Thursday, 19 June 2008
Ms Medic is a DOCTOR!
I passed! I passed finals! It's all over. I have a hell of a headache from the celebratory drinking already, but I think well earned. More news later, I think I'm going to curl up in a ball now.
Monday, 16 June 2008
Sobering up
Well, I have sobered up. The Boxwood Cafe is really really good, not that I ever like plugging things much. We had a really good meal, went out for drinks in our dresses and stayed up, 8 of us, drinking rum and gossiping til 4am on Saturday morning, when the sun came up and scared us all into bed.
Saturday I wandered round Oxford Street and nursed my hangover. I remembered why I didn't like going to Oxford Street, especially on a Saturday, since it took me about an hour to make it about 400yards down the road. People are bonkers. I never seem to get road-rage in a car, and I only get bike-rage if someone came really really close to killing me. But somehow, I am very prone to pedestrian-rage. There is something in me that snaps when the umpteenth group of selfish dopes decide to stop in the narrowest part of a crowded street, spread out and have a think about what to do next. They seem to pick areas like beside a bus-stop, or by the traffic lights. If you try to squeeze through the middle, all 'excuse me' and 'pardon' they look insulted that you interrupted the conversation. Well, dearest tourists and assembled self-absorbed idiots. you interrupted my wander! How dare you look at me like I'm in the way when you're the one blocking one of the world's busiest footpaths!
Anyway, rant over. I abandoned Oxford Street and went home to get ready for our finalists ball. The tickets cost a fortune, so I was a bit skeptical about the the whole thing, feeling like it might be a bit of a rip-off. Then I got there to find it was far more exciting than I had expected! The venue was beautiful and it turns out the medics scrub up pretty well when you take the grey mask of revision away and put them in full finery. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole event. Even the food was pretty good. Still, another 4am bedtime nearly killed me. I'm not that old to need a respectable bedtime, but I think I'm out of practice. I spent yesterday and this morning recovering at home with the kitten, who helpfully bit me a few times and then curled up exhausted on my knee. It really does seem tiring to be a kitten, all that running about to do, sofas to claw, curtains to climb and people to shout at. I'm feeling pretty tired just watching him. Or maybe that is the cumulative effect of finals. I am certainly enjoying the recovery period, but I wonder if I am alone in finding it hard to shake a lingering guilt at doing nothing? It's been so long since I last slugged about on a sofa with a novel and a cup of tea that I feel like I should be busy working on something. I hope I will get better at lazing about with practice, so I shall be taking my cup of tea back to the cat, the sofa and the tv!
Saturday I wandered round Oxford Street and nursed my hangover. I remembered why I didn't like going to Oxford Street, especially on a Saturday, since it took me about an hour to make it about 400yards down the road. People are bonkers. I never seem to get road-rage in a car, and I only get bike-rage if someone came really really close to killing me. But somehow, I am very prone to pedestrian-rage. There is something in me that snaps when the umpteenth group of selfish dopes decide to stop in the narrowest part of a crowded street, spread out and have a think about what to do next. They seem to pick areas like beside a bus-stop, or by the traffic lights. If you try to squeeze through the middle, all 'excuse me' and 'pardon' they look insulted that you interrupted the conversation. Well, dearest tourists and assembled self-absorbed idiots. you interrupted my wander! How dare you look at me like I'm in the way when you're the one blocking one of the world's busiest footpaths!
Anyway, rant over. I abandoned Oxford Street and went home to get ready for our finalists ball. The tickets cost a fortune, so I was a bit skeptical about the the whole thing, feeling like it might be a bit of a rip-off. Then I got there to find it was far more exciting than I had expected! The venue was beautiful and it turns out the medics scrub up pretty well when you take the grey mask of revision away and put them in full finery. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole event. Even the food was pretty good. Still, another 4am bedtime nearly killed me. I'm not that old to need a respectable bedtime, but I think I'm out of practice. I spent yesterday and this morning recovering at home with the kitten, who helpfully bit me a few times and then curled up exhausted on my knee. It really does seem tiring to be a kitten, all that running about to do, sofas to claw, curtains to climb and people to shout at. I'm feeling pretty tired just watching him. Or maybe that is the cumulative effect of finals. I am certainly enjoying the recovery period, but I wonder if I am alone in finding it hard to shake a lingering guilt at doing nothing? It's been so long since I last slugged about on a sofa with a novel and a cup of tea that I feel like I should be busy working on something. I hope I will get better at lazing about with practice, so I shall be taking my cup of tea back to the cat, the sofa and the tv!
Friday, 13 June 2008
Over and out
Finals are over.
My short case OSCE was on Wednesday and now I have nothing to do! I felt at a very loose end, but filled it with moving out of halls. I am now at home surrounded by boxes and bags and not sure what to do with myself now I don't have to revise! It's exciting, but none of us seem to know what to think. It's not exactly an anti-climax, but we've been so busy for so long now I think we're a bit lost without revision! No-one has done anything exciting lately and we haven't had any normal conversation for a while, so I think everyone is stuck.
I hope it will get fixed with a posh dinner tomorrow and the ball on Saturday! I'll report again when I sober up.
My short case OSCE was on Wednesday and now I have nothing to do! I felt at a very loose end, but filled it with moving out of halls. I am now at home surrounded by boxes and bags and not sure what to do with myself now I don't have to revise! It's exciting, but none of us seem to know what to think. It's not exactly an anti-climax, but we've been so busy for so long now I think we're a bit lost without revision! No-one has done anything exciting lately and we haven't had any normal conversation for a while, so I think everyone is stuck.
