Scott’s Spiel

I had such high expectations of this week on Monday morning. Sadly, it didn’t deliver.

Exam results, being the most important, were either going to be out Today or Monday. Earlier the better, I was hoping to get it over with but sadly we have to wait till Monday. Not even just that, but “before 5pm” on Monday. Great - is that 9:05 or 4:55? I’m working 2:45 - 6, which I have a strong feeling will cause problems. It’s also my brother’s birthday so as soon as I get in I’ll be straight back out for a meal. Hopefully I’ll get enough time to boot up WebSURF, but I don’t know whether I’ll really want to. Not heard anything about the resit either, unless I’ve failed that and my grade hasn’t changed…

SRC IT job has also been left lying. I was expecting a least a bit of info. Perhaps they’ll wait till September to do interviews…I don’t know.

I am, however, going to be doing a Standard First Aid course in August. This may then lead on to me joining St Andrews Ambulance, which would be great pre-hospital experience (emergency med is still a loud voice in my head after year 1). Even if emergency med isn’t for me, there’s nothing like a bit of volunteer work on a CV. The course is 6 hours for 4 Sundays, which is quite a nice way to do it. Unlikely to clash with any possible work that I might happen to have (HA!).

I will (as I keep telling myself) try and fill out another phlebotomy job application this week. It’ll be into July before I hear (if I do this time) and probably into August before they let me loose. I don’t know how this would clash with an IT job, probably need to drop one or the other. At the moment though I have neither so don’t really need to worry about it.

I’ve found a new blog which I like - The Paramedic’s Diary. It’s exactly what the name suggests - a diary of the job of a London paramedic (originally from Paisley) without the constant politcal spiel found in other medical blogs. It’s also updated very frequently, which is more than I can say about my own, though I am trying.

I’m getting slightly bored of Stirling already, which can’t be a good sign. I get the house to myself in just over a week though which might remind me a bit more like being back in Glasgow - parent’s are quite a shock when you’ve been away from them for a while. I’ve also started eating a lot more and a lot of crap, which means all that fat I lost over the last year will end up back where it was. Sigh.

Yesterday was a great day on all counts.

First, the papers were pretty simple and I’ll be major disappointed if I’ve failed, which I don’t think I have. Both papers were a bit unexpected though, hardly any diabetes considering we spent about 5 weeks going over and over it. Either way, it’s done! Thank god.

As soon as I got out the hall after the second paper I went straight to a flat viewing about 5 minutes away. This was a tough one as my other two flatmates were both away places and I had to make the decision to get it or not on my own. I had help from my current flatmate who refuses to live with us next year, much to our disappointment. In the end we went for it, which is quite scary. They could do no more viewings this week so if we didn’t get it we really would have no where. It’s not that bad either, the location is particularly excellent. Has a huge lounge, decent sized bedrooms and a reasonable kitchen. Bathroom is a bit on the smaller side but I’m sure we’ll manage. None of us are particularly fat so it shouldn’t be a problem. Can’t really describe it any better than that, so I’ll wait until I can get in and take some pics. Don’t get it till August 1st so that’ll be a while away.

Also got an email concerning interview for the SRC IT coordinator position I applied for. Couldn’t make the interview (Monday 6pm!) as I’m working in Stirling. Hopefully they’ll be able to find one which suits.

The MILE resit today went as good as I think it can. I’ve ended up with more pages of references than actual report but I guess that’s what they’re after. Noone has failed this resit in 10 years and hopefully I won’t be the first. Need to hand it in tomorrow morning before 9:30, then I’m going swimming cause I haven’t been for ages.

After that I’m going to clear the absolute mess of my room. Then I may just sit in the park and do nothing…excellent!

I’ve finished first year, bring on year 2!

107 minutes!

Oh well, here goes nothing. I really, really need to pass at the very least. Seriously, a D is fine!

Oh dear.

