

Im now preparing for my UEA interview which i'm really excited about because i think it will be my first choice if i get an offer. The interview has already been postponed from Jan because of snow and now more snow is forecast for this week so hopefully that will hold off. I will write how it all went, hopefully well. Btw if anyone is reading this and would like any advice, please email me. I know i started to get things together around this time last year so please email me because i'm happy to help.

Variety

InternalOptimist — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:28:38 GMT

Hi,

Ok, A better week than last, saw a student who seemed to be trying to persuade the doctor to prescribe him some Ritalin to help him study, a very activly suicidal patient, a 25 year old with aspergers and an actor with grandiose delusions who was bought in after going to a nursary and threatening to kill himself violently in front of the children.

While from that list above it looks like I was kept busy last week I can assure you that this is not the case. Hours and hours were spent sitting around waiting for patients to turn up. I am sure I said before how patients often don't turn up for apointments and all of that. Perhaps one of the key things about psychiatry is that patients tend to be very interesting when we actually get to meet them. Unlike in the hospital where one patient with pneumonia is very similar in presentation to another patient with pneumonia, psych has a huge range of presentations and stories behind each illness. Perhaps the fact that you spend so much of your time just finding out a patient's story as part of the history taking makes this appealing, but this week was definitely more enjoyable than the last.

One of the first patients we saw in the week was of a similar age to myself and my partner, and was complaining of poor concentration and irritability. With a history that he gave almost perfectly fitting ADHD the consultant evidently became quickly suspicious.

[ Blog continued at http://internal-optimist.blogspot.com/ ]

How to get exepted into medcine at uni.

dorothy16 — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:14:55 GMT

hey

just doing my Highers this year but wondered if i could get any advice from students applying or already in uni. I think i've got the grades covered but i'm told u need a lot of work experience. I want to be try get work experience in a lab somewhere, maybe at hospital or research company. any advice?

Studying A'levels and G.C.S.E's in one go!

Newlife — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:20:30 GMT

Hi Everyone,
I was hoping for a bit of advice.I am planning to study A'Level in Biology and 4 G.C.S.E's in French, History, Psychology and Single science.Has anyone ever studied A'levels and G.C.S.E's in one go before and sat the exams.Any constructive advice would be welcome.
Thank you :)

Half a doctor hits the wards!

halfadoc — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:20:15 GMT

Originally Posted by halfadoc

Start of this last weeks blog:

Patient stealing and the end of my general medicine rotation
Been a bit overdue in posting this as have been a bit busy over the last week and a bit, for once this was mainly in a social way as its been my 21st this week - yay for legal USA drinking should I ever go there. Medicine has also been busy as this week is my last on general medicine so have been trying to complete my logbook (logbooks are the bane of a 3rd year medics life at my medical school, we have to get signatures to show we have attended particualar sessions, met various multiproffesionals and been observed practising various clincal skills).

The problem with our logbooks is that you have to get the signatures and as a result end up missing sessions that may be more useful educationally in order to get a signature. For example this morning I went to see the hospital Chaplain to find out about his role so that I could get my 10th and final "Multi Proffessional" experience signature. But as he couldn't do it any other time I had to see him rather than going to an additional teaching lecture, as that was optional and did not require a signature. It was admittedly interesting finding out what the chaplain does and how the chaplancy service at the hospital works (and I suppose will be useful to some medical students so that they know in the future they can refer patients there, but to be honest I already knew it existed so Im not sure I gained that much) but I'm sure my future patients would prefer I'd attended the lecture this morning by the famous visiting Clinician. That said I suppose logbooks do stop some people just skiving off.

Last tuesday I had my last "on take" to do and it proved to be a very annoying experience.....

See more at www.halfadoc.blogspot.com!;)

CPR with an iPhone?

Admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:49:50 GMT

Interesting video I found via iMedicalApps.com:

(The CPR iPhone bit is about 18 minutes in but the rest of the presentation is also interesting)