Who invented January exams?

because whoever you are you are literally the meanest person ever, perhaps on a par with the youngest sister in 'A Family stone' or maybe even all three Mean Girls put together..
WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY when theres so much food in the fridge and fun to be had would you invent something that means that theres a little voice in the back of your mind and a little twinge in your stomach that goes off every time you cross the 'fun threshold'. it says 'what have you learnt today? do you remember all the origins and insertions of all the gluteal muscles? exactly how many ultrascans would a woman over the age of 35 have in her first trimester? how many paracetamols is 'too many' for a hang-over?....' all whilst your playing in the snow, or gorging on lindor chocolates....
soooooooooooo. best get back to work then.

These are the doctors of the future......

Aren't we fresh-faced and young?





and very much aware of the sanitary precautions needing to be taken....

its a good place to start.

PBL 5 keep the party alive!!

Soo, nearing the end of my first semester as a 'proper' medic....I have to say its been muchhhh more successful than my first sem as a premed.
The fact that I actually get to learn about medical things is greaat, and now I’ve had 8 cases I can kinda see how my knowledge is loosely meeting in the middle, I can make rough associations between bodily processes, and things that I found so difficult last year are kind of taken for basics now.
Today we viewed our first houses of the year, for next September! Ella and Sam are leaving House35 so were downsizing. Neither today were that great, although loft and cavity insulation are a must, we have discovered.
One of the best things about this semester is my PBL group- 5. At the beginning I think we will now all admit, we didn’t exactly gel. However, something happened along the way, whether it was Ethel and her fatty spatterings or the new phenomenon aka ADD (after dissection drinking- union prices, empty stomachs..) we have suddenly realised that us being incredibly different is only a good thing.
On Tuesday we had our last Hospital Visit of the semester...Wythenshawe is my hospital for year 3. We caught a bus, it took us through basically every council estate in manch, and we ended up there hungry and a little creased an hour later.
We were given a patient on a ward and told to talk to them, practising the 'talking techniques' we had been through...
by the end of it we were strutting around the hospital with our badges brandishing our alcohol hand gel pumps, complete with extendable belt clips....only 4 and a half years to goooO!!!
Spirits were high and yet having only just got to know these people we all knew it would be the last time we were ever together in a clinical environment.
PBL is a great way to learn and it prepares you for the lack of constancy within medical careers, but it’s really sad that the first friends I’ve made in the medical school are going to be reallocated..
never again will I be able to roll my eyes at Carla who ALWAYS sits across the table from me, she will never shout 'this is STRESSIN me out!', we wont be able to sigh 'oh ivann' as he delivers a perfect molecular explanation of something none of us understand ten minutes after it was required, Andy will never breeze over something none of us want to talk about by telling our tutor we had a lecture on it.......
I guess I’ll end up in a new group and hate it for a while, and then hopefully, all things being well, we will bond and have squirty hand gel wars outside the ward and race wheelchairs down squeaky clean corridors....
However, I hope PBL 5we still all line up together after dissection, and practise washing our hands the proper way, the way no other group does....I hope me and Carla still argue about who has the best clinical partner...(I do. he carried my chair for me. he bought me a caramel kitkat chunky and I didn’t even ask for one...he texts me to ask the details of the patient we’ve spoken to 3 hours before because he cant remember them...its mutual ok.)


PBL keep the party alive- it’s our tagline, and hopefully at some point we will all be keeping patients alive...

Home is where the heart is......

Its funny because a I received a letter today and the person writing is a friend from home. Bristol. but she was writing from Brighton, which is where she has moved to for Uni. She asked me if I thought of Manchester as my home and I thought about it and can't really answer.
When i'm out up here and a housemate calls me i'll say 'Ill be home in a bit'. When i visit friends from Home. Bristol. and return to Manchester i'll say 'ive gotta get the train home at 5', but when im in my house in manchester Home is Bristol.
'Im excited about going Home for Christmas'. I really am.
My house in Manchester is so homely though, but my room is so 'Bristol' as someone recently described. The people i live with are amazing and i feel like im with family, but i miss my family. Someone on my course said today that she hadn't spoken to one of her housemates for 3 whole days straight, just because they hadnt seen each other (although tbh they dont get on thattt well..)
I cant imagine a day when I dont see all 6 of the people that I live with..because i like them. i love them.