Damn, it’s getting close now. So close, in fact, I’m getting a bit nervous. Even worse, I’m becoming complacent - “Oh that’s not going to come up”, “We don’t need to know that much detail”, etc. I hope I’m right, I so really hope so.

I spend a record 11 hours in the SL (study landscape…it’s not a library!) today. Four of them were spent in a project room answering questions with two other guys. I’m not really sure how well that helps, but I’m sure it does more than me just reading notes repeatedly. Sadly my record will probably be trumped on Monday as I’m planning to be in for 9 and out at 11. Wednesday might be even longer as I really should take my time and pass the resit (if I don’t…all hell breaks loose).

Haven’t told my parents about it, nor many people in fact. My parents won’t understand anything other than the word “fail” so I don’t plan on telling them unless I fail the next one (which would mean I’d need to go to Progress Committee…ARGH!). The problem with not telling everyone comes on Tuesday night when everyone will be not “caring about gluconeogeneis, let’s get smashed” as the posters say. Yeah, I wish. I plan on slipping away surreptitiously at around 11pm without having had too much to drink.

I’ve had some support from a few friends but I can’t see them getting out of their beds to help me make some questions, we’ll see.

Come Thursday morning however, I’m trying to work out how best to celebrate (assuming Tuesday’s papers are decent). Hopefully it’ll be a really nice sunny day and I can sit in the park doing absolutely nothing.

It’s quite scary, that’s 1 year gone. Four more of them and I’ll be done. Very scary.

So we had our 1st year Medic Ball last night. It was in the Crowne Plaza hotel on the Clyde, which was great for me as I didn’t need to worry about taxis. I went all out (quite rightly so) and hired a kilt for the night. This proved a great source of comedy to my non-Scottish friends. Disappointingly, a few of the Scottish ones didn’t opt for the kilt! We got a 3 course meal of melon, chicken and chocolate moose. The latter we were all told to eat hands free (see bottom right) which ended up with a chocolate food fight between the tables. Not sure the hotel staff were too pleased with that.

The meal was followed by a ceilidh on possible the smallest dance floor I’ve ever seen. Not quite sure how we managed to get a Strip the Willow on it but somehow we managed it. After the ceilidh, which didn’t last quite as long as it could’ve, we had a very cheesy disco. Regardless of the cheesyness, everyone seemed to enjoy it and most stayed till the end at 1am. After that, people were divided on what was going on. I was half expecting people to go back to mine but (perhaps luckily) that didn’t happen. I wasn’t up for trailing around in a hire kilt which was likely to be vomited on so headed back.

And now, with 3 weeks to go till the exam I really should get my head down and do some work. The problem is flatmates aren’t quite so bothered, so I think I’ll be spending a little bit more time in the library from now on.

We’ve also got a flat viewing on Wednesday. This one has a lot of hype on it for being an excellent flat and I wouldn’t be surprised if we go for it. Amazing this flat can have a good reputation and we know nothing about it, other flats haven’t had such an advantage.

Well, if I thought last week was busy and annoying and wanted rid of it, I had no clue how much worse this week would compare.

Things started to go downhill on Thursday when, after sitting through 2.5 hours of terrible histology with Mr B I got told someone else I know who was applying for a phlebotomy job got an interview. This told me that it takes around 3-4 weeks to get recognised and that they clearly don’t like me. The poor guy was quite taken aback when I told him I’d heard nothing and his comforting words were polite, but devoid of any hope. That could effectively be warning shot #1.

Warning shot #2 that this wasn’t my week came Friday morning. Having finally got some free time I knew I had to head in and get my kilt for the ball. This first place I knew for kilt hire, having hired from them before, was charging a ridiculous £75. I quickly asked Google to sort it out and happily found another that was £25 cheaper! It gets even better, if you print off the special token you save another 10%. I headed in their direction, only to be told the 12th May wasn’t doable. Bugger!