I hope it will get fixed with a posh dinner tomorrow and the ball on Saturday! I'll report again when I sober up.
Saturday, 7 June 2008
3 down, 2 to go
Written finals, I never want to see you again!
On Wednesday I had my pathology and data-interpretation paper for 3 hours, followed by my clinical single best answer paper, for another 3 hours. The path paper was off the map, I have never seen an exam like it, and we have been examined at least twice a year for the last 6. The paper bore no resemblance at all to the pre-exam lectures. None. We were told to look at some pictures of histology, but not to worry too much, because we'd get a history with the picture in the exam, and that's what we were really expected to interpret, with the picture for added clues. Well, there were at least 3 pictures with no history at all and one that said "this patient has a cough". Well, that narrows it down! For Heaven's sake, if you want us to learn histopath, fine, we're trained to learn what's required. But why tell us outright not to do so?! Nutters. I was not a happy bunny.
Then in the afternoon, shattered, we went back for the clinical questions. Ok, clinical is easier for final year medics than path, because it relates much more closely to what we do and see on the wards. Still, there were some startlingly ambiguous questions. One started with a patient who had sensory loss in the feet, then went on to say they had no sensory loss. Helpful. Did they or didn't they? I was now not happy and disgruntled, and exhausted!
Luckily, the paper on Thursday morning was so incredibly straightforward that I worried I might have been given the 3rd year's paper instead. Baffling. All that stress on Wednesday and a perfectly reasonable Thursday morning. So on Friday my body gave up and got my usual post-exam cold. I have been so sleepy ever since, you'd think I was gearing up for summer holidays. This might prove to be a mistake as I have my long cases exam on Tuesday and a short case OSCE ('objective structured clinical exam', which is a pretty biased and chaotic exam for medical students) on Wednesday. Let's hope I start getting the fear back or I risk falling asleep in the middle of the exam...
On Wednesday I had my pathology and data-interpretation paper for 3 hours, followed by my clinical single best answer paper, for another 3 hours. The path paper was off the map, I have never seen an exam like it, and we have been examined at least twice a year for the last 6. The paper bore no resemblance at all to the pre-exam lectures. None. We were told to look at some pictures of histology, but not to worry too much, because we'd get a history with the picture in the exam, and that's what we were really expected to interpret, with the picture for added clues. Well, there were at least 3 pictures with no history at all and one that said "this patient has a cough". Well, that narrows it down! For Heaven's sake, if you want us to learn histopath, fine, we're trained to learn what's required. But why tell us outright not to do so?! Nutters. I was not a happy bunny.
Then in the afternoon, shattered, we went back for the clinical questions. Ok, clinical is easier for final year medics than path, because it relates much more closely to what we do and see on the wards. Still, there were some startlingly ambiguous questions. One started with a patient who had sensory loss in the feet, then went on to say they had no sensory loss. Helpful. Did they or didn't they? I was now not happy and disgruntled, and exhausted!
Luckily, the paper on Thursday morning was so incredibly straightforward that I worried I might have been given the 3rd year's paper instead. Baffling. All that stress on Wednesday and a perfectly reasonable Thursday morning. So on Friday my body gave up and got my usual post-exam cold. I have been so sleepy ever since, you'd think I was gearing up for summer holidays. This might prove to be a mistake as I have my long cases exam on Tuesday and a short case OSCE ('objective structured clinical exam', which is a pretty biased and chaotic exam for medical students) on Wednesday. Let's hope I start getting the fear back or I risk falling asleep in the middle of the exam...
Monday, 2 June 2008
Poisonous witches and nonsense journalism
I was directed by a post on Doctors.net to a blog on the News of The World posted on the 1st of June. Now, I know that the rag in question is not famed for it's quality investigative journalism, but the sheer screaming vitriol of this article, it's absence of factual accuracy, made me want to throttle the writer. Her name is Carole Malone and she basically blames doctors for all that's wrong with world.
Very sadly, her father died of colon cancer. She feels this is the fault of his GP for referring him too late. However, rather than complaining to the GP or through appropriate channels, she has written a spiteful rant about how all GPs do is cadge money from the government for doing less and less work, in fact, it's their fault the NHS is short of cash and they get paid a quarter of a million pounds each.
If only! I don't understand why people are allowed to write journalistic articles containing such wild inaccuracies. Firstly, GPs don't really earn anything like that much. The income to their practice (as a partner) has to pay for the whole practice for heavens sake. And just because they had horrendous hours in the the past, for which they were not renumerated, doesn't mean they should be treated even worse now. And whatever the GPs salary, she's not publishing her own in the national press, is she?
I just don't know why people have it in for doctors at the moment, I really don't. 2 days before my finals is not a good time to be thinking this is really not a promising profession.
Very sadly, her father died of colon cancer. She feels this is the fault of his GP for referring him too late. However, rather than complaining to the GP or through appropriate channels, she has written a spiteful rant about how all GPs do is cadge money from the government for doing less and less work, in fact, it's their fault the NHS is short of cash and they get paid a quarter of a million pounds each.
If only! I don't understand why people are allowed to write journalistic articles containing such wild inaccuracies. Firstly, GPs don't really earn anything like that much. The income to their practice (as a partner) has to pay for the whole practice for heavens sake. And just because they had horrendous hours in the the past, for which they were not renumerated, doesn't mean they should be treated even worse now. And whatever the GPs salary, she's not publishing her own in the national press, is she?
I just don't know why people have it in for doctors at the moment, I really don't. 2 days before my finals is not a good time to be thinking this is really not a promising profession.
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