Wednesday, 16 September 2020

Medical School Boot Camp

 To replace the clinical learning we missed in Year 2, due to the Covid lockdown, we were required to return to medical school 1 week earlier than the start of third year. 

I arrived back in Brighton to my new house on Sunday 6th September and was reunited with two of my housemates from last year. The third one moved in with her partner this year, and so we got a new fourth housemate this year. After 6 months apart it was great to see the girls and catch up.

The new house is actually the bottom two floors in one of these old five storey townhouses! It's so cute and has such high ceilings! And we're only a stone's throw from the beach, as well as being just five minutes walk from the hospital and our teaching building.


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't have any teaching until Wednesday 9th so I spent the first couple of days unpacking and settling in. We're hoping to stay in this house until the end of medical school, and it was unfurnished so we had to source furniture. I tried to also bring some sentimental pieces from home as well as a plant, which used to be my Dad's, and has been looking a bit sad, so I'm trying to revive it.


This plant is an Anthurium and this leaf is supposed to be BRIGHT red, so you can see how faded it is right now. Hopefully it'll get better and I'll let you know how that goes! Wish me luck... 

So, Wednesday rolled around and I headed to our old clinical teaching building on campus, armed with my facemask and hand sanitiser, for the day. There were six, hour long, sessions throughout the day.

 

Cardiovascular, respiratory and abdominal examinations

During this session we reviewed the cardiovascular, respiratory and abdominal exams we had previously been taught in second year, and practiced them in small groups on each other. Unfortunately, due to most people having not revised these examinations recently, we were pressed for time and didn't actually get to practice properly, just talk through the examinations and answer some questions about them. 

Examinations like these are used to help doctors look for signs of diseases in patients. We follow a systematic approach to looking for these signs. So, for example, in these three examinations, after looking at the patient from the end of the bed, we first examine the hands, making our way up the arms to the face and neck, then on to the chest and/or abdomen. We are looking for certain signs linked to specific, or multiple, diseases, for example, tar staining from cigarettes may indicate that a respiratory problem is more likely. 

For our end of year examinations we need to know what signs we're looking for, search for them systematically, and understand which diseases they are linked to. 

Paediatric Basic Life Support

We had previously been taught adult basic life support in first year but, as it is different for children, we had a separate session on this. This session covered CPR and choking, as well as the new Covid guidelines. Covid has changed the way basic life support should be given, as well as the way it is taught, for example, we were unable to provide rescue breaths to our mannequins. 

Knee Examination

This examination was actually new to us as it should have been taught towards the end of second year. Similar to the other examinations described above we follow a systematic approach to looking for signs of disease. In musculoskeletal examinations we think about how things look, feel, move, and function. We were taught where to look/feel and what to look/feel for, how to test movement and look for excessive movement, and how to assess function. 

Wound Management

Wound management is actually something most of us were taught during second year, but due to the rotation of small groups not everybody got a chance to do it, so this session was included as teaching/revision. The session only reviewed closing a wound with steristrips or glue, and did not review wound irrigation or dressing which we had already been taught. 

We each had a little station where we could practice opening a sterile pack and closing wounds on fake "skin". 

Shoulder Examination

Again, like the knee examination this was new, for the same reason. This examination also follows the same structure of look, feel, move, function, and so we learned how to relate this to the shoulder. 

GALS screening

Firstly, GALS stands for gait, arms, legs, spine, and it pretty much does what it says on the tin, those are the areas of the body we are assessing. Gait is defined as "a person's manner of walking". This examination was explained to us over Microsoft Teams during term 3 last year but this was the first time we got to practice it properly with a clinical facilitator. This examination seems kind of long winded to learn but, again, because it has a systematic approach it isn't actually too complicated. 


I think having a variety of sessions and switching rooms and topics every hour really helped to keep this day manageable after so long being away from class. Each session felt like it passed really quickly, but, I have to say, once the day was over I was feeling a little worn out! 

Excitingly, when I arrived home that evening my housemate had collected my new logbooks from the office for me! I had a little look through them to see what I was going to be getting up to. The red logbook is for module 301 which runs for the first two weeks of third year and is additional clinical and community practice teaching. The pale blue logbook is a new procedural skills logbook which covers all of the skills we need to learn and get signed off by graduation. They expect us to keep track of this book for the next three years! Eeeek!

