It's been a while...

... Oh yes, it has.

I was thinking of just deleting this blog forever. I mean, who cares what I'm thinking anyways?
But I realised that I care. It's a great way to get things off my chest...

I've just been doing the same old same old. Uni, home, uni, home.

The first week back after Chrismas I was feeling so depressed. I spent Christmas doing NOTHING. And it was GREAT. No PBLs to worry about, no lectures to go over (like I do anyway!) and no exams to worry about. It was pure bliss!
I started wondering if I had made the wrong career choice... Would I rather live The Lazy Life? Or would I rather be out there saving lives? Thank God MedSoc (my Medicine in Society placement at a Child Development Centre) helped me to make sense of my choice again. Attending a careers talk on becoming a GP (thought I'd explore some options), and seeing the GP so happy in his career made me want that too. The work at Uni (we are studying Brain and Behaviour at the moment - a real toughie) started to become, not easier, but more interesting... And seeing my friends again... It all helped me to realise again that this is where I want to be.

New Year, New Worries...

Well, just to update you, I didn't manage to find a job :(
I already work part time in retail, so just did some overtime there... the pay's not as good as temporary admin work, but it's better than nothing, eh?

Uni reopens today. I'm actually quite scared of going into the 2nd year...
I've actually forgotten pretty much everything I 'learnt' last year! That's not the most sturdy foundation to build up year 2 knowledge on, is it? We start with cardiorespiratory - let's see how it goes. Maybe now that we will be learning pathology in depth, it might be more enjoyable, therefore easier to remember... We'll see...

Good luck to those of you starting a new uni year :)

Job Hunting...

...Yeah. It's not going so well.

I called up the agency that I used last year for a temp job during the summer again this morning. I'm "at the top of the list" for a job (yeah, since 2 weeks ago??!). I wonder what the agency people do all day? Probably paperwork of some sort. Or Facebook - more likely :P heehee!

Well, fingers crossed I get something real soon - I need £££££££££!!!!

Blast From The Past

My sister's Health Visitor came to visit her for the 'first time' today at my mum's house (my sister is staying for a while, so we can help her out with her new baby, and because she had a caesarean section which is refusing to heal... And my brother-in-law's '2 weeks paternity leave' is up - 2 weeks?! Pah!). But it wasn't actually the health visitor's first time!

Turns out the health visitor, Janet, had been our health visitor too, when we were born!!! All of ours! As in, mine, and my sisters', and my brother's!

Janet remembered our address, and was eager to be my sister's health visitor because, as Janet said, "I love to see my babies having babies" - awwwwwww! She remembered every single one of us! It was so sweet - and she loved hearing what we were up to nowadays :)

I hope that when I'm a doctor I will remember each of my patients, and their whole family... It made me realise the importance of the doctor-patient relationship. I realise it's not always possible, especially in some hospital settings where it's almost 'Patient In, Patient Out', but we should at least make the effort. Like Janet - building a link, remembering faces, making patients feel special and individual.

I certainly felt special, though the fact that she had seen all of our bums all those years ago made me feel ever so slightly weird :P

Medical Student Hold-Up

Sometimes I feel like I'm a personal taxi service for my family. Today I was woken up early to drive my little brother to school (though my mum ended up driving him). Then I was meant to drive my older sister to the hospital for her appointment (she has just had a baby and was going for a check-up), but my dad drove her because I ended up having to take my little sister to HER hospital appointment which was at the same time as my older sister's appointment (you still with me??)

Anyhoos - well, re-reading the above, I've realised I haven't really taxied anyone around today! Haha! But I DID have a busy morning...

We ended up waiting 2 hours to see the doctor at the hospital clinic! There was a delay because they were one nurse down, and medical students were out and about being taught by the hospital clinic doctors. Who would've thought that medical students could cause such a delay??! My sis and I did have a good chuckle at the notice one nurse had put up:

"Apologies for the delay -
- 1 nurse short due to illness
- Medical STDs teaching"

'Medical STDs'??? Teaching??? Now, that IS worrying! STDs carried around by overactive medical students must be so advanced that they can teach! The humour of it all (though very immature, but what the hay :P) actually made the 2 hour wait more bearable!

Once the doctor was ready for my little sister, we entered the consultation room to find a young, smart, slightly nervous looking medical student sitting in the corner.

"I am Dr X, and Y here is a medical student. Is it OK for him to observe this consultation?" - familiar with this 'gaining consent' malarky, my sister and I agreed to his presence and the consultation continued.

"I will be saying my thoughts out loud for the benefit if the medical student", Dr X said. I had sat through some consultations at the GP practice we were attached to through year 1, but I was so excited anyway, even though he didn't know that I was a medical student as well. Maybe I could learn something too!

I recognised some clinical techniques used: testing the corneal light and accomodation reflexes, a visual acuity test, looking at the back of the retina using an opthalmoscope - we had practised these for our OSCE exam a few weeks back so it was great to see them in practice. I also recognised some words - ptosis etc. which made me realise just how much I had actually learnt last year...

There was a lot of "Um-ing" and "Ah-ing", but it turned out that there was nothing to worry about - great news for my sis. I can't wait to enter my clinical years though, so that I can be the medical student looking nervous in the corner instead of the imposter who was meant to be the concerned relative, but ended up as the 'silent and unknown medical student' eavesdropping for her own pleasure!!! Bring it on!!!

The First One...

Welcome to my blog!

Here I am at this silly hour starting up something that I have never done before - sharing my world with everyone on a blog! I've been reading some blogs for a long time now, so it was about time that I started my own...

A Moody Medic seems an ideal title - it's all I've been called since I collected my 1st year medicine results. No, not because my results were terrible - I actually did better than expected and passed with flying colours! - but because of the loooooooong summer stretched ahead of me...

Let me explain:

I'm a work-a-holic (paid work, that is :P) Always have been. So the idea of a long summer with nothing to do makes me moodier than ever! I've contacted the agency I used last summer for a job - now I just wait. If I don't get a job soon, i'll go crazy!

So... Join me in my quest for a summer job, and surviving Year 2 of Med School!

Happy reading :P