This small town…

A friend once said that he would never be able to live in London because it was so big and anonymous; he said he liked his small university town where you couldn’t walk from one side to the other without meeting someone you knew.

Although this is a big city, the fact remains that most students (and especially most medical students) live within a certain area between the three main hospital sites.  It is rare for me to walk home, or wander down one of the main high streets, without at least seeing someone that I acknowledge.

On this note, even though I see people I know a lot, and even though a number of my best friends live on the same walk into University… HOW COME I never bump into them, and instead have to make weird small talk with someone I went to school with and didn’t really like even then?

And also- why, oh WHY do I never bump into Cutemedicboy?!

Medicgirl x

That depressing time of year again…

…When your loan is yet to arrive, but you still have to pay your fees to enroll.

 Yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and stop putting it off- I paid my fees and watched the numbers in my lovely little account, which has now stayed in the black for a whole year (I know! I’m not entirely sure how either),  go shooting down into the negatives. 

I then realised that I have bills to pay this week.  Cue mild panic while I try to work out if I can afford to go swimming tomorrow, let alone get my hair cut.  In the end I left a mildly panicked message on my parents answerphone and went for a run to try and exercise out the stress!  On my return, life was a little less stressful, and my parents had kindly rang to offer me a loan for a few weeks to tide me over until all my finances are running properly again.

On a positive note I have now chosen my modules for the next year- and can’t wait.  Only a week until I start again!

Medicgirl x

Pre-game warm-up.

Life is getting a little more exciting over here at London-medicgirl-towers.

Flatmate has returned from his travels, complete with scraggy beard that we shaved in stages as we documented photographic evidence.  He’s back in clinics again, but his presence is good- it makes me get out of the house and go to the pub (clearly a worthy activity).

1st and 2nd year clinics have started back, so I actually have friends around in London.  Last night the medic bar was very “Old-school” in that it was like being a fresher again- heaving bar, and knowing everyone there. Due to the fact that I’d consumed a considerable amount of wine and cheese with flatmate before heading out, apparently I was a bit “social-butterfly”; by that I mean I was flitting around the room with an attention span of a gnat! Still, it did mean I talked to almost everyone there, and had a fantastic evening.

I think I shall be taking Harry’s advice, and not going overboard on the pre-reading. I am however going to order a book I want on amazon, and do a bit of reading on the areas I find the most interesting.  The timetable for the first week came through the other day, and I am a tad excited now. I have, as far as I can, stalked the other people on the course through facebook: no one I know, but hopefully everyone will be nice!  At the end of the day I have a lot of good friends already, so all I really NEED are people to have decent conversations with over coffee!

Society things have started up again in preparation for freshers week and the enticement of new meat into the group- I have been entrusted with doing various jobs due to my status of not-being-in-clinics so that should keep me occupied for a few days.

I should probably be off to bed; all these late nights have left me rather tired, and I need to be up early in the morning to attempt to bake Challah!

Medicgirl x

London Medicgirl defies the odds!

At our last exam we’d been told that the exam board met on wednesday and results would be out on thursday. Naturally there was speculation as to WHEN on thursday they would be out, but we all came to the conclusion that it would be around the time they did in March- so about 9.30-10.

Bear in mind we are medical students.

I know I am not the only one who woke up at 5am, as while I supped my coffee and whiled away the hours online, I saw a number of facebook statuses (Yes, I know, I know. I’m a loser) that suggested the same.

Obsessive checking of the emails (on my part) started around 9.

I attempted to watch Grease 2, Ugly Betty, and Friends, but I have a feeling that the world could have been ending out of the front window and I still would have been dashing off to check one-more-time every 2-3 minutes.

I started cursing the Medical School Administration at about 10.

“What are they doing? The lazy &^£^%$ s have been in for an hour!! Don’t they KNOW we’re all panicking.  This is our FUTURE and they’re all having a cup of bloody coffee!”

