So basically I wanted to say something like

This function returns a properly formatted <pre>…</pre> block

However I found that doing that caused the <pre> tag to be used as part of the page when the docs were transferred to the HTML format.

The solution I discovered was to reference the tags as <<pre>> or <<br />>. This seems to preserve the tag in the finished documentation as a comment and not part of the page.

I struggled to find this in google, so though a little blog post might just help someone.

In the big picture, I’m now in 3rd year :D! While this is kind of all that really matters at the end of the day, I was a little bit disappointed with the results. I felt it had went better than it obviously did, which I don’t like. That said, a number of people have failed that I really would’ve expected so in a way I’m being a bit unfair moaning at my pass.

Either way, it’s now ever and I can plan things like electives. Oh, and I can work non-stop apparently. Rejoice.

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Indeed it did. The plugins that finally got my setup here are Twitter Updater and Twitter Widget Pro. Took a while to find plugins that were 2.5.1 compatible but these do the trick.

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Also, I’d highly recommend Fluency Admin which makes the wordpress admin screen a whole lot neater.

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This also means the next post wasn’t result related. Oh well.

The results are due out on Monday so I should probably be preparing either a pass or fail post. Based on how I felt they went I’d say it should be a pass - without being too confident - but I may just be a bit too hopeful. We were told quite firmly that nothing specific from 1st year that we hadn’t covered again this year would come up in the papers.

Oh how they lied!

There was a good many marks that came from purely 1st year material. Thankfully only 1 question really stumped me and I still managed to put something down for it.

The OSCEs were pretty good, hopefully haven’t failed them. I did have to do an exam on my girlfriend which was possibly the most nervous station out of them all. She says I passed though, guess that could just be to comfort me (although I doubt it!). The introductions of the spot stations was a bugger, two came from one cell biology lab right at the start of the year and pretty much everyone was pissed off by them. According to the guy who’s marking them however they haven’t changed results too much. I hope that means 250 passes.

Following the end of exams on the Friday (and an interesting weekend) I started work on the Monday morning. By noon on the Monday I had taken blood for the first time. It was quite a nervous attempt - on our trainer no less - but I got there in the end. The mornings for the rest of the week involved us taking it from patients for real on the wards. I struggled in a number of cases but on the whole I don’t feel I did to badly. I even had the delightful pleasure of taking blood from someone’s foot!

The last day of the week involved working in a clinic. My second patient to bleed was particularly interesting. Not only could I not manage it, neither could my trainer and indeed the consultant was struggling. He finally managed though and gave us a nice chat about it and his book (Medical Biochemistry, for those interested) afterwards.

I’ve also found out that this 2 week training is followed by 4 weeks of mentoring on-site. Considering I’m contracted to do 8 hour weekends this is a bit of a bugger for me. I can’t work a full day since the service only works in the morning. I can’t go home and work because I need to be there for a month. That said, I don’t want to be working for a couple of weekends following training anyway - T in the Park!. I’m not sure what the outcome of this will be. My mum’s amazed that anyone can make you work weekdays for 6 weeks so you can eventually do the weekends, which is what the contract is for. To be honest, I see her point. Although I have no actual contact…yet.

On the off-chance anyone reading this has any use for a PHP dev/tech support/general layabout in the UK, feel free to get in touch. I’d prefer to be paid but if you’ve got something remotely interesting then I might be tempted to get involved regardless.

Next post will like to be result related. Eek!

I’ve planned to head to the swimming pool (or certainly the sauna) straight after before heading into the SL to revise for the one on Tuesday. This will hopefully calm me down from what I expect won’t be my most enjoyable 2.5hrs.

Whilst I’m trying to work out what is coming up in my exam, the rest of the world’s geek community seems to be trying to work out what’s coming up in the new iPhone, suggested to be revealed in Steve Jobs’ keynote at the Moscone Center tomorrow. So far I’ve heard rumours that it’ll be faster (3G, almost certainly), thinner, cheaper (interesting one for me!) and colourful. I may end up buying a iPod Touch over the summer but if any and ideally all these rumours are true I may just head for the iPhone. The fact my current phone is less than a year old makes me realise just how much of a geek I really would be.

Still though….the iPhone….

Whilst finishing the questions I came across a sentence about liver function tests that I felt just had to be explained like so:

if ($g_gt > G_GT_NORM) AND ($alk_phos == ALK_P_NORM)
{
$patient = “boozer”;
}
else
{
$patient = “complicated”;
}
die($patient);

I felt like I needed to come on here and reflect upon the sadness (and difficulties, I made many mistakes!) of writing code in my notes. In conclusion I’ve decided the stress has finally got to me.

At the moment I’ve been spending far too long looking at electives for the coming years - this assuming I will pass. Ideally, I’d love to spend my third year (junior) elective with the HEMS team in London and my senior one somewhere abroad. Unfortunately the competitiveness might be too much for me and I’m not generally too lucky. Still, it’s worth an email, I just want to wait till my exam results are in. I can’t really work out plans for my senior one until I know whether I will be intercalating or not. This is a big decision, probably bigger than it should be, and I’m still on the fence. I don’t even know whether I’d be allowed or not.

Three weeks today an I will have finished my first training session as a phlebotomist. Yes, I finally got some news. Apparently there was much of a mess up with recruitment and a few people have been having problems. The date is provisional, which is a bit of a problem come trying to work out a start date for the Safari Park. Hopefully the two should help avoid a financial hell-hole next year, combined with a much reduced rent.