Also on Wednesday evening I completed my elearning for my Immediate Life Support course and did some reading of the handbook they provided us with in preparation for the following day.

On Thursday afternoon I had my immediate life support practical training. This was provided at our new teaching building, at the hospital, for years 3-5.

 

This training encompassed learning about basic ways to open an airway, using oxygen masks and using a bag valve mask to provide breaths, before moving on to a basic assessment of a patient. We then learned about, and practiced, basic ABCDE assessment of a mannequin in different scenarios. An ABCDE assessment includes looking at the airway, breathing, circulation, disability (this is like consciousness level), and exposure/everything else (head to toe assessment). After this we learned how to use a defibrillator and practiced scenarios with the mannequin involving giving CPR, using the bag valve mask, and using the defibrillator. These scenarios had a different leader each time and so we also had to practice leading a team, working in a team, and using clear, concise, communication skills. It was a very informative session and I enjoyed the practical way of learning it. 

On Friday I typed up all of the notes I had taken over the previous two days onto my third year handbook, which I have been making on OneNote. This allows me to have my notes organised in a way which works for me and have them available for quick and easy access on my laptop or phone, even offline. 

At the weekend we took a trip to the garden centre and I bought some small plants for my bedroom, and also picked up a beautiful velvet desk chair I managed to find on Facebook marketplace! 

The next two weeks of teaching are getting us ready to go on our clinical rotations and it looks like lots of interesting teaching. I've also signed up for a bunch of online society teaching events so I might do some short blogs talking about individual topics as well as updates on third year itself! Oh, also, I think Wednesday afternoon is going to be the main upload slot for update blogs for now.

Thanks for reading.

Katherine x

Monday, 31 August 2020

Quarantine Diaries Update!

 So, as you can tell from the last blog, I wanted to do a weekly update during quarantine but I was struggling with motivation and when term started I was swamped with work. I want to provide a quick update and I have been thinking about the future of this blog and the types of posts I want to make, which I will explain more at the end of this blog. So, let's get into it.  

Quarantine Week 2 (30th March-5th April) - During this week I worked with my Mum and Sister to finish decorating the shed and garden furniture. I also finished a jigsaw puzzle, watched some movies, played sims, and played minecraft with my Sister.












 

Quarantine Week 3 (6th April-12th April) - This week I brushed up on my Arterial Blood Gas results interpretation, something I've always struggled to get my head around - shout out to Geeky Medics for having such a useful page on it! (https://geekymedics.com/abg-interpretation/) I went for a "short" walk with my Mum which ended up being a couple of hours in wholly unsuitable shoes and gave me more than a couple of blisters. I also tried baking the Royal pastry chefs' spiced Easter biscuits recipe, and it turned out pretty good! (https://www.royal.uk/royal-easter-biscuits-recipe) On Easter Sunday we had an Easter Egg hunt in the garden.











 

 

Quarantine Week 4 (13th April-19th April) - I spent most of this week with my youngest sister, and Mum, preparing a festival in our garden for my other sister's birthday. Apart from being rained off on the Saturday we had a good weekend in the sunshine.

 
Quarantine Week 5 (20th April-26th April) - This week uni started again, online.This module (204) was about the Musculoskeletal and Immune Systems. I've got to admit the timetable didn't seem as full as usual. However, lectures which would take me 1 hour in the lecture theatre could easily take me up to 3 hours at home, so I was studying more than usual. I also worked on my case-based discussion essay this week, and got that submitted. 

Quarantine Weeks 6, 7 and 8 (27th April-17th May) - I've lumped these three weeks together because I was mostly just doing my uni work, enjoying the sunshine, and hanging out with my family. I guess I was also fantasising over booking a trip to Ibiza once covid has calmed down!


Quarantine Week 9 (18th May-24th May) - This week was one year since my Dad passed away so I went with my family to visit his willow tree. I picked out some nice photos and tried to write some nice pieces on my various social medias, but I'm not sure if I'll do that on here. At the end of this week some new holiday clothes I'd ordered online arrived so I tried them all on before tucking them away in a drawer for that post-covid beach holiday! 


Quarantine Weeks 10, 11 and 12 (25th May-14th June) - Again, I've lumped these three weeks together because I was mostly just studying. I had a pair work poster project to finish and submit. Unfortunately, I also had a patient study essay to finish, which took my until 5am, but on the plus side I got to watch the sun rise before I crashed into bed! More holiay clothes arrived, it's safe to say I was really feeling the need for that trip! The med school supplied us with an anatomy self-assessment quiz which was helpful to see how I was doing with the exams approaching.