#3 was the big one - I should have known then to give up and hide for the next while. It came when I turned up for our 1pm lecture (having rushed back from town to make it) at the wrong lecture theatre. Bugger! I tried phoning someone to no avail so, not knowing where the lecture was, I shot home. I immersed myself in the latest episode of Lost to try and rid myself of how stupid I’d been. But boy I wish I’d saved that episode for later.

At about 6:45 I got a text telling my the MILE results were available. Excellent - these were long overdue. However, hidden within the next was another warning short. My friend who I worked with on the MILE had got a D. This was a pass but he’d stayed for a while on that day after I left. I wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been, surprised to find out I had an E. I failed. Shit. Immediate reminder of week 1 flooded into my head “You have to be really, really stupid to fail the MILE” said Ian Brown. Well gee, thanks. Was I though? How could I fail an exam that doesn’t test knowledge? I hadn’t sat around all day looking at Scrubs’ episodes on YouTube (though I know some people did). I didn’t start it at 12am and rushed through to get it done with no sleep. I done, what I thought, was my best. So hell, maybe I am stupid after all. Texts of sympathy came in but none could really help and they email issued shortly after made this worse:

Unfortunately, a few students have failed - if you are one of them Dr Brown
will arrange to meet with you next week.

A few? 3? 3 in 250 people failed - only I could get those odds. As for the meeting, I was expecting that. The only problem is, I don’t know what to say.

Shit!

My first OSCE was today. OSCE (Oh-ski), by the way, is an Objective Structured Clinical Exam which we have to do as part of the year assessment from next year onwards. Today was just a mock to get us used to how they work. It was a long morning, starting at 8:30 with a briefing and finally ending at 1:15 where I managed to get some food. It may have been a mock, but they weren’t trying to make it seem like one - we all had to dress formally as we would for patients and as soon as 8:30 hit the doors into the Seminar Room were locked with only about half the number that should have been in there.

Once we got started though, it was quite good. We were number 1, 2 & 3 and depending on the number we were either an examiner, candidate or the patient. I got the short straw and was the candidate first. As a candidate there were 7 stations - suturing, blood pressure, two actor communication skills, and 3 limb movements. I did OK. Need to remember to wash my hands all the time and confirm patients’ identities. Also need practice on introducing myself to a block of foam (suturing). This was the first year they’ve done this in year 1 and I think they’ll be keeping it here. Despite the mayhem at the start, it was worth the early wake. Plus, I got to run around clinical skills with my stethoscope around my neck! (Yes, I’m sad).

Five weeks to go till exams and revision is going slow. I’m hoping the exam will be lots of anatomy and biochemistry (I like diabetes) with very little waffle (my English teacher would’ve hated it!).

It’s been a very busy a hectic week, one I’ll be glad to see the back of. Thankfully, we’ve had no major backfire from the flat escapade (yet!). A few more 4 beds have popped up, so we’ll go see them at some point. In saying that, a certain someone doesn’t seem keen on visiting others.

Managed to get my third coursework mark back - no idea what happened to it though. Happily, it was a B, which means I’m going back up (BCB). Still have 1 piece outstanding (who knows…A? pfft!) plus the MILE which they aren’t exactly rushing to give us back.

Our original facilitator for this block was back yesterday. It turns out my theory was wrong and she is not a supply. She was a little bit more cheery yesterday but she wasn’t exactly pushing it. We have her marked as a possible biochemist…just need to find out her name.

Interviewing the actor on Tuesday wasn’t half as easy as I was expecting. I had the angry mother who was furious at discovering her 15 yr old daughter had been prescribed the pill. I was meant to explain to her all about competence, Gillick & Fraser Guidelines. However, in previous actor interviews all I had needed to do was extract information from the pseudo-patient, not give it. Angry mum wasn’t too pleased and demanded to see the doc which cut the interview short. In retrospect, yes, I could’ve given a little bit of info but wasn’t expecting to need to do so. I also hadn’t heard of Fraser Guidelines before then (but could’ve talked about Gillick I guess). Got the interview recorded, which I’m dreading to play back. Hopefully my next angry mother will get a better deal.