We’re largely expecting the exam this year to be a lot easier (or at least fairer) than the one last year. This is a bit of a kick for those resitting and I feel sorry for them. I’m also expecting this exam to be one of the easiest that will be coming up in the next few years, or maybe that’s just me hoping.

In comparison the OSCE is beginning to scare me. Clinical exams are fair enough, I can practice them to hell before the days of the exam. However they’ve promised us 5 “spot” checks which will be unstaffed stations with some sort of item to identify. The item, we gather, could be some sort of x-ray (fair enough, make it simple please), barium swallow (we’ve seen a few of them, not in the mood for interpreting one though), ECG? I hope not, and then the threat of some histology slides - bugger!

Throw in the communication skills stations, one of which will be an ethical case, and then I really start feeling nervous. Worse, they’re spreading the torture over 2 days, the first in a peripheral hospital and the second in the med school. I’m not really expecting many people to fail it so that offers a bit of reassurance. Thankfully we also get the results relatively soon after (especially compared to school exams!).

In true avoiding revision style I’m spending this afternoon doing a moving and handling (part 2) course. Sounds like fun…ish. In fact, I might be giving up the next 2 Saturdays to go to the cup final and part 3. Perfect timing!

Still haven’t heard anything from either job. Apparently the safari park aren’t the best with online applications so I’ve got a form back home to fill out. Seriously need a job….

This likely comes from a recent diary post of his and I felt compelled to write just a bit about it.

Firstly, I’m commenting on this as it would be under usual circumstances - in the event of a major incident (London bombings, etc) then things are obviously different. I’m also basing this mainly on experience in St Andrew’s. I’ll be the first to admit St John’s are quite different on a number of aspects although I’ve tried to come at it from a combined VAS point of view.

The problem with this is how the definition of “support” is taken. If it means relying on a VAS crew attending any type of 999 call then I’d have to say no. Whilst training for some of the St John’s advanced courses (say Emergency Transport Attendant) is undoubtedly tough it is still nowhere near the level required for technicians and paramedics. A VAS crew turning up at a large RTC would, I feel, be quite overwhelmed and wouldn’t have the experience to help them.

Taking another situation, lets say a complication in late pregnancy, would possibly be worse still. Not only is there the medical condition to deal with but there is also a highly emotional situation that a number of professionals would probably not like to be in.

Further, what if there were complications in relation to the actions of the VAS crew? Insurance exists, yes, but to what level? What about regulation? A registered paramedic could face being struck off in a serious situation, but what would happen to a voluntary member? Would communication be effective enough to impose levels of discipline?

These may seem a bit far-fetched, but are foreseeable problems.

On the other hand if we take the situation where a patient is assessed by a technician/paramedic and that professional requests and is confident allowing the care to pass to the voluntary crew then that really is a different matter. Transporting a stable patient doesn’t carry quite the same risk as attending an unknown.

But in the event of a cardiac arrest when even basic lifesaving skills can help, this doesn’t really apply. I might even go as far to pick a VAS crew over a number of GPs I’ve met, basic lifesaving having long since left them.

I guess my point then is that VAS crews might have a use, particularly in busy or definite emergencies. The problems will start when they become preferential to qualified professions which, in today’s cost-effective health service, seems all too likely.

I often comment on St Andrew’s rather slow expansion capacity but if we ever get to the point of covering 999 calls I’d want to be damn sure we covered all the bases.

I’d be interested to hear other views on this and I’ll happily admit I’m not totally knowledgeable about the current policies.

The competition which I was trying to submit to has been sent away but I’ve yet to hear a result or even an acknowledgement. I emailed the contact I had before sending it and got no reply and she didn’t pick up her phone either. I don’t really know whether the time I spent on it was worth it or not which is really annoying. I’m hopeful I’ll still hear something back although I’m not convinced. Also hope that I’ll get my SSM result back sometime in the near future but I know that version of the essay was much weaker than the greatly extended one.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty to do in the mean time. With only about 6 weeks to go till the exam the stress is really starting to hit. In fact I really shouldn’t be on here typing this but I need an excuse to stop revising now and again. I’m not quite as worried as some of my colleagues yet but I’m sure it’ll get that way soon. The breadth of topics we’ve covered this year is actually quite impressive, although I really feel I’ve forgot a lot of it. Trying to work out the best way to revise is also taking time. I’ve concluded that reading through my notes PBL by PBL just doesn’t work and becomes ridiculously boring. Mind-maps, questions and peer groups seem to do the trick a lot more.

The problem though is trying to fit it all in around the 5 or so weeks of teaching we have to go. How I envy those with study leave!

We’re also getting another final piece of coursework in the next week or so, just in case we didn’t have enough to be getting on with. My aim is to finish that hopefully the same day, although I anticipate yet more “original hand drawings” - grr!

Away from Uni I’ve been doing the odd first aid duty now and again. Went to my first old firm match last week which certainly opened by eyes a bit. Ended up meeting someone from my VS group as well which, in a crowd of about 60000, was pretty impressive. Managed to take a few phone quality pics of the night, the best of which being these 2:

I’ve still not heard anything about my phlebotomy job. My Disclosure is back and I’m expecting to need an appointment with occupational health. Hopefully I’ll hear something soon as I could do with some money….badly!