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

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

1 week to go!

It's the final week before I move to university. The packing is done, all the online bits are done, and all the paperwork is done. All that's left to do is get through this week, load the car and move.

Strangely, the closer it gets, and the more ready I am, the less ready I actually feel. Last night I started to feel a little wobbly about it all. I guess because I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing. I just feel a little too old, like maybe I'm crazy to take it on now. Five years is a long time and, let's be honest, university is just the beginning of a medical career. I'm going to be a little way from home, from my family, my Dad, and my friends, and it's all just going to be strange and new.

I am looking forward to getting there though, and getting unpacked, and trying to make it feel homely. I just hope I can fit everything in the car, along with myself, my uncle and my Mum!! It's going to be a squeeze, that's for sure! And this is after I've condensed down my packing at least twice. I just own too much stuff!

This week I'm working two long days and three half days, and on Thursday afternoon I'm going to hang out with one of my friends for a movie and pizza night, which will be nice before I move. I'm hoping some of my friends might even bother to come and visit, but I won't be holding my breath! One of my sisters will probably visit at some point, which will be nice. And I'll be making regular trips home.

Freshers events are being advertised like crazy, and honestly I can't even be bothered to think about going out clubbing, but I may go to the occasional thing. There's a pretty good looking Halloween party that I like the idea of as I love Halloween! It's actually on Brighton Palace Pier which has a sort of theme park on it, with fairground stalls and scare actors. There's afterparties too but it's a weeknight so I doubt I'll be partying! There's a paint party and a UV party too which look pretty cool, but again they're on weeknights so it's unlikely I'll go, especially as all of the Brighton freshers events start after BSMS students have already finished our freshers and started class.

BSMS has their own freshers events but we don't know much about them yet. All we've heard is some suggestions for fancy dress we need to pack for certain themed parties... I haven't packed any fancy dress because I'm a bore... haha! I'm sure I'll have something in my suitcase that I can make work if I decide to go out.

We've also had a leaflet about a bunch of Students' Union Events which has some good looking things such as:
Rock and Roll Bingo
Powder Paint Party
Murder Mystery Evening
Quizzard: Harry Potter Quiz
Casino Night
And even a board games cafe and a mature students community cafe.
I think I'm more interested in these events than the clubbing!

My first weekend at university I'll be heading to London anyway to spend the weekend with my Dad and some other family and friends, and we're going to Warner Brothers Studio Tour, so that'll be fun! And the second weekend I'll be coming home to visit family and celebrate my Grandad's birthday, and work a shift on time and a half.

I've got a few other bits planned throughout first term. A few weekends home. Bonfire Night at Lewes. And possibly the Battle of Hastings reenactment.

I'll be home for Christmas before I know it!

Thanks for reading,
Katherine x

2 weeks to go!

Reading Festival - There was no update last Monday due to a trip to Reading Festival with Dad and one of my sisters. We travelled on the Wednesday as my sister was working and had to be there by Wednesday evening. Dad and I spent a night in a travelodge to make the most of an extra night of comfort and a decent shower! We did an Aldi shop when we arrived to stock up for the weekend. Wednesday evening we ate at Benny's Diner, which was great. Thursday lunchtime we took at taxi to the festival and pitched our tent. Then walked to the on site supermarket to grab bottles of water and a few other supplies. Thursday evening we just chilled out. On Friday the music started. Favourites from the weekend were Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, Mike Shinoda, Skindred, Sum 41, Waterparks, Creeper, Pendulum, The Regrettes, and David Morgan. We also went to the signings for Waterparks and Sum 41 which were great, and Dad really enjoyed them! On Monday we were packed up by around 10am and had to queue for a shuttle bus back to the train station, but we were there before 12. The earliest I've ever managed to arrive at the train station in 6 years at Reading Festival!! 

Dad Update - At Dad's oncology appointment last week we were told that his new CT scan shows that all of his tumours are shrinking with the chemotherapy, apart from one which is slightly more prominent, but could be down to a recent infection. This doesn't mean he will get better, but it is the best news we could hope for at this stage. He continued his chemotherapy, starting cycle 9, on Thursday.