Recently I went to LDN to see 2 of my Homegirls.
It was soooo nice, theyve set up a little home there too, and it feels strangely familliar although ive only been there once. We cleaned the kitchen and listened to 'In the mood for Britney' at top volume on the Telly. We watched 'The Family Stone', a really christmassy film, lying in bed, and drank syruppy starbucks and sat in the pub in the day and ate fat chips and mayonnaise. we watched x-factor and I got shouted at for fancying a boy to young to fancy and it was like it always is when were in B-town. but we werent.

Then i came 'home' to Manch and it felt weird, but everyone said they had missed me which was nice. and soon i'll be leaving again to go PROPER home.
Back to a bath and a centrally heated house with an 'override' switch that isnt off limits, and to houmous in the fridge and our local pub with mulled wine over the festive period, and carols in the park (is she?) and my family and to fuss and neighbours asking how im finding manchester and whether im a doctor yet, to all the clothes i couldnt fit in the car on the way up and to dirty slimy clubs and that festive cheer that exists only really with people youve been sharing home with for your whole life.
I cant wait to come home at christmas, but i'll want to come back here after.
I think home is mainly about the people in your life.




and houmous.

Can we cut it?

because i took English literature (what is basically 3 years ago) i feel i have a right to use witty and yet cringeworthy puns as the titles of my blogs.
anyway, this one is slightly multifaceted, and i'll tell you why....
a) last friday we were doing dissection, as you do. and Ethel's (NOT ACTUAL NAME) upper arm was way more fatty than her forearm so it was taking longer. Someone had de-skinned it and i got the wonderful job of blunt dissecting the fascia. this means the scalpel goes away- and you use your finger. gloved. preferably.
now there was quite a lot of phenol dripping everywhere and i got stuck on a bit of tough stuff and anyway, to cut a long-ish story short, my finger slipped and i covered my face and lab coat and someone who will not be named (stood on the other side of the body) face with 'bits'. THE MOST DISGUSTING THING IN THE WORLD EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
b) everyone wants to hack away at people before theyve even talked to them. everyone wants to be a surgeon, everyone wants the scalpel first. what if you dont even need to cut them open? In our weekly cases theres always a psychosocial element, which EVERYONE.HATES. it is annoying because 30% of the exam is on it and you have to find models for it and stuff, and this requires buying the text book for £30. grr. But having also done Psychology for 4 years i get a bit annoyed when this previously unnamed (previously covered in cadaver) dismisses depression as 'not important' because weve 'already done it'. bearing in mind he wants to be a neurosurgeon. doesnt he think these people with brains might actually use them at some point?
c) my clinical partner is finding medicine really difficult and its really nice that he is honest about it. after AUTOPSY FAIL i have to say i have been thinking more about what it is to be a doctor, about all the people you wont end up helping, or in fact will end up killing, and i think were all in one of those situations of almost constant not-knowing if this is the right thing to be doing, or whether we can cut it if it is.
i mean i WANT to be able to do it. i KNOW i can. but you cant be a fair weather doctor who avoids all the death and stuff can you....?



oh wait. psychiatrist. thats right.

a nowte on spellig....

APOLOGIESSSSSSSS- 'Ladle' - 'visceral'!!!

Its such a shame that the whole NHS is attempting to go paperless, I was looking forward to the times when my attrociiiiiiiiioussssssssssssssss handwriting could cover the words that I can't quite spell so I could just put a squiggle...........

Autopsy.....fail.