Other peoples facebook statuses started to get stressed at about 10.30.

To give the medical school credit where credit is due- our administration are actually lovely; even the ones with less of a reputation for kindness have always been friendly and co-operative with me. 

At 11 my mother made me a cup of tea, and I paced around a bit.

On the hour, every hour, I realised everyone was doing what I was doing- thinking “Oh, I bet it’s out NOW!” because the server would suddenly get Alzheimers and go all slow- of course this would immediately make you feel sick, as that usually means you have an email and it’s downloading; today it just meant that 350-odd medical students were checking their emails at exactly the same time.

Results came out at 12.10.

By this time my mother had gone off to do useful things, and my dad had gone out because “All this tension is too much to bear”, so I call my mother into the room as I scan the email, heart in mouth, wanting to vomit.

It is OK.

There are little P’s on the page.

I have not failed.

I do not have to do a directed elective.

I can do a BSc.

I have not wasted £15,000 with nothing to show for it.

I am still a medical student.

I have not come at the top of the year (as if I ever expected to??!!!)  but I am not at the bottom, so although come graduation I may not be working in a good hospital, but at least I will be in a hospital.

This is the point that my dad suddenly magically reappears with a teeny bottle of champagne, so we each have a glass (I’ve not eaten all morning so it goes straight to my head) and then cook lunch; which for me is chips. 

Chips, mayonnaise and champagne.

(A very happy) Medicgirl xxx

Pretty Flowers and Skipping Lambs

So I’m revising Puerpural Fever, and I come across “Offensive Lochia”… now, having not done Gyne (that’s next year) and presumably having forgotten if we were ever told what it was, I googled it.  Being a medical student, and therefore somewhat of sick mind, I also thought it could be interesting to have a quick click on Images…. I found it quite amusing that there were just pictures of skipping couples and daffodils.

What’s worse than a bunch of medics in one room?

A bunch of pre-exam medics in one room.

Exam-fever has truely hit the medical school, and as such I am ready to kill the majority of my colleagues. 

No. I do not want to listen to a breakdown of what you’ve revised.
No. I do not want to hear all about what you’ve still got left to do.
No. I do not need to know exactly how you’re going to fit this into the coming weeks, or how much you revised today, or yesterday.

There is one thing that I hate more than post-exam analysis, and that is pre-exam analysis.  So, if you’re one of these culprits… next time your msn list looks surprisingly empty, it may not be because everyone is off revising, it is probably because- like me- everyone has blocked you because they really don’t want to know.

On a lighter note…. I bring you Medicine According To My Sister:

“Nephrology would be exciting. Kidneys are cool- they have all those woogly-things in them.”

Medicgirl x

My (current) favourite doctor

On most of the placements I’ve been on this year, I’ve had a favourite doctor- not necessarily the one who likes me, or thinks I’m really good (but clearly that does help!), nor even the one I respect the most, or aspire to be.  And for the record- no, I havn’t had crushes on them all either!

Currently my favourite doctor doesn’t actually teach me, but I tracked him down today in clinic to ask him to have a quick look at my hand.  Which he duely did and instantaniously diagnosed me (De Quervain tenosynovitis) before giving advice and telling me to come back and see him if it didn’t settle down. He even remembered my name!

Anyway, the combination of actually being remembered by someone who’s not teached me now for months on end, knowing what the hell is wrong with my hand as well as what to do if it doesn’t get better means I am a happy medicgirl tonight (sort of, but thats a totally different story).

Medicgirl x

“Find any Death?”

Flatmate and I are lying on the sofa watching the Simpsons.  Flatmate idly percusses my abdomen as I extol on the new style of percussion I’ve developed (I copied one of the MAU consultants I was on with last week).

Londonmedicgirl: Find any death?