Work - I've been working late into the evenings at the end of this week, which meant I felt like I barely had time to do anything other than work and sleep! 

Bank - I had two appointments with the bank this week to try and open my student account, but the first time my driving license had the wrong address on, and when the new one arrived, it wouldn't let us open it because it hadn't been 30 days, so I'll have to come back to that one next month.

DBS - Once my address was updated on my driving license I could finally get my DBS sorted, so I got up early on Saturday to get the bus into the city and do that.

New uni outfit - While we were in the city my sister treated me to a new outfit for uni, which I absolutely love!!

Farmer's Jam - This weekend I've spent most of my time at the local dry slope as they had a competition/little festival going on, and one of my friends was competing, so that was nice. Both of my sisters came with me on Saturday and Sunday, and I was pleased to see the little one developing a similar interest in sports. The sun shined all weekend, perhaps slightly too much, the competition was great, and my friend won a new pair of skis, so an all round good weekend.

Packing - After I got home from the slope on Sunday I sorted through a couple more boxes and, I don't want to jinx it but, I think I'm practically ready to move, which is good because the 16th is fast approaching and I have to work every weekday! 

Thanks for reading,

Katherine x

Dad's Secret Holiday!

14th January -
11 days post discharge

Dad's secret holiday was a holiday my family and I planned for us to go on with my Dad. The location was planned around a specific activity we wanted him to do. After he was discharged from hospital at the beginning of the year after his cancer diagnosis and major surgery he bought himself a sloth cuddly toy. He later informed me that sloths are his favourite animal, something I didn't know. He's gradually been accumulating a collection of sloth toys and pillows, and now t-shirts too! 

Sloths are pretty laid back animals and so I thought I would have a look online and see if there were any zoos in the UK that offered sloth holding or feeding experiences. I found one called Drusillas Park, which is sort of near Hastings in the South of England. And so Hastings became the holiday destination. 

I contacted the park about adopting a sloth for Dad and getting a plaque put up with his name on before we arrived, which was something they offered on their website. There are three sloths at Drusillas Park, Sophocles, Flash, and Gordon. We chose Flash for Dad to adopt as we thought he would find it funny that Flash is fast and sloths are so slow. 

Here's the adoption certificate and photo of Flash:

We started the adoption certificate from Father's Day, 17th June, but he wouldn't find that out until we arrived at the zoo.

The park also offered the sloth encounter experience we were looking for and as soon as the holiday dates were finalised we booked this too. 

For the holiday we chose to stay at a Haven Holiday Park simply because of the convenience of having things to do at the park so we didn't have to go out every day if Dad wasn't feeling up to it. 

We hadn't told Dad any of this, the only thing he knew was the dates. He told us later he thought we were going to Wales! 

Without further ado, here's the photos! The sloth experience was Tuesday if you just wanted to see that.

Saturday 21st July

Arriving in Hastings

On the train

Giant deck chair

Dad having his first alcoholic drink
since the surgery

The oncologist told him he couldn't ride a real motorbike
anymore... he was straight on this as soon as he saw it!

Sunday 22nd July 

Okay, so I had to borrow a photo from the Haven website to show you the waterslide they have at this park. Dad went down this slide, in swimshorts and a rash vest, and whizzed round the bowl three times! It was a pretty fast slide, I've been on one at another Haven site but this one was rougher and faster.

Image from Combe Haven

Dad at Party In The Dark

Mum and me at Party In The Dark

My sisters at Party In The Dark

Monday 23rd July

View from West Hill, Hastings

Hastings Castle

This stone was swapped from
a castle in Normandy, France

Smugglers Adventure, in the caves

Tuesday 24th July - The secret Sloth experience day!

Oddly enough, Dad had picked up a leaflet for Drusillas Park in the Haven reception and said he'd like to go, he likes zoos. We brushed it off and said if we have time we can go later in the week. So, when we rocked up at Drusillas on Tuesday morning he was already pleased. I spoke to the reception while he was in the loo so he couldn't overhear anything. 