So, being a Medical Student (note the capitals...) I should be able to deal with all sorts of situations? right? blood and gore and stuff.
Well Ive been doing alright in anatomy, scalpel in hand degloving...well a hand. But today was the ultimate test of strength (of stomach). Through the medical school you can sign up to see autopsies at the path lab of the MRI. I thought I might as well start young (ish) so this morning I toddled along with my friends Yas and El. We arrived and signed in. We were one man down at the door as El realised she didn't have her STUDENT ID. Bad times.
I didn't do much better to be honest. We scrubbed up (every med students dreeeeeeam!) : down to undies, scrubs, full gowns with elasticated wristbands, crocs (big fashion faux pas), then into the pre autopsy room room where you find wellies of all sizes (white, none of these leopard print, flowery things), and full length plastic aprons, then you go into the AR and put on gloves and visors and step back to take in the view.
I'm not going to go into much detail but there were ladels involved in the removal of fluids and it was SOOOOOOOOO incredibly hot in there. This was before i did my 'i feel funny' business.
The smell was pretty viceral, and I didnt mind what I was seeing, be it infected wounds or weird brown stuff in the oesophagus (ENGLISH SPELLINGS PLEASE!!) or lung juice being drained, but my brain just decided that it wasnt right and I was to go and sit down in the boot room. IMMEDIATELY.
I had to take off all the plastic stuff and waft warm smelly air around in an attempt to cool my sweaty sexy self.
Round two didnt go much better, Yas was having a question field day but again, it all got a bit hot and I had to leave. One of the very nice assistants said I should try again but I was wasting plastic aprons so I thought I should just go.......
I did learn one thing though, I look good in scrubs!




Gotta go now, me and El are having lunch.........

Oh the irony......

of the fact that this is meant to be letting you all know what its like to be a medical students, I'm meant to be delivering witty anecdotes and the likes, but in fact I'm so busy with the course I don't have time to write all about it, because I'm DOING the course....
Fail.

In the deep mid-winter.....

Ok, so its basically only just November but MY OH MY its cold up here! This weekend has been a funny one- as I mentioned, or maybe not, it was 'Reading Week' last week- a fictional concept for medics who merely get to watch their housemates on other courses go home and get fed and plumped and return home having caught up on all their work, rosie cheeked with Pies for the freezer... SO the house was empty- that is 5 people were away and only me and paul were left..

We have issues with regards to heating the house because its BIGGG but its EXPENSIVE. Dad phoned and i told him i was sat in 2 wool jumpers and a hoodie (hood up, obv) and 3 pairs of socks and paul was lolloping around in his ski hat, and he.......laughed! and said (to which i was most indignant) 'welcome to student life' thanks DAD!
Anyway, by 2pm on sunday we had had enough, i text paul in the other room and we went out to buy 500 calorie Chocolate muffins from somerfield and discovered that it was...warmer outside. i actually got the shivers in the supermarket when i was stood under the electric heater in the baked goods dept. wooo! We have an indicator on a cupboard sent by british Gas. it said 'turn up the heating' for most of the weekend- you dont understand how bad this situation is- the next one is 'YOU ARE AT RISK OF GETTING HYPOTHERMIA' GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Anyway, the work this weekend has been a joke too...i dont know why im even surprised. We had to learn all the anatomy of the upper limb- clavicle, shoulder blade, humerus (not funny at all..) radius and ulna and all them bastard little bones of the wrist..GAH
and the lymphoid system. and Immunology. EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD TO DO WITH IMMUNOLOGY.

I suppose without my immune system this cold would get the better of me....

Whats a 'Symposium' when its at home anyway?

1. a meeting or conference for the discussion of some subject, esp. a meeting at which several speakers talk on or discuss a topic before an audience.
-Well thank you dictionary.com. for enlightening me without really giving me insight as to why everyone else has nothing to do and i still do......
Our PBL group has been getting on well recently and we have had our first visit to hospital- pretty exciting stuff, especially as for part of it we had to wander around pretending we were hard of hearning, short sighted, didnt speak english and wheelchair bound. not all at once. all in the name of 'research'- seeing what facilities were available for different groups of people.......
and to test out the wheels on those hospital clean floors!!!
We 'officially' made PATIENT CONTACT....housten we have lift-off! Was merely a social interview with an elderly patient, much like i did on work experience, but it made me remember how sad those wards are...
now I'm writing a 'reflective piece' on my general experience....awooo.
and tomorrow we get to discuss, or sympose, or whatever, about medical school disciplinary action....................................................................................................................
i wonder what happens if we dont do it?!

