Late Again!

I left my flat really early today to make sure I would show up on time to meet my new consultant. Obviously turning up on time is going to be my new enemy for this placement. Despite leaving my flat much earlier, I still ended up being 5 minutes late and the new consultant started his ward round right at 9am. I can't wait until the roads are reopened so I don't have to deal with the nightmare traffic I had to endure for these 2 days. However, I was quite lucky as this new consultant is really nice. He assumed I was late because I had some teaching earlier and was running a bit late. He greeted me and introduced himself and made sure I felt part of the team. It was definitely a nice thing for him to do and I do admit I felt bad for being late.

Anyways saw a new patient today who was moved from another ward. Found myself sympathizing with this patient as he had a metastatic tumour in his brain. He had undergone chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but is now placed for palliative care as it is an advanced tumour. Met the family today and you see the family trying to be strong and keep their chin up, but in the end the wife broke down. Felt quite useless as a student as no matter what you say - it isn't going to change the situation.

What confuses me the most about this placement is that I am placed in Endocrinology but majority of the patients don't have an endocrine related illness. Most of the patients I've seen have chest infections/pneumonia. It's quite weird. I only saw 1 patient today who had an endocrine related illness (Cushing's). I guess endocrinology is quite flexible? Will definitely have to ask one of the SHOs or FY1/2 doctors about this.

FRESHERS WEEK - SEPT 25, 2009

Luckily our first lecture of the day was at 1pm so most of us could get over/recover slightly from any hangovers. When I got to the lecture theater, half the class was holding a water bottle which I found pretty hilarious. Schedule for the day was just:

1:00pm - 2:00pm : Summing Up Introductory Activity

Pretty easy day to be honest. Anyways by 1:15pm our lecturer still hasn't showed up and people started to get bored. People started throwing paper planes and paper balls around the room. It was quite the scene. Things flying from side to side, from back to front. By 1:40pm a MedSoc rep. noticed that our lecturer was still not here and contacted the med school that there are 250 students are impatiently waiting for their lecture. So at around 1:50pm our lecturer shows up and everyone was really bummed out for obvious reasons. The lecturer was pretty considerate and just rushed through the conclusion of our task and went over the answer. The diagnosis for our case study ended up being H1N1/Swine flu and the differential diagnosis was just the common flu. Lecture ended at like 2:10pm which was REALLY fast. We all ran off pretty fast back to our flats.

After the lecture I quickly went over the student union to check our the Sports Activity Fair. There was SO MANY PEOPLE! By the time I finished my late lunch (after lecture) and got INTO the sports fair, the stands were starting to pack up. I didn't get to see much and was interested in signing up for some stuff but sadly they were all done for the day and took away their sign-up sheets.

Oh forgot to mention: I could hear the beginning of freshers flu flying around the class (oh no!). Nice short post as I didn't do anything interesting and just went home and took a nap.

Tip of the day: Load up on vitamin C during freshers week if you want to avoid freshers flu. No guarantees though. Oh and party really hard during freshers week because you won't be able to party as hard during actual uni time...too much work. Oh and if you really want to go sign up for stuff at a fair and you know you'll be in a rush after your lecture to go to the fair...just go before. It makes life much easier.

Side note: Hopefully most of you have already submitted your UCAS application for medical school by now or putting in the final touches to your personal statement. Good luck!