The sloths aren't far into the zoo, still inside the building which houses the main entrance, but typical Dad walked right past them! We called him back and said did you see the sloths? So then he came over and we showed him the plaque with his name on and we pulled the adoption pack out of my brothers backpack and gave him the certificate and photo. 

The enclosure information

The adoption plaque

After a while of looking at the sloths we carried on around the zoo. His encounter wasn't until 3pm so we had to keep him busy until then (he still knows nothing about it). Later on in the zoo there's a walkthrough area (where the animal encounters take place) and one of the sloths is there. Dad spent ages looking at him and taking photos, while the rest of us were grinning at each other because we just know he's going to love his feeding experience. We finished looking at the animals and had some lunch, and around 2.30pm we started heading back towards the entrance/exit, to the visitor centre. The park has some other things to do as well as the zoo and Dad was trying to look and getting stroppy because he didn't know why we were rushing him! We managed to get him to the visitor centre just in time and then we handed him his sloth experience pack and when he realised what he's doing he got really excited. First the keeper took Dad and me to the kitchens where he showed us all the food stores, explained the animals diets, and picked up the food for the encounter. He asked us if it's a birthday surprise, and Dad openly told him he's very poorly, I gently explained it's a bucket list surprise, and we kept chatting so it didn't get depressing. Dad was very interested in the foods, and asked lots of questions! We even went inside the walk in freezer! It was lovely on such a hot day! Then we headed out to the encounter walkthrough.

Dad with the food

Dad feeding Sophocles

Dad feeding Sophocles

The keeper called Sophocles down from his box, it took a while but eventually he came down for some food. Dad could put the food in his mouth, or in his "hand", and he did both. Some vegetables Sophocles didn't like and he would drop them on the floor. Dad was chatting away to him and really enjoying himself. One of my sisters was also in there taking photos. My brother went in too but I don't have a photo of that. Dad also got to touch Sophocles' head and he fed a fruit bat as they were also in the enclosure. One of the fruit bats even climbed over Sophocles and stole a piece of food right out of his mouth! We learned the Sophocles is the Dad of Flash and Gordon, and that Flash had to be hand reared because her Mum died after birth. The zoo are hoping to find a new partner for Sophocles. The keeper let Dad have over his 30 minutes that the encounters usually last, and then he offered to let Dad go inside the sloth tank and feed Flash as she's the one he adopted. So we went back to the main sloth tank near the entrance and collected the bucket of food for Flash and Gordon, and Dad and one of my sisters climbed inside the tank. It was very hot inside, but Dad got to feed them both and Flash even came out of her box to get more food from Dad after Gordon dropped his own piece and stole Flash's piece out of her hand! Dad touched Flash on the head once but had to be careful because she's got quite a feisty personality. By the time Dad had fed these sloths too his encounter had been over an hour long, and the keeper was perfectly happy for him to take as long as he wanted, but he needed the loo! I couldn't thank the keeper enough for the experience he gave Dad, he went above and beyond for him and it really meant a lot to us. Here's a link to Drusillas Park if you're interested in going or seeing what other animal experiences they have. One of the keepers told us that the Beaver Experience isn't very popular, and I felt sad for the beavers, so if you love Beavers go give it a look!

Dad inside the tank

Flash sitting in a basket

Dad feeding Flash

Wednesday 25th July

The view from East Hill

East Hill has the steepest Funicular Railway in the UK and I can safely say it felt pretty hairy going up there. Thankfully the way down wasn't so bad! We also went to Blue Reef Aquarium and the Fishermen's Museum before heading back towards the park on a miniature railway. 

My brother and sister racked up
16,000 tickets in the arcade by
Thursday to buy this drone!
Safe to say they're all over the
Space Invaders leaderboard

Thursday 26th July

I didn't leave the park on Thursday. In the morning we did a Pirate Treasure Hunt, and then we went swimming. I spent the rest of the day relaxing. Dad and my brother went into Hastings to go antique, and army surplus, shopping. Mum, Glenn and my two sisters went to the beach. 

Mum having a water fight with my littlest sister

Friday 27th July

Battle Abbey - Built on the site of
The Battle of Hastings

Riding into Battle

Thanks for reading!

Katherine