'I'm not an Ambi-balancer!'

In the (edited) words of the fabulous Derek Zoolander, i am not, nor shall i ever be an ambibalancer. he couldnt turn left and for the life of me i cannot stand balanced on my left leg with my right leg tucked into my thigh in 'tree' position.
My yoga instructor thinks im a tard...

Communications; The Futures bright..the futures...more training...

So today as well as lectures on Pedigree Interpretation (those family trees with little black or white squares or circles telling you how likely a person is to inherit a genetic disease) and the CASE WRAP up session (telling us all the things we HAVENT learnt that were meant to find time in our fulllll week to cover) we had 'Communications Training'- yes, learning to speak...
Now, I'm very proud to say I'm a student at Manchester Medical School because it is well known (to those who know about university med school requirements) that Manchester pick the person and not the grades...That is once you have proven that you will get the AAB ABB or whatever they invite you to interview and talk to you...
Don't get me wrong, its a competition, at the end of the day, its ALWAYS a competition, but they assess you and if you get in its because they can see you as a doctor of the future.
Sooo, when we turned up to Comms today I was wondering what we could possibly learn...
Everything. is the answer. how to introduce yourself, how to initiate conversation, how to direct the conversation, how to close the conversation. how to ask a persons age, how to sit. how to refuse a cup of tea. how to convince a person you arent going to blog about their medical problems. how to get them out of the waiting room and into the fire. sorry, the surgery...Oh my lord, i'll never open my mouth again without thinking first. i managed to introduce myself right and that was about it....


by the way, my name's lucy williams, im a first year medical student at Manchester University, im just here to tell you about my life, you dont mind do you? how should i address you? are you comfortable with that? everything said here will be kept confidential, dont you worry...its not like its on the internet or anything.....

Year1, Semester 1: Lucy 0

soooooooooooooooooooooo, im about 4 weeks in and its 8 minutes past midnight and im not doing the work that will be discussed at 9am tomorrow morning. thats because i cant be bothered and as a group we havent nailed the ILO Extraction Technique yet...thats something Learning Objective to all those who dont have the PBL Dictionary of incredibly pretentious acronyms handy. so instead of having a few basic things to look up I.E this week were doing cystic fibrosis, so
-what is it
-how does it do the bad things it does...?
etcetc
ive got about a billion little nitty gritty bits that i cba to investigate. gotta love last years notes though. deffo worth the 3 grand i paid for them!

'I'm going to Indonesia, to take the air..'

SO i got 18 whoooooooole weeks off this summer. did i get some valuable work experience? no.
did i get some cash together? no. did i complete many selfless acts to benefit humankind? helllsno. i went on holiday for 2 months. woooooooooop! good old overdraft!
I went with my flat mate, Reptile Lady (aka ELla) for 5 weeks we trawled our way around, getting tanned and becoming culturally and alcoholically enlightened. then my ma came out and ellabella went home and i did the same with less alcohol and a larger budget! getin.
it was AMAZING

Time flies when youre................so busy you don't know what day it is...

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, so its almost a year since I last wrote, and yes...i'm still here.
Pre med was not by any means a breeze, and i learned a lot, (even if it was more about wheres good to get a kebab or cheesy garlic bread at 4am and which bus stop to get off at when youre running late in the morning)....Kidding.
I dont understand how the 18year olds come straight from school and have to make friends, wash, cook, do all the work thats expected of them, plus be well rounded (preferably playing sport for a uni team and helping underprivalaged children with their maths homework) as well as just staying ALIVE.
I'm lucky this year, because i can already do PBL (problem based learning- that is were given weekly, a medical case and work together to get objectives from it which we go and learn and come back and discuss..) theres quite an art to knowing how little is needed and were certainly never spoon fed..in fact were lucky if the lecturers manage to keep us awake when discussing 'genetic population screening blablablahhhhhhhhh'.
im also lucky because i live with some very very cool people. This weekend we went to the peak district walking. thats how cool we are. we planned a walk and found the pub and got back to the cars all on our ownsomes. apart from that we basically never disagree (unless some untoward showering occurs) and noone steals peanut butter from the jar...(REX)