X-Ams. almost X-Mas. But rubbish.

Sooo, as previously mentioned, January is Exam season...woooo! Way to bring in the new year...Generally, until 3rd year you get the Semester Test and the Progress test. From 3rd year they see you as being competent if you don’t kill or terminally damage someone whilst on placement...Then you just sit the progress test and do the clinical skills (OSCES)
The semester exam is going to be the easiest we ever are going to take- technically they shouldn’t have given us anything impossible. The head of year 1 and 2 posted this on his blog (yes, he thinks he’s down with the kids...)
'For everyone who has worked hard this semester, the exam should be manageable. For everyone else, Good Luck'. Jammy bugger.
So I spent my new year filtering my notes, realising I had merely skimmed the depth required, and as for the breadth...don’t even go there.
That’s the thing with PBL; you just learn what you think you need to. SO if the case is about cystic fibrosis, a lay person would think that learning about cystic fibrosis would be the right thing to do...in fact its very much the WRONG THING.
You should learn about the genetics of passing it on, plus other examples of recessive disorders. The mechanism of passing it on. The physical mutation and others like it (deletion of a phenylalanine molecule...FYI)
Then you would learn about how molecules transport themselves/ are transported across membranes, the muco-ciliary escalator, the anatomy and physiology of the lungs. About opportunistic infections, which are most common?
About the pancreas, what meconium ileus is. What failure to thrive is...what would you give to supplement the diet? How would you manipulate the mucus out of the body....the psychological effect of having such a disease...what are the restrictions? Can a child go to school?
And on. And on. And on...
So, there were 8 of these cases to learn. Plus anatomy. And microbiology (yes if you don’t was your hands you will contaminate other things you touch. well done. have a merit) and the vile thing that is e4MED. This unspeakable infliction is in fact online statistical analysis of medical studies. Fascinating.
I have to say my worst experience last semester was sitting through 2 hours of e4MEd with the hangover from hell. Never. Ever. Again.

The semester exam was sat all together. I hate exams, I hate those people that swan in, biro behind their ear, and leave 20 minutes in, with that know all smirk, face saying 'you fools, only 5 questions in..'
This exam wasn’t at all like that. Body language said it all... people were really struggling, heads in hands, despair as we all wished we'd read the foot notes, that we had looked at the femoral triangle once more..(I’m sorry, what even IS the femoral triangle?)
Usually people stand around discussing what they put for question 57. This time, no. Within 3 minutes the place was like a ghost town, everyone ran away to mourn the loss of their summer holidays to resits...
Fair enough, the exam was a sneaky beast- we were specifically told that we wouldn’t be dealing with clinical content, and as far as i’m concerned having to decide which example women with breast cancer can have Tamoxifin or Herceptin is about as clinical as it gets....
But whatever. It’s done now...we just wait.........................

Wooooaaah, Wooaaahh, If you can't find the way........look to US

Christmas was brilliant. It wasn’t quite white on the day but afterwards it was like a million cloud sheep were sheared over Btown...
New Year is ALWAYS a flopppp, getting tickets for a B.I.G night relies on someone who is inevitably waiting on someone else....then it sells out and we're all disappointed. This year instead of night I booked tickets for I booked tickets for a train to London. Its homegirl time.
We went for drinks, and 'had a few' but got super jolly and giggly and spilled beans which are usually kept firmly tinned. We had a fry up at Joe's, the best greasy spoon in the world, which does exceptional filter coffee and even better mushroom/beans/black pudding/eggs(any kind)/toast/hash browns...you get the picture.
We went ice-skating on New Years Eve in front of the tower of London. I fell over and bashed my bumbone so so badly I walked like a cowboy for days after. But it was great. We shook our fists at a small boy wearing orange that cut everyone up constantly. I have never been more torn between doing the right thing i.e. ignoring him, and TAKING HIM OUT WITH THE BLADE OF MY SKATE. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
When we got back to the crib in Stoke Newington where we were staying we decided a gourmet dinner really was the only option for NYE...we spent £40 on deli produce from Sainsbury’s. Plus a bottle of sparkling plus some ingredients for the cocktail of the night- MOJITOOOOOSSS!!
It was so nice watching the countdown of the TOP TUNES OF 2009, getting ready, makeup after many drinks= interesting.
Whilst we were getting ready Bman was on music video duty, and whilst I was rooting for JLS, Skelskel insisted on Chipmunk.... (I’m sure its Jay from S Club 8)
But there’s a great photo of us all shouting the opening 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH' and chipmunking with our hands. This was before we were really drunk!
We went for Mexican bar drinks and made our resolutions...now forgotten...queued for a club that almost certainly wasn’t going to let us in and ended up in a Pub. iT was BrilLIant.
The next morning we officially brought the start of a New Year in by laughing so much that I thought I might wee myself as my friend Hanskel said- 'How did we get home'.....it was exactly what I was thinking, we laughed and laughed.





In hindsight I think we were still drunk.
I <3 Us

Caring At Christmas....

SO I know this was a long time ago but I wanted to write about....Caring at Christmas is an organisation in Bristol that takes over the 'Julian Trust' night shelter for homeless people and turns it into something amazing from Christmas eve until new years eve...It turns 18 beds into 50, it provides a television, clothes, blankets and 24hours of food availability in 24 hours...
After 'Autopsy Fail' something came over me. I couldn’t shake the feeling of complete despair at the homeless man who no one knew lying on that steely cold table. It got steadily colder in Manchester, and every day the thermostat war ensued in House 35. We were quibbling those extra pennies being spent on keeping us warm. At least we had the option to quibble. I was even tucking my top into my jeans. Every day it got colder I realised more and more people would be struggling with street life.
So I decided that on going back to Bristol I would do some work for Caring at Christmas. I worked 4 4 hour shifts from Xmas eve where we made 50 beds (a triumph considering I rarely make my own), poured tea and coffee for 3.5 hours and washed up breakfast gear for 100 people. When my alarm went off I cursed. I trudged down Ashley hill in the icy snowy mush occasionally flailing around trying to regain my balance. Every morning on the way I asked myself why I was doing this and every time I left I knew why...
I’m trying really hard not to sound righteous. To sound like a do-gooder, cliché saying I felt like I’d made a difference. The experience wasn’t about me and I can see how it may look like i'm trying to earn brownie points, it’s difficult to explain without sounding ridiculous that coming home for me was about everything that these people don’t have. Family and friends and shelter and warmth.
It helped me wise up to a lot of things that I had no idea about, and it forced me to see a lot of things I think people turn a blind eye to.
I can’t really summarise this with a statement about how I 'made a difference'...if I hadn’t been there someone else would have wrinkled their fingers in that washing up water.
All I can really say is I will be volunteering at Christmas for as long as I can.

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.