Quarantine Week 13 (15th June-21st June) - This week the government announced social bubbles allowing couples living separately to meet, so I moved my place of quarantine to my other half's house. With only a week to go until exams I was spending virtually every waking hour reviewing notes and drawing anatomy posters. At the end of the week I took a couple of hours off to visit Dad's willow tree for Father's Day.


Quarantine Week 14 (22nd June-28th June) - EXAM WEEK! On the Monday I had the exam for Module 204 (musculoskeletal and immune systems) which was the module I had studied fully online. The exam seemed okay to be honest. After a few hours off it was time to crack on with final revision for module 203 (endocrinology, reproduction and gynaecology) as the exam which should have been in March was cancelled due to covid. The second exam also seemed surprisingly okay. And then I was FREE for summer! 

Quarantine Week 15 (29th June-5th July) - This week I was so grateful for free time! I would get up in the mornings, make a coffee and breakfast and sit on the sofa to eat it while watching an episode of "The Crown". It was such a little luxury to have time to enjoy it without feeling like I should be doing something else! I also did a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, played so much sims, and started working on a little handbook for year 3. This weekend I would usually have been working at my first festival of the summer so I was feeling a little lost and made sure to keep busy.

Quarantine Week 16 (6th July-12th July) - This week I caved and finally baked my own banana bread! I added some chocolate chunks for a fun little twist and it turned out so yummy! At the weekend I went to a small local zoo (Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens - https://www.thrigbyhall.com/


Quarantine Week 17 (13th July-19th July) - Out of quarantine? The tenancy on my uni house in Brighton was finishing on 15th July so I headed out on the train to meet my housemate at the station in Cambridge, we would travel the rest of the way in the car. Unfortunately, we suffered a minor accident and had to be towed back to her home, so I ended up staying the night there, a little detour on my adventure, before we borrowed her Mum's car to head down to Brighton the following day. With the help of another uni friend we got stuck into packing and storing our things for a couple of days before driving back on the 15th and I caught the train back from Ely to home. 

 

Quarantine Week 18 (20th July-26th July) - RESULTS WEEK! I was relieved to see that I had passed both of my exams (86% for 203, 88% for 204) and as I had also passed all of the other components (essays, poster, attendance, SSC, etc.) I had passed the year and I was now a THIRD YEAR! What?! That's crazy. It feels like only yesterday I was a first year and third years seemed so mature and knowledgeable. Wild! This week I visited Dad's willow tree again and told him all about my results. For the weekend I had signed up for the Tomorrowland Around the World livestream so I enjoyed watching that and making myself "festival food" to eat in the living room, haha! I also spent a couple of hours at the beach on Sunday with my sisters and we built a sandcastle! 


Quarantine Week 19 (27th July-2nd August) - This week I had to have a biopsy at the hospital (results are all okay) but I think I want to talk about my experience of this in a separate post. It was at the beginning of the week so I spent a couple of days being lazy and taking painkillers. At the weekend I headed to my Mum's for a birthday BBQ for her partner. 

Quarantine Week 20 (3rd August-9th August) - This week I had a couple of outings to play crazy golf and to the beach again. I usually like staying in but apparently after 20 weeks of being mostly indoors I was starting to feel a little crazy and my mental health was starting to decline. 


Quarantine Week 21 (10th August-16th August) - This week was my birthday week, so roll on a whole new wave of mental health struggles. I had my birthday without my Dad last year so this wasn't the first birthday without him and I was a little surprised at how unstable my mental health was this week, but it was definitely compounded by quarantine. I had a couple more trips out to go kayaking and to another zoo (Banham Zoo this time - https://www.banhamzoo.co.uk/). On my birthday my family held another garden festival and I was so grateful for how carefree and fun it was! 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 












Quarantine Weeks 22 and 23 (17th August-30th August) - These two weeks I've been mostly indoors during the weekdays, but I've spent the weekends at my Mum's finally sorting through a bunch of my things in storage from my old house. It's been so therapeutic to throw away old things with old memories, and give away some things to charity. I also packed my things to take back to uni and will be heading down to move into my new house on Sunday 6th September. I can't wait to finish buying things for my new uni room and decorate it. 

And after 24 weeks of quarantine I can't wait to see my housemates and friends, and I can't wait have some routine and structure back in my life! 

