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

I know, I know, it's been 4 months

Okay, okay, first off, I know I'm terrible, it's been 4 months since the last blog. I wish I was more consistent but here we are. Let's catch up!

New Year

For the past few years my new year's resolutions have been plentiful, however this year I made very few, but they are as follows:

• Practice yoga
• Eat a better diet
• Drink more water
• Study more and more effectively

I also set a couple of goals too:

• Improve my snowboarding
• Learn new recipes 

 These have been coming along pretty well so far!

Term 2 - Module 103 - Heart, Lungs and Blood

After new year I started back at uni and we dived straight into our first Level 5 (Second year level) module - Heart, Lungs and Blood. I also spent the first couple of days spring cleaning my room!

A few days in we received our results from the first module and I was pleased to see that I passed everything for the first module (academic skills, essay, exam, attendance), with an exam score of 82.4% (the distinction boundary was 85.8% - not too far away!).

This encouraged me that I was doing well and to keep going and keep working hard.

This term was different to the first one for many reasons.

Module 101, the clinical skills module, finally started teaching us some practical skills. We learned how to take a manual blood pressure and how to conduct a cardiovascular exam and a respiratory exam. This meant finally taking our stethoscopes out of their pristine cases and getting to use them!

Module 103, heart, lungs and blood, was immediately noticeably more in depth than the previous module, and I could already tell that I was going to need to work harder to learn all of the details. Helpfully, this module had scheduled module tutorial tests spaced out throughtout the term, five of them, which counted towards our final score. These tests encouraged me to start my revision straight away to keep on top of the material for each test, and the scores came out okay: 10/12, 12/12, 8/12, 11/12, 10/10, totalling 51/58 (87.9%).

We also got to choose a "Student Selected Component" for the first time. This is a topic that interests us, from a list we are given, and we don't get examined on it, however we do have to pass the component - by taking part and completing it to an acceptable standard (usually assessed by a powepoint or essay). The SSC I chose for this term was called "Secret Intelligence" and it was about blood biomarkers. We learned about different types of biomarkers and different conditions they can detect, including ones which are already in use and those which are at the forefront of development. We got to visit the pathology laboratory at the local hospital and have a tour as well as talks from consultants. We were assessed by powerpoint presentation and I chose to present on Rapid Diagnostic Testing as this relies on blood biomarkers. 

This term I also made more trips home, 4 in total within 9 1/2 weeks. A couple of these trips were planned and a couple were unplanned, so I was constantly on my toes. The unplanned trips weren't relating to my Dad for those of you who follow his progress, so I won't share the details of them here. But, on the subject of Dad, his chemotherapy treatment was changed to the third and final option during this term, and student support were there to help me through that change.

In other term 2 news:

• 3 of my flatmates and I chose our house for next year, and they went to view it while I was at an appointment - they loved it and we signed for it immediately!
• IT SNOWED! We turned into children and played outside in the snow, and built a snow-woman!

•  4 of my flatmates and I made a time capsule email, complete with a video, to recieve in 10 years time! We predicted our lives and reminded ourselves that we deserve to book a trip to Vegas! 

• I did some group revision sessions for the first time and actually found it helpful.
• Dog therapy came to the university!

Easter Holiday

At the end of term I left immediately after my final exam, the exam finished at 4.30pm and I was on the train by 5.10pm! I wanted to travel straight home on the Wednesday so I could get stuck back into my snowboarding improver sessions on the Thursday! I managed to squeeze in 7 sessions over the Easter break and am currently snowboarding comfortably from the "red station" on the main slope, which is the exit just below the top. I had a couple of attempts from the top at the end of my last session and let's just say that was a disaster! I ended up with a bruised coccyx to go along with the potentially broken hand from the week before (Do as I say, not as I do, and go for x-rays when you're told to! I'm currently almost 3 weeks post hand injury and still sore).

During the holiday I worked a fair amount, having 8 days off total out of the 32 I was home. However, I still had time to catch up with my family and friends, help rearrange my sister's bedroom, sort Japan photos with my brother for our scrapbooks, start working on my Family Study Essay, and play too much Sims 4! I also managed to do a little bit of student stuff at my workplace - practicing taking histories from patients, checking blood pressure and listening to some chests, and I spent a couple of mornings with the 3rd years from our local uni and it was crazy to see how much more they know! And one of our GPs donated me even more textbooks!