Flatmate continues percussing, remaining rather ominously silent, before my sister comes in.  She watches us for a minute before commenting;

“Medicine hasn’t really changed much in a long time has it…”

Cocktail for disaster

1 part personal stress
2 parts professional stress
Shake together with over-tiredness and ice
Serve garnished with hormones

One of the reasons for my absence over the last few days was because I was hit with a rather crushing if short-lived depression on Saturday; something that happens to me from time to time, and normally can dealt with by hiding from the world in pyjamas for the day and getting a decent nights sleep. 
“Mental-health Days” I tend to call them. Other people skive clinics because they’re hungover;I skive when I’m miserable.  I don’t see this as a cop-out; I see it as a sensible move that staves off anything worse. 

An episode of Doctor Who, a decent nights sleep, and an early Sunday morning trip to the hospital to check on a patients notes, and I was feeling a lot better. 
The main thing that was praying on my mind was that I had to present to my tutor on mornday morning; although I’ve presented a million and one times before this guy was an unknown quantity and pretty scary.  However, when it actually came around I did an OK job- sure I may have rushed the actual history because I was nervous and shaking, and I may have flubbed a few questions, but he marked me fairly and gave constructive criticism that I could actually learn from.  So although I’m still scared of him, I do respect him, which is a good state of affairs to be in.

MedicGirl x

There’s still time…

There is still time left to make me cry… and I have horrible feeling that this module is going to be the one where I crack and end up sobbing like a school girl in front of a doctor.  Alas, unlike at school where this sort of behaviour could definately be twisted to your advantage (not me, but I’ve seen it done masterfully), I have a feeling you’d just be labelled as the unprofessional that cried. 

Yesterday I had teaching first thing which ran over- the upshot of which was that I was running late for clinic and so when I turned up, it had started and all the other medical students were there.  I was almost an hour late admittedly, but it was also very much NOT MY FAULT. 

I speak politely to the receptionist, who clearly doesn’t care, and goes out of her way to be obtuse and bitchy.
I speak to a healthcare assistant, who is also a complete witch.
I wait outside the doctors doors until one comes out. I step forwards, apologise and try to explain the situation and in return the doctor is rude and abruptly tells me he’s already got medical students in his room. I politely ask which of the other rooms are also the doctors, and he seemingly reluctantly tells me. 
I wait for the next door to open.  This doctor is even worse; he tells me off for being late, that it is unacceptable and that I may well have not bothered.  This is even though I led with the explanation that teaching ran over.  In the end, I ask if there is a reg. working the clinic as well, and he again, seemingly reluctantly, tells me which room. 
I wait for the reg. to open his door.  By this time I’m upset, and stressed, and feel like crying, so when the reg opens his door and I step forwards I am profuse in my appologies and expecting the worse.  He is lovely, he cuts me off with a “Oh, another student? Come in- find a chair!”  Another girl from my firm is there and he does a lot of teaching during the clinic as well as being generally friendly and helpful to us as well as the patients.

Which brings me on to the main question in my mind…

If some people can be polite even when stressed, WHAT THE FUCK makes the rest of them believe that it is acceptable to act like total CUNTS?
I think what made it worse was the fact that so far at this hospital I’ve felt that there is a really nice atmosphere- the staff all seem to get on well, and there doesn’t seem to be the pervasive attitude of *goddamnmedicalstudents*.

Luckily the reg. resumed my faith in nice people, as did a receptionist later that day who went out of her way to be helpful to me.  Ah well- come the end of the module I’m going to rip those doctors to shreds in my feedback form and then they’ll…. probably not care at all because I bet no one reads them. But never mind, I’m sure the vitriolic outburst will make me feel better.

In true Medicgirl form, I made myself feel better by going shopping and although I did not find the cardigan that will change my life for the better, I did buy a bottle of shower wash from bodyshop.  Medicgirl will at least be clean and stressed. 

I then decided to bin off my planned afternoon of study, and go out for the evening- another event which didn’t go to plan- but it did end sitting on a bench on the southbank, swigging baileys from the bottle and watching the river, so I’m not complaining.

MedicGirl x