Going forward I want to have a bit more structure to this blog so I can make posts about different things and not just updates on my life! I'm hoping to cover medical topics, some personal experiences/stories, reviews of books/movies/series, and just generally more content. I hope that makes sense. 

I'm looking forward to bringing you all on this journey into Year 3 and clinical placements during covid and beyond! 

Thanks for reading!

Katherine x


Friday, 3 April 2020

Quarantine Diaries - Week 1

Monday 23rd March - Sunday 29th March

I'm spending quarantine at home with my family. This includes my Mum, Mum's partner, my brother (21) and my youngest sister (13). I don't have my own bedroom at the family home anymore which means I'm sharing a room, and a double bed, with my sister. This is how I spend my university holidays too so it's not a new concept, however, I usually stay out a few times a week which I now cannot do.

Honestly, the first week in quarantine wasn't so bad. My little sister is now doing home school so it provides a useful timetabled structure to my day too as I currently don't have any teaching from the university.

I had a few lectures which I had missed during term 2 for various reasons and so I started the week by tackling two of those on Monday. I also helped my Mum with some baking - we made banana and nut bread - and I made up a batch of seitan (meat substitute). In the evening I cooked a meal for my family - fried rice stir fry. I spent the evening with my little sister and we played some minecraft on her xbox, which honestly I'm still very slow at!

On Tuesday morning I tackled another two lectures before lunch. After lunch I set up our USB microscope and my sister and I had a look at some plant cells and talked about their features. I spent the rest of the day having a sims 4 marathon. I've been working on an underground quarantine bunker in Strangerville.


Wednesday morning I did some work on Duolingo. I usually do this before bed but I was feeling motivated that day! I'm currently studying two languages: Italian, which I have been learning for a few years; and Japanese, which I have just started a few months ago in preparation for my Brother moving out there.


















 


While I was feeling motivated I worked through another two lectures. On Wednesday afternoons my sister finishes school about an hour earlier so she has kindly agreed to let me work through my clinical skills with her for an hour on Wednesdays. I also roped my Mum into marking me with a scoresheet I made from our OSCE crib sheets. I actually found it to be a really useful little session. I treated myself to Planet Zoo for my PC while it was on sale and so I spent a couple of hours starting it off before I had a test call with my tutor group on Microsoft teams. I then continued playing it after dinner.

Early on Thursday morning my Mum finished my Harry Potter Marauders' Map jigsaw I've been working on for 6 months! It was worth figuring out how to bring it home from university in the car!

When I got up I happened to mention to my Mum about a fleeting thought I'd had before bed the night before about moving the patio furniture down into the sunshine in the garden and giving it a fresh coat of paint, as the paint it had when we acquired it was starting to look quite sad. To my surprise she agreed and we got started straight away.

After this, in our infinite wisdom, my Mum and I thought we could paint the side of the duck house to match and it would look like a lovely beach house.

By the end of the day they were looking fresh and ready for spring/summer.





















On Friday morning the weather was nice again and Mum and I wanted to add some detail to our beach hut!

After lunch I played some more Planet Zoo until dinner, and then I ran a hot bath and chucked in a lush bath bomb I'd been saving - Sakura. It had a beautiful smell but was very anticlimactic as it simply dissolved. No whizzing around, glitter or colour. I settled into the water with a brand new book.





















Having read another book of this style by the same author I was fully expecting the story to be dark and disturbing, and it delivered. However, it was less disturbing than I expected, and I have to say I was relieved! It was a brilliant read, I couldn't put it down and finished it around 11.30pm the same night!

Over the weekend we baked some more, I skyped my friends from university, and spent most of the time playing games ... a fairly normal weekend for me! Topped it off by cuddling one of our ducks.

Thanks for reading!
Katherine x


Running Totals

Lectures - 6
Tutored hours - 0
Hours reading around - 0
Clinical practice hours - 1
Hours working on essays - 0
Total hours - 6

Books read - 1
Total pages - 318
Total hours - 5

Online fiction stories read - 1 chapter
Total words - pending
Total hours - 1

Films watched - 0
TV series episodes - 0
Total hours - 0

Hours on Sims 4 (approx) - 12
Hours on Planet Zoo - 17
Hours on Parkitect - 0
Hours on Cities Skylines - 0
Hours on Minecraft (approx) -8
Total hours - 42

Hours spent outside - 7
Hours of exercise - 0.5

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Endocrinology, Reproduction and Gynaecology

I initially fell behind with posting due to general life being busy, and then coronavirus happened and wow did it complicate things! Anyway, for this post I'm going to talk about term 2, which has just finished.

