Countdown to the End of Term!

One Exam done. 2 more to go.

The OSCE for my last unit of study went actually okay. I now have one more OSCE to get through and the written exam and possibly one resit of an Analytical Review of a Research paper but who knows?! Time to get my arse in gear and do some revsion!!

STRESS!!!!!

Argh - too much work to do, not enough time!! Damn my procrastination skills!!!!!

Nothing to Lose

To further my knowledge, and just because I find the topics interesting, I'm planning on entering two essay competitions for medical students. I've chosen competitions with topics I have a particular reason to like and find appealing to both read and write about, and because I have nothing to lose by entering. I get to write essays which are good revision. I'll improve my essay writing technique, hopefully, and I'll do some more background reading relevant to my studies. It's highly unlikely I'll win a prize but there's no harm in trying!!!

It'll mean lots more time in the library, but with 2 OSCEs, 1 oral presentation, 2 written assignments and 2 written exams coming up, that's where I need to be!!

I also want to run some more guest blog posts. I found them really interesting the last time I asked. This time, however, I'm going to pick a theme - "Caring or curing?". It' can be a controversial topic amongst medical professionals. I'd like to know your opinions, and where and how you think medicine, pre-hospital medicine, nursing, etc fits in. Approach it from any angle you like though! I'd also like opinions from people who aren't related to medicine at all. Nobody is excluded! 


Submissions by Midnight on Monday please - although if you really want to submit one but can't make that deadline just let me know by Sunday (email or twitter), otherwise it may have to wait for another day.

Disappearing Act

Apologies for disappearances of posts and of myself from the blogosphere for the last two weeks. I've had a few problems with a few things. Mostly it's been friends, ex-friends, moving house, sick housemates, sick pussacat, placement and my own ill health causing problems. Just about everything really.


In the mean time, I've been sleeping, hunting for houses/flats for next year, in and out of A&E, Doctors surgeries and hospitals (Probable kidney stones. Joy.). I've been working stupidly hard on my project on cardiac physiology. I'm writing a report, and planning and creating a presentation (for the record, I really really really hate MS PowerPoint. I hate looking at them, I hate making them, I hate them full stop.) and it's taking up a lot of my time right now.


On top of all that I've been coping with horrible renal colic, resulting in me being given lots of painkillers and a referral to the urology clinic. I've also been dealing with my mental health. I have an appointment for CBT booked, I've had my antidepressant dose upped and some of my regular medications changed. Just now it seems my brain runs at 100 miles an hour and my body can't cope. I am hyper for a couple of days and then I crash out and get more depressed and sleep loads and cry and have a bit of a crisis over whether I want to be at Medical School still or not. Quite frankly, right now, I don't know what I want.


I'm really struggling academically this term and I don't know why. I absolutely love cardiology, and I find it fascinating and highly interesting but I'm finding it really hard to get my head around the science. I guess I'm just not up to this right now with everything that I've got going on. I need to know how best to make me learn this and I can't work out how. 


And to top it all off, on top of me feeling stupidly thick all the time at medical school, my housemate has just come in and made me feel about a centimetre tall. I want to help, really I do but I can't do anything. Right now, I feel completely useless no matter where I am or who I'm with.

Why Emergency Medicine?

Emergency medicine is really popular as a career choice. Mostly because a lot of medical students appear to have the misguided idea that A&E is all trauma and cardiac arrests and life saving.A proper adrenaline fuelled career. It might surprise you to know that medicine wasn't actually my first choice of career. I wanted to be a paramedic. I hate being in one place, I like the challenge of not knowing what I'm going to see next, and I've dealt with my fair share of drunk people whilst first aiding at concerts. That seemed my ideal career, however, I was encouraged to aim higher academically so I applied for medicine. By some miracle, I got two offers and accepted my place at UEA. By some other miracle, I then got the grades to actually start studying medicine.

So far we've studied rheumatology and orthopaedics, and haematology and dermatology. I loved orthopaedics but it involved far too much time in theatres for my liking. I found rheumatology and haematology very interesting but not practical enough. As for dermatology, I will say no more than Yuk. At the moment I'm about to start a cardiology placement, including vascular surgery and stroke medicine. I find cardiology highly interesting, but the long term management and surgery doesn't interest me as much as the immediate issues cardiac conditions can present. I like to live in the here and now and think on my feet.

So, in answer to the question, Why Emergency Medicine? Because I honestly can't see myself doing anything else. I love the thrill of not knowing what's coming next. I like management of simple conditions as well as complex cases. I like the here and now and  I like to see what I do making a visible difference to the patient if it's possible. I work well in a team, I'll happily pitch in with the mess and vomit and lifting and carrying, and I make a good round of cups of tea at the end of a busy shift. I guess I just can't see myself doing anything else and I really don't see that changing. I'm determined to get to where I want and to be good at it. 

Even if that means living in the library and having no social life for the next three and half years...