We’ve been back in the dissecting room this week, which is where I’m about to head off to. Better go try and find food first or else I’ll be starving after. (I should point out, the chemicals make you hungry…not the actual dissecting).

It’s been an interesting week. Tuesday I spent a few hours in Accident & Emergency which I really enjoyed. Was expecting it to be quite unorganised but instead it was probably the most organised visit so far. Unfortunately, accidents and emergencies don’t often fit the schedules of visiting medical students so we didn’t see anything terribly interesting. I’m happy though that the visit didn’t manage to stroke it off my list of possible specialities.

Wednesday was back to proper work. We had a histoloy lab in the morning which, although informative, was dreadfully boring. This was followed a few hours later by a computer exercise about membrane signals. Again it was good information and since I was learning it myself it was a little bit less mundane. We took a large trip (spent 2 hours!) to ASDA in Govan. Whilst on the way, we managed to get a shout out on Sunny Govan Radio. Well worth listening to if you’re feeling bored! My flatmate managed to fit into a 11yr olds top which was a bargin at £2.25. Slightly worrying though that it doesn’t look too bad.

Thursday we met our new PBL group which turned out to be a really good group. Our facilitator however appeared quite (well…very) rude and didn’t even tell us her name (so no need for confidentiality!). Apart from that, I was very impressed (and a little worried) with the volume of knowledge everyone had - clearly I’ve got some reading to do. Managed to phone the other name I had for phlebotomy but unfortunately didn’t get anything new so I’m still playing the waiting game. In the evening we had a 21st birthday to celebrate which we spent at the Hive. It was better than I expected and stayed a bit later (and drunk a bit more) than I should have for my 9am lab on Friday. When I eventually did go home I spent another 30min talking to my flatmate about next year…which we still haven’t organised (sigh!).

So I had to wake up after a few hours and face the 3hr lab on Friday morning. It could’ve been worse, but it also could’ve been a whole lot better. At least the staff in these labs are friendly in comparison to Tuesday. The lab consisted mainly of testing different carbohydrates with Benedict’s and checking which were digested. Not exactly something we hadn’t done before many, many times.

Now I’m looking at the good weather and get to look forward to revision in the sun…

Finally got our timetable and PBL groups for the next 10 weeks this week. Timetable isn’t too bad, only 1 fully free day (how will I survive!?) but I’ve got a lot more free mornings than before - probably end up using them to sleep in. There is a lot of biochem in the next block, which I’m looking forward to. Let’s see if I say the same thing 2 weeks from now…

Know a few people in my new group but most of them will be new which I guess is the idea. I’m hoping they’ll push me this block otherwise I ain’t gonna know it for the exam. Doesn’t help that we get absolutely no revision time (last feedback is Monday 4th June 4pm and exam Paper 1 is Tuesday 5th June 9am!). Probably should have spent a little bit more time revising this Easter but the weather has been far too good to sit in and learn about respiration. Guess I’m going to have to learn at some point how to revise properly, hopefully before the 2nd year exam which is apparently horrid.

I’m trying to work out where my 3 weeks went, cause it sure doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. Least I won’t be complaining about being bored any more and might update this more often. We need to sort out next years flat when we get back and the sooner the better. There are a few OK flats available at the moment, but the problem is everyone wants us to move in straight away. No big deal if I could actually afford it but those extra months would be annoying if I wasn’t living there. Would settle for getting it from July (and I’m not sure I’ll have much choice) cause then I could go back through for my birthday and have somewhere to live. So much better than the current mattress on the floor I have back here.

My other aim when I go back is to cook for 1 week with no ready meals. It’s going to be a challenge but I should manage it. Watching the F word has inspired me to do a bit of proper cooking. I’m tempted to get the Wagamama’s cookbook because I know I’d happily put the effort into cooking if it tasted like that all the time. Thank God I get my student loan through on Tuesday! I’ve decided (with a lot of pain) that I’m only allowed to buy a laptop if I work for a bit during the summer. Roll on phlebotomy!