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04/06/08 - Gone phishin':

This post is totally reactionary, but hell is it ever justified...

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20/06/08 - OSCE:

In about 1hrs time I'll be sitting my first OSCE.

Not sure what to expect, who knows it may be even vaguely enjoyable?...

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23/06/08 - OSCEs Episode I - A Phantom Menace:

After the final end of year exam I have reached one single conclusion; that OSCEs are perhaps the most intense two hours of the first year. Normally I manage to compose myself and suppress any inevitable anxieties that arise with exams, but being thrown into an OSCE situation for the first time really is a testament of character...

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27/06/08 - Year one, done:

Results day, for the seventh consecutive year, same anticipation, same ambiguity. The always uncomfortable social etiquette that accompanies results day – Should you ask? Should you tell? Blanket congratulations, well done to all even if you failed.

There’s a saying that goes, “What do you call the guy who graduates bottom of his class in medical school?”...

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02/07/08 - A dose of first year medicine:

It’s over one year on since I first started this blog, back in the days of wonderment, excitement and feverish anticipation. A whole year of lectures, practicals, workshops, placements, tutorials, patients and exams – and a year that has come with sweet highs and bitter lows. Medicine it would seem is the abyss, and one year on I am still right at the top, staring down.

The Good
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15/07/08 - Grand Rounds 4.43

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT! That’s right folks, this week I shall be dishing as much dirt on the latest rumours, gossip and scandal that the blogosphere can handle, and all from a rather slanderous angle!

DEATH ON DIALYSIS: IT TAKES THE PISS – ABOUTANURSE grapples with the concept of self-doubt surrounding sudden and unexpected death on the wards, in this touching, heartfelt recollection.

THE REAL DEAL – THE DAILY RHINO crosses…

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18/07/08 – The Medic Crunch

Inflation is something I’ve frankly never understood. Perhaps odd for a child of the Thatcher years but economics has never particularly interested me. It is only recently that I’ve come to recognise the consequences of the current economic climate and for the first time start to feel the real squeeze. Being a medical student living in one of the most expensive cities in the world has started to take its toll. Coupled to that, the very real recession we seem to be plunging into means that things are not likely to look up anytime soon.


Yes my friends, welcome to ‘The Medic Crunch’…

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24/07/08 – Revalidation:

I’ve made a stupid mistake, and it’s not the first time this has happened. Yes folks, today I was foolish enough to venture into the BBC’s ‘Have Your Say’ pages, the topic being “Should doctors receive annual appraisals?” (which, obviously, they already do - it would seem the BBC don't even understand the issue of revalidation)

By god there are some stupid people in this country…

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05/08/08 – Private Practice: Fat Cats, Claptraps and Pretentious Twats:

For the past couple of weeks I have found myself temping in various medical institutions spread across the capital, in both the public and private sectors. The vast majority of the day is spent doing mind-numbingly, soul-destroying admin, with all the enthusiasm I can muster and the efficiency of a jammed paper shredder.

I’ve learnt some tricks, after of course the blundering mistakes. Dial ‘9’ for an outside line, don’t try to repeatedly fax documents to a landline telephone number and my all time favourite, that there is no need to individually lick all the self-seal envelopes – discovered only after licking the first few thousand, of course.

The first day covering a medical secretary in a private clinic was…

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13/08/08 – Nice one

Q: What’s big, throbbing, bleeding, and makes me walk with a limp?

A: It’s my infected in-growing toe nail!

I’ve learnt a fair bit of random trivia so far in medicine, such as you shouldn’t eat chocolate or cheese if you are taking MAO inhibitors, and that pregnant women should avoid lying flat on their backs, and that you should NEVER, EVER perform a lumbar puncture on a patient with raised intracranial pressure.

Somewhere along the way they missed something out…

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19/08/08 – Dial ‘C’ for Cretin:

Answering nearly one hundred phone calls a day from certain overbearing, demanding parents leaves me wondering how some people serve to function in life. Some of the time people are rude, over-expectant and don’t appreciate that the NHS isn’t a bespoke service pandering to their every wish. I don’t particularly care for such people, especially if they chose to lie to me about not attending previous appointments.

Then there are some people who are so completely anal, I just want to strangle them with the telephone cord.

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