One Year On

6

6th December 2007

19 Days to go till Christmas

tlm fact: I am related to Gordon Brown and have had tea and biscuits in 10 Downing Street.

One year ago today I was sat in a GP surgery working on a project, by working I of course mean surfing the Internet. I came across The Angry Medic and from there, I found a plethora of blogs from medical students, doctors and other health professionals. Despite my addiction to the Internet, I'd never previously discovered this phenomenon. I spent hours reading about the experience's of others and that day I decided that perhaps I should have a blog of my own.

(I tried to use this as an excuse to get missbliss to bake me another cake, unfortunately she was having none of it - although she did make a very tasty trifle)

From there I came up with I'm a Medical Student, Get Me Out of Here and wrote my first post. I really didn't expect anyone to read my moans and groans and was very pleasantly surprised to find that I soon built up a small following. I'm not the most articulate of people, especially when it comes to explaining my ideas in writing, I often forget things and I'm sure my vocabulary, spelling and grammar often leave a lot to be desired. Never-the-less, here I am one year on, I'd started blogs before but only written 1 or 2 posts before getting bored and giving up but I was determined to stick with it and I've succeeded so far.

I've enjoyed blogging, its a very helpful release, I enjoy getting some of my moans off my chest here (although I still moan a lot in person too). There have been some great times in the last year, and some really shit times but overall I think blogging has been a positive experience for me. It isn't exactly a portfolio but blogging has also had its uses, it is a way of reflecting on some of the experiences I've had in the past year. This came in useful when I had to write my foundation application form. The writing experience has also done me the world of good as I've improved my writing style and learnt things too.

I'd like to say a huge thank-you to all those who've read my blog and those who've left comments. There would be much less enthusiasm for blogging if I knew that nobody was reading.

I hope I'll be able to continue blogging over the next year. There will be PLENTY of challenges and lots of things to moan about over the next year so stay tuned. There will also probably be a sparkly new blog to come if I pass finals and finally become a doctor.

Oh, and you should all read this post by missbliss, the pictures are hilarious!

A few random thoughts

OK, So I should actually be in theatre at the moment but the surgeon has disappeared and I'm fed up of playing 'hunt the surgeon'! I've been sat here for 10 or 15 minutes thinking what shall I do, various options occurred to me and I even started a 70 question meme but it was going rather slowly and I was a bit bored so here are just a few of my random thoughts.

1. - Everyone seems to be particularly excited about Christmas this year, despite the fact that it's still 46? days or so away whispers of Christmas are everywhere. Its probably like this every year but I've never noticed such a buzz before.

2. - There was disappointment among my fellow students this week as news filtered out that we'd no longer be getting free coffee during PBL/lectures. Must be a cost-cutting exercise, although rumours are that it'll be back when the new building is ready (which is already 4-5 months behind schedule, I'll be surprised if I ever see it open whilst I'm here) Personally this news didn't bother me one little bit, I never drink coffee or tea so its a complete waste of money as far as I'm concerned. I'd much rather have my share in biscuits, sadly this doesn't seem to be allowed. My PBL tutor accused me of being a Mormon this week because I didn't drink any caffeine, I told him I just get my caffeine from other sources!

3. - Facebook is turning us into a nation of freaks. I registered on facebook in its very early days but its grown incomprehensibly since then. Almost everyone between the age of 17 and 23+ is on it, and you're seen as some kind of freak if you're not. Or maybe its 'cool' to shun this social networking phenomenon. No doubt about it, it is a useful tool which makes life easy for example sharing pictures and keeping in contact with far-away friends but at the same time it can be a real problem. Facebook 'stalking' everyone you've ever known is almost mandatory these days, and I can't help feeling a great deal of trouble is going to come of it. I'm not even going to mention all the ridiculous third party applications that have been added in recent months, they're almost enough to drive you insane. I'm fed up of being 'bitten' by someone using a vampire application or being invited to the "my little toe is bigger than your nipple" society. Get a grip people!

4. - If you're wrong, just admit it!

5. - IKEA is amazing, I love walking around, I love looking at the stuff, I love picking the flat-packs out of the warehouse, I love trying to cram the flat packs into the car, I love putting the flat-pack stuff together and I love standing back and admiring my new TV stand, bookcases, drawers and various other IKEA goodies.

6. - I'm a geek, but you know what? I don't really care what anyone else thinks.

7. - I'm hungry, time to get some food and go back to theatre. What a strange post.

The Future

Due to a series of unfortunate events I decided to close my blog temporarily today. I have decided to give public blogging one last chance but have decided to disable anonymous comments and enable comment moderation. I apologise for this and I hope it doesn't hamper the contributions of some of my readers. There are a couple of people I hope will register in order to be able to keep commenting including 'UK bioscience dude' who has given me lots of useful advice in the past.

Whilst my blog was closed for a couple of hours today, I had a few worried readers email me. Thank you to them. I don't want to have to make this a private, invite only blog but that may be necessary if I want to keep on going (which I do). If I do this I'll be asking readers who wish to continue reading to email me at imamedicalstudentgetmeoutofhere[at]hotmail.co.uk to request an invite (a couple of you have already done so.)

In the mean time, there will potentially be a new blog. 'The Real Me' where invited readers only can get a more personal insight into my little world. Watch this space...
(email me to get an invite)

You've Been Googled

LAST UPDATED: 13 JUN 07 22:52

One of the things which I like about blogging is looking at my visitor stats (how lame am I?!) They amuse me, I particularly like the fact it tells you what people searched for before coming to the blog.

There have been some funny ones since I started, but the most recent slightly confused me;
"medical students fuck" - that person must have been looking for a really niche fetish! Worryingly, my blog is returned as the top result!

Other examples include:
"little medic" - someone in Germany seems to be quite obsessed unless they were genuinely looking for really little medics!
"cope with osce exam nerves" - anyone who is looking for help with OSCE nerves should probably stay well away from my blog!
"queue theory anatomic pathology turn around time" - what the fuck?
"sscs in obs and gynae" - people actually come here for medical type stuff?! (who would have thought it)

The internet is a strange, strange place.

UPDATE:
One from this morning which made me giggle "Hospital excuses to get out of school test"

UPDATE 2:
The most recent, and perhaps most worrying google: "fetish gynae medical pictures" - Again, worryingly my site is the top result!!

Thank You

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to those who've read and commented on my blog. Particularly on my last post, and other equally challenging posts. It is reassuring and refreshing to read comments sympathising with me, and equally as interesting to read comments which challenge my thoughts.

My last post seemed to generate a recurring theme that the same kind of things happen elsewhere. Which is reassuring I suppose, although perhaps I'll never be free from this kind of thing? Another message was that people are human and make mistakes, this is true, and I would never blame individuals. It is the institution as a whole which I blame, I've been saying since the end of my first year here that I no longer had any faith in my university. I've been lied to, ignored, and threatened by my medical school in the last 3-4 years, not once have I been offered help, or an apology. I wish I didn't have to rely on them for my degree, and it makes me rather sad to think like that.

I'm fairly sure that people from my medical school read my blog, perhaps some of the university staff do. They probably don't like it and right now I sit here considering getting rid of my blog altogether. Many of us bloggers seem to be rather paranoid about being disciplined because of our rants, perhaps I should be paranoid more than others due to the critical nature of some of my posts.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to my 10,000+ visitors (9990 of which is probably me.) I hope you enjoy reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy it until the time comes when my paranoia gets the better of me and I hit that big red delete button!