Today I almost kicked the oxygen habit, yes ladies and gentlemen, I almost died! "what happened?!" I hear you screaming at the screen...
Well... I was sat in the library casually procrastinating as you do, you know, perusing the web and checking emails when suddenly it happened. I noticed an email, our placement choices for year 5. I almost died of shock! (I know that is far less exciting that I built you all up for but I'm serious!) We were asked to pick a list of specialties for 5th year and we're told we'd be lucky to get 2 of our top choices, from past experience I expected the worst. As I glanced at the email, little explosions of happiness went off in my head.
I seem to have got all 4 of my top choices, even in the order that I wanted!!! How? How has something in the medical school gone my way? I'm not sure I believe it, its a joke, come on, surely?! Where is Jeremy Beadle?
So whats the explanation? Well, sadly it isn't cause for me to start singing the praises of my medical school. Fortunately the 5th year placements are arranged internally at my teaching hospital! (perhaps its not the worst place on Earth after all, actually of course it is, it's just the staff are all really friendly and considerate)
So my 5th year looks a little something like this:
Block 1 (8 weeks) - Elective, Lata Hospital, Solomon Islands.
Block 2 (8 weeks) - 4 weeks Orthopaedics (woo!), 4 weeks general medicine (gastro)
Block 3 (8 weeks) - Community placement, 8 weeks in GP land (we had to make choices for this too, I bet I'm going to get sent to the Arctic.
Block 4 (8 weeks) - 4 weeks A&E (yay!), 4 weeks lower GI surgery.
All with decent consultants in the same hospital!
p.s. Had typhoid and Hep A vaccination today - my arm hurts SO much!
p.p.s Happy Birthday to missbliss
Thursday, 7 June 2007
Am I Dreaming?!?!?!
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15 comments:
Congrats on coming out on the upside of the Law of Averages, LM.
Bit like referees and penalty decisions, it all evens out over the course of a season. If the season is long enough.
Happy Birthday to missbliss... You should get her a big big present... :-) *girlsgot to stick up for one another*
Congrats on the electives... It's good to relieve at least some of the dispair of the med school stuff :-)
Happy birthday to Missbliss!!! I hope you're planning to spoil her rotten all weekend.
Glad to hear your placements are sorted, it's good to have something to look forward to!
Whoa. You are SO lucky. I'm seething in jealousy. It's prolly like what UK Bioscience Dude up there says - the Law of Averages means you get lucky some of the time (About the UK Bioscience Dude, congrats on picking him up! He seems like a great reader to have around.)
And you JUST got your Hep B and typhoid jabs? Nice. Stay away from aspirin for the next coupla months!
Bioscience academic - I wish it was simply the law of averages evening itself out, sadly there is a much simpler explaination, the medical school itself had nothing to do with allocating the placements. But thanks for the congrats and also thanks for the comments on that last post :)
ms-ellisa - hehe thanks.
phoenix - I spoil her all the time! :D hehe. And yes, its very good to have something to look forward to, keeps you going when things look poo.
Angry - You're always jealous! hehe, it won't be long before its your turn! (I promise)
As for the jabs - I had to have one for typhoid and Hep A for my elective. I had hep B ages ago, it was one of my conditions of acceptance to med school.
My arm still hurts! grrr
Got a lovely private prescription for malaria prophylaxis too!
haha you're such a drama queen
Malaria prophylaxis - watch out for mefloquine. Yet to meet anyone who took it who didn't feel very peculiar (at the least).
Are they still handing out chloroquine + paludrine or is all the Plasmodium resistant to it yet?
And what are the strains on your Islands resistant to?
j00ni - Melodrama is my what i'm all about.
uk bioscience academic - Our prophylaxis is doxycycline, don't like the sound of the others too much.
Chloroquine-resistant then.
What put you off Malarone?
Don't think I would take Lariam / mefloquine. I know several different people who did and felt deeply weird, and one even stopped taking it while in malarial regions as a consequence.
The biomedical "urban legend" surrounding Lariam was that as it was developed by the US Army (Walter Reed Army Hosp) in the 70s they presumably ran their trials on GIs in Vietnam... and the grunts there were probably all so disturbed that the Lariam side effects just got lost in the "noise". I'd love to know if the story is really true.
uk bioscience - The fact that Malarone seems to cost about a billion pounds put me off the cheapest apparently is about £2 a tablet which would work out the best part of £400 for us.
Also i've had doxycycline before and have been told it's the best.
so how exactly does the application process work for 5th year choices...and if i..say, wanted to do a full 8 week block in A&E - they're not gonna let me, are they? :-P
At my hospital you pick about 8 specialties (4 for block)
You are then allocated 2 for each block (1 of which is supposed to be definitely 1 of your choices) so you then do 4 weeks on each of them.
Thus you end up with 4 different 4 week block, usually 2 of which are your first choice.
I don't know about the other hospitals though I suspect you're far less likely to get your own choices.
And no, they won't let you do 8 weeks a and e :p
"I don't know about the other hospitals though I suspect you're far less likely to get your own choices."
LM... you mean... there ARE some upsides to the hospital you got exiled to?
Say it ain't so!!
Sorry, being mischievous.
But… several of my medical pals have commented that the trade-off for being in a "converted DGH academic satellite centre" (which is where I'm guessing you are), rather than the "big city major University teaching hospital" every student thinks they want to be in, is that you might be able to rack up a bit more hands-on / coal-face. The argument being that away from the academic mega-centre there is probably a bit less specialisation of the specialties (if you see what I mean) and also students might be more of a novelty and “appreciated extra pair of hands”. Net result being you can see and do more.
What do you think of this argument? Has it worked like that for you?
Uk bioscience academic - I've always said that the Hospital i'm at does have its advantages, It isn't the hospital I dislike, more the place. Most of the staff are great!
As for that arguement, to an extent I agree and have experienced that type of stuff. It is well recognised that most of the staff at my hospital are enthusiastic and willing to teach, perhaps it is just the novelty of having students. But at the same time, sometimes staff have no idea who we are or what we are able and or supposed to do.
Certainly the staff within the undergraduate centre are excellent and very approachable, all on first name terms etc etc. When I started there were still relatively few students at my hospital which made the opportunities plentiful, but there were still problems which hadn't been ironed out due to there only having been students there for 2 years.
I do worry that because the university are sending more and more students to my hospital (more and more against their will) that this experience will be dampened somewhat. As the intake approaches capacity (about 230 students) it will become more and more like the central hospitals and lose what little appeal it has.
Oh, I dunno, block 1 definitely looks the best to me...
:)
Well done!
And Happy Birthday Miss Bliss! Would have said it earlier, but I was holidaying!
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