Too slack?!

Some of you have probably noticed that I am back from holiday due to my recent post. Anyways you must be thinking what placement I must be on. Essentially we get 6 weeks where we can either design our own placement or select a project that the school offers. Most of you probably know that I am interested in Orthopaedics, so I designed my own placement and have chosen to spend 6 weeks in Orthopaedics. So far...well so far I haven't really done much as my supervisor has been taking quite a few annual leaves. I've been in for about 3 days in the last 2 weeks. I've been to 2 clinics, which were quite good. My supervisor is quite good at teaching so I'm definitely learning lots...just wish I was in more often. Yes I am whining about not having enough to do. It doesn't help that my last placement was quite busy (in from 9am to at least 5pm every day). Now I'm in for a half day here and there. I got 1 theatre day which was alright. For the first surgery I didn't get to scrub in because the nurses didn't realize I was attached to the consultant and no one helped me scrub in. For the rest of the list I got to scrub in and it was definitely interesting. Looked ridiculous though fully decked out in gear as in Orthopaedics they are quite anal about cleanliness as they want to prevent infections. If the patient gets an infection, the only way of curing it is to take the implant out so we all want it to go successfully. No one wants to go under the knife more than once. My supervisor was really good at getting me involved though. I mean scrubbing in was already good enough but my supervisor also let me use the drill, hammer, etc. It definitely put a smile on my face and I really enjoyed it. I also got to learn how to stitch (finally) and I got to help close up at the end of surgery.

Anyways there isn't much to post about unfortunately as I haven't actually had a proper full week yet. It's quite frustrating. I'm actually keen to do some work and stuff, but I haven't even really touched base with my supervisor so I hardly know what is going on. I mean I've gotten to know the registrar which is good, but with going into theatre, the consultants are generally quite picky about having students in and I haven't had a chance to meet all the consultants on the team yet. Really difficult to keep my motivation up to go into placement at the moment. A bit disappointed as well, but once my supervisor gets back I'm sure everything will get going again (I hope).