Just before I came back to uni my sister celebrated her birthday and it was nice to get the whole family together for a little buffet dinner.

As Term 3 has only just started I think I'll write about it in a separate post. However, I will just include on the end of this post that I passed everything for the second module (exam, module tutorial tests, student selected component, attendance), with an overall score of 80.5%. This is the combined results of my module tutorial test score of 87.9% (distinction boundary of 89.7%), and my exam score of 79.7% (distinction boundary of 81.1%).

Thanks for reading,
Katherine x

The BMAT Exam

Here's the honest truth about why I sat the BMAT exam... I forgot to apply for the UKCAT exam in time to sit it. I looked to apply on the day the deadline had passed at midday. It was a pretty stressful moment in my application process. Fortunately I had not yet chosen my universities on UCAS. Some rapid research uncovered a November sitting of the BMAT exam and half a dozen or so universities who used it as their entrance exam. I chose to apply to Brighton & Sussex Medical School, University of Leeds, Imperial College London, and University Colleges London.

The BMAT website - http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/
The website is packed with useful information about the two sittings of the exam. There is currently one date in September and one date in November. It also has information about how to find your nearest testing centre, and the fees for the exam.

The closest test centre to me was The Norwich School, at the Cathedral in Norwich.
The total fee for the exam, late admission fee, and school admin fee came to a total of £129.00.

The BMAT exam - http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/bmat/preparing-for-bmat/
The exam comprises of three sections. Section one tests your aptitude, lasts sixty minutes and is multiple choice. Section two tests your prior knowledge, lasts thirty minutes and is multiple choice. Section three tests your writing skills, lasts thirty minutes and you will be expected to write a side of A4. You will sit each section consecutively with approximately five minutes between each section. You are not allowed a calculator.

Do not be fooled by most of the exam being multiple choice. Most people sitting the exam will score around half marks, you are not expected to be able to get everything right.  If you head to: http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/bmat/scoring-and-results/ and scroll down to almost the bottom of the page you will find PDF documents entitled "Explanation of results" followed by the year. These PDF documents will show you distribution graphs of the scores achieved by test takers each year. This should make you feel a little more at ease with the test, I know it helped me when I was struggling to achieve much more than half marks in section two on all of my practice papers.

Section one - Aptitude
It's a little difficult to prepare for aptitude questions because they test how you think and it's pretty difficult to learn that or change it. I did one BMAT past paper for section one and as I scored okay I never did any more. But, prior to preparing for my BMAT I had previously been preparing for the UKCAT exam in which the questions are based heavily on aptitude and so I felt like that had helped me to prepare for this section. Even though you can't really change the way you think, this section is still worth practising as you get used to the kind of answers they expect you to pick.

Section two - Prior Knowledge - http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/bmat/preparing-for-bmat/section-2-preparation/
If you're sitting this exam while still at college and studying A-levels in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics this part might well be a breeze. If, like me, you finished your A-levels some time ago you might have forgotten most of the information required. Usefully the website provides a PDF document, which can be found in the section linked above, detailing every topic you need to know for the exam. Honestly, I struggled with this section, I hadn't studied chemistry for over three years, and physics for over five years, and in my mathematics A-level I got a D, so this section was the toughest for me and I had to revise a lot for it. I used the PDF I have just mentioned to guide my revision. I made flashcards. And I sat past papers. Lots and lots of past papers. I made notes on the kind of topics which seemed to appear in every paper e.g. a question on circuits, and a question on angles, etc, and made sure that I covered those topics thoroughly.

Section three - Writing
Section three was the only section I didn't practise before the exam day, and this was simply because I had nobody to mark it for me. It's impossible to mark your own writing piece. What I should have done though is read a few questions so I knew how the question was laid out and how much I would be expected to write.

Past Papers - http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/bmat/preparing-for-bmat/practice-papers/
There's a wealth of past papers available on the website, found at the link above, along with the mark schemes so there's no excuse not to practise. The only problem is that only the most recent papers have an explanation of the answers, rather than just which option was the correct answer, meaning that if you get a question wrong you may not be able to figure out why, which can be very frustrating.

On the day
Standard exam advice applies. Eat a good breakfast, arrive early, remember to take an unlabelled bottle of water, and a clear pencil case with your pens/pencils etc in. Stay calm, work quickly, don't spend too long on any one questions because you will be losing time to answer others which you might know the answers to.

Good Luck!
Thanks for reading.
Katherine