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

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

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.

Old Layout

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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

Neuroscience and Behaviour

This is going to be another long one, I'm afraid, while I'm still getting caught up.

My housemates and I arrived at our new uni house around 10 days before Year 2 officially started. We wanted to be in time for the champagne reception to greet the new first years 8 days before our new term started.

We have a medic family system where second years volunteer to be "parents" to the new first years and help them navigate life at med school, studying, writing assignments and preparing for exams (although in reality they don't ask us very much), and so the champagne reception is where we attempt to meet our "children" for the first time. Between the two sets of "parents" in my uni house we have seven "children" and we managed to meet a grand total of three of them on this first night! They all seemed so lovely, and well matched to us.

After the champagne reception we headed over to the sports bar on campus for a few drinks and more socialising, before eventually heading home.

A few days later we hosted our kids at our house for a medic family meal, which we themed as grannies and babies. Everyone was such a good sport with the dress up. Fortunately for our kids we didn't make them go out clubbing dressed like it... mostly because we were too lazy to go out clubbing!

Term started for us on Monday 30th September and the theme for this term was Neuroscience and Behaviour. The first day had us learning blood flow for the brain using strawberry laces from our lecturer, which we got to eat afterwards. It was a great start to the term. I can't say it continued that way!

Neurology and psychiatry are both complex topics and this term was well and truly dense. We didn't really have any more teaching hours but the amount we learned in those hours seemed like so much more, and included more complex concepts.

Now we're in Year 2 they also expect us to start learning how to read around the topics and learn more independently. For me, personally, this is something I was used to doing in my previous degree and so I don't mind it.  

Our clinical module has also ramped up compared to last year. We have a lot more different types of sessions to rotate through, and they also introduced immersion weeks where we pause study and spend a whole week on placement.

Clinical module is just on one day per week (this year it's Thursdays). In the morning we usually have a lecture followed by a seminar, and in the afternoon we rotate through different activities. This module runs throughout the whole year (rather than 1 term like the scientific theory type modules).

We still have workshops like we did last year where we learn about how to perform different types of examinations, such as a cranial nerve examination.

Virtually everything else in the afternoon is new to us. We have community hospital teaching, instead of the GP placements we had last year, which is where we go to meet patients and practice the history taking and examination skills we have learned.

Clinical technical skills is where we learn how to do things like observations and completing the chart, ECG taking and reading and wound care and closure.

Inequalities and Inclusion in Healthcare sessions are usually a lecture followed by small group teaching where we discuss things further. We learn about how healthcare is not equal amongst all people and about groups which can become excluded from healthcare in one way or another, like homeless people for example.

Time for Dementia afternoons are timetabled to allow us time to visit our allocated family for our chronic disease study and essay. This study is to help us to learn about how chronic diseases affect patients and their families.

The Initial Assessment programme is undertaken at the local hospital and these afternoons are to help us learn to assess unwell patients in different situations. This is the only group of sessions which I haven't had any of yet so perhaps I can explain it more once I've done it!

Outside of studying I decided to start a new Harry Potter jigsaw puzzle of the Marauder's map, which is honestly all one colour apart from the writing. I am still doing this puzzle now! Although I'm pleased to say I have made some significant progress!

I had a girls evening out with my housemates where we went to Lush to treat ourselves to some products, and then we headed to Sprinkles. Sprinkles is a dessert restaurant in Brighton which does ice cream/gelato/sorbet and cookie dough, waffles, etc. I feel like it has a bit of a retro vibe to it but I really like it. I've been back since!



















Halloween celebrations began early this year as I was home visiting my family a couple of weeks before Halloween. Naturally, my family were celebrating in themed style and we chose "The Lord of the Rings" for our party theme. Mum and I spent ages organising the food and labelling it all. I tried to think of a relevant quote from the films to go with each food.

Of course we had to include "What's taters, precious? What's taters?"

My family all gathered round at my Mum's house for food and a good catch up.

The same weekend, both of my sisters were performing in a dance show in our hometown and so I joined my family at the theatre to watch them. This was the first performance in my life which I have just watched, instead of dancing, singing, or helping backstage, and only the second performance I have ever watched there. It was a slightly strange experience. I find it quite emotional watching the girls (and boys) perform and I wonder if it's because I am so used to being up on that stage with them! I do miss performing sometimes, but I sure don't miss the nerves!

 
Back at uni it was time to get the Halloween decorations into full swing, and we definitely bought way too many pumpkins and squashes of various sorts. We only carved one though so the others lasted for ages as general Autumn decorations.

Our uni house is in a really residential area, packed with families and so on Halloween we stocked up with sweets and moved the decorations outside. We thought we would be able to watch a scary movie and get ready to go out but honestly we had so many children come to Trick or Treat that we had to run out for extra sweets twice! It was so heartwarming though, seeing all the little children and toddlers in their costumes! Eventually, as it got later, the knocking slowed up and we were able to get ready for a rare night out!

After Halloween it was time for the first of the new immersion weeks. There are four immersion week placement types - GP placement, GP teaching, Community placement, and Secondary Care placement and we spend a whole week in each of these placement types.

My first placement was Secondary Care at The Royal Sussex County Hospital. These placements are not just to learn about what doctors do, but to learn about what other people do, whether they are health care professionals or not. It is to help us to understand how the hospital runs and who does what.

My mornings were spent with physiotherapy, speech and language therapy on the neurology ward, main operating theatres, and advanced care practitioners on the cardiac ward. These placements were really interesting, although it turned out I have a bit of a problem with theatres. I managed to have a panic attack in the first few minutes, before the surgeon even arrived, and so I ended up spending the morning learning about clinical simulation instead. Following this experience with theatre I was offered the opportunity for a sort of exposure therapy. I'm going to cover this whole thing in more detail in a separate post.

The afternoons were spent working as a team, doing a scavenger hunt, working on a discharge plan, and presenting our work.


During immersion week it was bonfire night and so we headed out to Lewes to watch the parade. Rumoured to be the best bonfire celebrations in the world, I would highly recommend seeing it at least once. However, beware of the restrictions on driving, parking and public transport on the day. It takes a little bit of forethought to plan the evening. The website has more information (https://www.lewesbonfirecelebrations.com/) and public transport should be checked on the relevant websites too.

The end of immersion week signalled the yearly Medic Mayhem event, and this year I actually managed to go! It's a rare event where students from all five years attend and the idea is to dress up as a medical pun, for example we were cardiac arrest.

I squeezed in a couple of days at home for my Dad's birthday. We visited his tree and took a memorial plaque to him.

The next big event was Winter Ball. Last year this was after our end of term exam, but this year the addition of immersion weeks to the second year timetable means that it now doesn't line up with the first year timetable and their final exam was a whole week before ours. We couldn't have the ball after their exam with only days to go until ours, and we couldn't have the ball after our exam or all of the first years would have already gone home for xmas. So we settled on having the ball around a month before the exams instead. It was a shame to not have it at the end of term as a treat but it was still a nice evening out.

Before I got too deep into exam revision I had a day out to Drusillas Zoo while they had their winter husky petting cave open. I got to visit my Dad's sloth and pet huskies, it was a great day out! Then it was time to crack on with decorating for xmas and getting some revision done!

As soon as our final exam was over it was time to celebrate xmas with my housemates. We had wrapped presents for each other, stuffed stockings, and cooked up a full xmas dinner.

We had a lovely xmas day before heading home for our xmas break with our families. I'll cover xmas break in the next post.

Thanks for reading.
Katherine x