Penultimate Year.

"Hi, my name is - and I am a 4th year student doctor."

How time flies. I still remember when I first step foot onto the wards in first year and introduced myself as a first year medical student - it was almost like yesterday! Now, I unwillingly have to introduce myself as a 4th year. I quite liked introducing myself as a 3rd year to patients and to doctors/nurses. I feel like we get a bit more sympathy and leeway. As a 3rd year, we can always pull the: "Sorry it's my first year of clinical.", when we make a mistake. As a 4th year - expectations are higher and mistakes will be looked down on. I feel like 4th year is the "real deal". People expect you to know your place in the hospital and know what you are doing. Questions won't be as well appreciated and you will be much more independent. It's actually quite frightening! As a 4th year - people who know that your course is 5 years will know that as a 4th year, you'll be in your penultimate year and pull the: "You'll be graduating in a year or so - come on, you should know better!"

So I'm starting psychiatry and will on the specialty for 6 weeks. We just had a week of lectures on psychiatry and it seems pretty interesting. It's also nice to learn something completely new as well. The past lectures we've had were more of a refresher and a bit more clinical, but wasn't completely new. We have never learned about psych so it was good.

Had my induction at the psychiatric hospital and it seems promising. It seems really organized and we've got a binder full of info. We've also got schedules for our next 6 weeks. Something so simple is well appreciated as that means I can plan my life. It's a shame other placements can't give our schedules that far in advance. Got a fairly easy week - mainly at clinics. Bit nervous as psych is so unfamiliar and new. Also scared about being quizzed. Yikes. Got to do some reading asap!