I'm a Medical Student, Get Me Out of Here: Medicine

Showing posts with label Medicine. Show all posts

Thursday, 22 November 2007

I Actually Like Medicine!

Yes ladies, gentlemen and others, I actually want to be a Doctor and I'm really looking forward to it. Just about every medical student, goes through periods when then think 'is this really for me?' and i've had my fair share of feeling like that but:....

I've not been this excited about medicine for....well, ever really. Sure when I first started clinicals the first week on the wards were exciting and interesting but following that I fell into sort of a hole whereby I just went along with the flow. I found the work mildly interesting but I wasn't really inspired by it. If I'm totally honest I drifted through most of 3rd and 4th year. I learnt things along the way and really enjoyed parts of it but I never really felt truly involved. I wasn't the first, and I won't be the last person who doesn't really put themselves forward for things. I mean yeah, I was always ready to try and answer questions when others would just stand silently staring off into space but when it comes to being keen or having to actively ask to do or be shown something I just tended to drift into the background. I know this isn't the way to do things, or a good way of learning things and I've always advised others to put themselves forward.

I think perhaps things started to change during my elective, for the first time ever I felt almost useful, like I could really help and make a difference. I liked the atmosphere, I enjoyed learning and I was interested in medicine. On my return I went back into somewhat of a lull, back to my old ways of coasting if you like. Perhaps this is because I was on somewhat of a come-down following the amazing experience of my elective.

I've never enjoyed a week of medicine as much as I've enjoyed this week, I've not done anything particularly special, or seen anything wildly exciting but for the first time in a long time I'm excited, I'm enthused, I'm eager to learn. Very rarely have I come away at the end of the day with the intention of reading up on something I've seen or learnt about, even less so have I followed through on that intention but now I feel like I want to, I'm inspired to. I think I'm behind some of my peers with regards to being involved, some of them have probably been at it since 3rd year. But I don't care, for me, its important that I've finally seen what medicine is really like and that I can see myself doing it, and doing it well. Perhaps its because its 5th year and that things are starting to come together and make sense (still very slowly but still, its progress!), I know what tests patient x needs and why, I no longer feel useless or in the way (although I still probably am) I enjoy helping the house officer out with jobs. I can pin-point one reason which might be contributing to my new found love of medicine - the one-on-one style of 5th year. I have a whole team to myself, there is nobody else to get in the way/compete with/hide behind. Not only do I learn a lot from one-on-one teaching, I find the whole experience much more beneficial, I'm more confident and much more willing to do things. Today, when I had my own patients in clinic I felt like a doctor, I was making taking complete histories, doing full examinations, making diagnoses, coming up with management plans all the things doctors do and I loved it. Ok, so they were not the most taxing of problems but for me, it made me realise that I really do like this medicine malarkey, I really do want to be a doctor, and I really can't wait...

This post is FAR too positive for me, so it should also be noted that I still hate the course and PBL. Perhaps I wouldn't have been so slow in finding my path if I had gone elsewhere, but not to worry, better late than never eh?

The Little Doctor, coming to a ward near you, and excited about it! (if I pass finals EEEK!)

Tuesday, 20 November 2007

New Firm, New World

I've not done a medical firm for a while and it was a bit of a shock to the system when I started my new firm this week. I've been used to the relatively relaxed surgical specialties for a while. Surprisingly I'm loving it! Although its only been 2 days, I'm already getting quite into it despite the long days that I'm not really used to.

Yesterday was my first day, the registrar is off on holiday, the SHO was off sick and the consultant was busy. It was left to the F1 to do a ward round so I tagged along with him. The F1 is really nice, I learnt lots and found it really interesting. There weren't too many patients on our list though each one had their own complex issues. Its supposed to be a gastro firm so why one of our patients is a myeloma patient i've got no idea, it was certainly interesting the two of us trying to take care of this guy (neither of us know much about myeloma) trying to arrange an MRI for query cord compression was a challenge, and I ended up getting shouted at down the phone by a neurologist who didn't want to do his MRI. I left at 5pm, having not even had a 2 minute break all day, I was knackered, god knows how the F1 was feeling, he didn't leave till 7 and he'd done a 14 hour shift the day before.

This morning, I arrived promptly and helped out the F1 by doing some of his jobs, before 9am I'd done all the blood forms and spoken to a nursing home to find out the normal condition of one of our patients. The SHO turned up shortly after 9 and I'd been forewarned about her by the F1, he wasn't wrong, she wasn't the friendliest person in the world but there is always one bad egg isn't there? The consultant came along and it was decided that I should just shadow the F1 for most of my time on the firm which I'm really happy to do as I've already learnt plenty, including lots of tips about being an F1 which will come in handy. I enjoyed the ward round and after lunch (fortunately we had time for lunch today which was kindly bought for me by the F1) I stayed and helped with the jobs. To round the day off, I did an ABG on an old lady with annoyingly mobile arteries, fortunately I hit it, which is surprising as I've not done it for since early in 3rd year!

I'm really enjoying this medical firm, despite yesterday's 8 hour ward round. I'm even surprising myself. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in over the next 4 weeks and getting some really good experience shadowing the F1. I just hope when the F1s change in December that I get a decent replacement...

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

So where have we been for the past 3 months?

Blogs we wrote on the island

2007 Elective round up

Well, The Little Medic and I did a little world travelling (Thailand, Australia, Fiji, Los Angeles) but the main part of our trip was a 2 month stint in the town of Lata, on Nendo island, in the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands.

The Solomon islands are situated between Australia and Papua New Guinea. It takes around 4 hours to travel to the Solomon Islands by air from Brisbane/Fiji. The flight takes you to Honiara, the capital. From the capital it takes 3 hours by two-propellor plane to reach the island we are on, or 3 days by boat. The province we were in is so isolated that the Solomon Island government often leaves it off official maps of the country. It is one of the most remote places on earth.

The main island of Temotu province is called Nendo in the local language and Santa Cruz by most other people. The main island has a hospital and a school. It can take up to 12 hours by boat to reach Nendo from the islands that lie even further out. One of the outer lying islands in the Temotu province is Anuta - you may have seen it on Bruce Parry's recent episode of 'TRIBE' (we only found this out on our return). While we were on Nendo, I taught in the school while The Little Medic completed his elective at the hospital. It is safe to say there are few facilities in the hospital and almost none in the school. There is one doctor for the entire province of 20,000 people who are spread over a huge area of ocean. TLM saw a lot of medicine, a lot of surgery and he really learnt a great deal from the experience. Stuff the namby-pamby useless British medical schools, this was almost like an old-fashioned apprenticeship with all 1-on-1 attention from the doctor who has to specialise in everything. I taught with only a piece of chalk and my imagination and story-telling. I realised how ungrateful we are in England for our medical and education services. The experience made me re-consider teaching in England, but more of that another time.

We can't really explain what it was like to live there, in a place with no running water or electricity, no television or radio and scant contact with the outside world. It was amazing and here are some of the things we did:

climbed a 100m (approx) waterfall with no equipment
trekked through jungle/rainforest

swam in shark-infested water
waded through crocodile-infested rivers

saw genuine (not put on for tourists!) custom traditions/dances

survived high seas in the Pacific Ocean in a 5 metre boat - the waves were at least 4 or 5 metres high and were slapping onto and into the boat (which had no life jackets)