The first week back after xmas break was our second immersion week. This time I was based in a GP surgery and only had to attend in the mornings! I spent two mornings with the GP, one with a practice nurse and one with a health care assistant. Even though I have worked in a GP surgery for 10 years now, and racked up a number of shadowing hours too, I still found this week interesting and informative, and surprisingly enjoyable! We also spent one day during this week studying personal and professional development, which included some teamworking, and legal aspects of medicine. On the Friday night I treated myself to a pamper night in with a new Lush bath bomb from Xmas, face mask and foot pack.

The World's Smallest Disco Bath Bomb - £5.50






















We ended the week with a birthday celebration for one of my housemates and we were feeling refreshed and ready to start off the new term.

The new terms topics covered endocrinology, reproduction and foetal development, and gynaecology and sexual health and we worked through the topics in vaguely that order.

Refreshers week meant heading out for a meal with our medic kids. We had Italian at "VIP Pizza" and then walked to "Sprinkles Gelato" for dessert!

The clinical module this term included more clinical technical skills learning including wound closure and care, local anaesthetic, and intramuscular injections.






















At the end of January I spent another day in theatres with the anaesthetists. I know I still need to type up a blog about this! (Another quarantine job to do!)

At the begining of February I decided that my room needed a shake up so I could actually get to my desk properly to study, and one of my housemates helped me to change it around.

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New Layout

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In the middle of February we celebrated "Galentines Day" with a movie night in with our friends, and then the next day I met some friends from home for dinner and then headed to The Brighton Centre for a Bowling For Soup concert, with support from Not Ur Girlfrenz and Simple Plan.

Not Ur Girlfrenz

Simple Plan

Bowling For Soup


I also treated myself to a Bellabeat Leaf fitness tracker in their Valentines Day sale, as in clinical environments we have to be bare below the elbows, ruling out fitbits or other similar trackers, and often may not have our phones on us either, while we are probably doing the bulk of our daily steps during that time. I was interested to be able to see just how many steps I was racking up on placements and look forward to gathering more data on it.

Towards the end of February we had our third immersion week. For me this was in the Early Intervention in Psychosis Service. This service was about a 45 minute drive from the medical school, and I had to travel there first, and the placement was full 9-5 days so it was a very long week! I have to admit that Psychiatry is one of the topics I am probably the least excited about and I could have ended up having a very miserable week here, however, I kept an open mind and engaged with the team and ended up learning a lot and really enjoying myself, which was definitely contributed to by the fantastic atmosphere of teamwork and support fostered by the team. During the week we had a day away from placement to attend our Manual Handling Training and Venepuncture Training. I used to be a phlebotomist so this was a great refresher for me. I actually hate needles being put into me though but I bravely allowed one of my colleagues to take blood from me as her first patient. I was equal parts terrified and so proud of her! And she did a great job, there was hardly even a bruise. I rounded off the week with another Saturday in theatres, and a very much needed Sunday in bed!

The first week of March I filmed a week in my life at medical school video and so that will be coming your way very soon. It was a very normal week, with lectures, more clinical technical skills, a powerpoint presentation, and a diabetes alert dog visitor!



The second week of March was due to be our last real week of teaching, but I missed the Monday to take my Brother to the Japanese Embassy in London to apply for his student visa. We usually only have one or two lectures on a Monday so fortunately I didn't miss much. As the week went on the coronavirus news only got more intense and other universities and medical schools were starting to close. Ours was still adamant that we would try to have our exam on Thursday 26th March unless we were told otherwise and that they would update us twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Some clinical placements were starting to be cancelled though. On the Friday it was still "business as usual" so on the Monday morning I went to my scheduled phlebotomy supervised session at the hospital to get signed off, and when I arrived back home the school office was still not giving away any secrets about our exam. However, later the same day they finally emailed to let us know that the school was closing, the exam would be cancelled and term 3 would move online.

So after a couple of days of eating our way through as much freezer food as possible, I headed home on the Friday to be with my family before the inevitable lockdown.



I'll be updating from quarantine and, you never know, I might even be able to keep on schedule!
Thanks for reading!
Katherine x